Filtering by Category: Science

Phenomenon-Based Learning: Making Models for Understanding

August 05, 2023 / Oskar Cymerman

In the realm of modern education, the shift towards student-centered, inquiry-based approaches has taken center stage.

Phenomenon-Based Learning (PnenBL) is one such transformative method that encourages students to explore real-world phenomena and solve authentic problems. At the heart of this approach lies the strategic use of models - powerful tools that enable learners to understand, analyze, and explain complex concepts.

Phenomenon-Based Learning: A Quick Recap

Phenomenon-Based Learning shifts the focus from learning individual subjects separately to an interdisciplinary exploration of real-life problems though the use of real-world phenomena. Instead of studying isolated topics, PhenBL requires students connect knowledge from multiple disciplines. This develops critical thinking, collaboration, communication, and problem-solving skills.

The Power of Models in Phenomenon-Based Learning

Models are simplified (but not always simple) representations of complex phenomena that help students conceptualize and make sense of abstract ideas. Integrating models into PhenBL provides various benefits that enrich the learning experience.

Better Understanding through visuals and manipulatives
Models offer a visual representation of phenomena, making abstract concepts more accessible to students. Whether it's a physical model, a diagram, or a digital simulation, these visual aids enhance comprehension and retention.
Connecting Theory to Reality
Models bridge the gap between theoretical knowledge and real-world applications. They allow students to observe how abstract concepts manifest in practical situations, reinforcing the relevance of their learning.
Promoting Inquiry and Exploration
Models encourage students to investigate and ask questions about the phenomenon being studied. They serve as a starting point for inquiry, sparking curiosity and driving learners to explore further.
Encouraging Active Learning
When students engage with models actively - manipulating variables and observing outcomes - they take ownership of their learning. This hands-on approach cultivates a deeper understanding of the phenomenon.
Fostering Collaboration
Models provide a common reference point for students to collaborate and discuss their findings. Sharing their interpretations and observations around a model encourages peer learning and collaboration.
Facilitating Communication
Models create a shared language for students to use to communicate complex ideas. They can present their insights more effectively, strengthening their ability to express scientific concepts clearly.
Developing Scientific Reasoning and Logic
Analyzing and interpreting models help students develop essential scientific reasoning skills. They learn to identify patterns, draw conclusions, and make predictions based on evidence. This teaches them logical thinking they can apply when they encounter new information in school, work, and personal life.

Strategies for Integrating Models in Phenomenon-Based Learning

Scaffold and Guide Student Investigation
Provide initial guidance on the types of models, how to make them, and how to use them. Then, gradually shift toward student-driven investigations and model-making. Allow them to make and manipulate models in their groups to help lead students to their own discoveries and conclusions. Check out (and use as you like) this lesson on models I created.
Make Models
Give students repeated opportunities to create their own models as they work on solving phenomena throughout the school year. Drawing, building prototypes, or designing digital simulations are hands-on experiences that aid learning and develop creativity.
Incorporate Multiple Perspectives
Encourage students to explore different models that might represent the same phenomenon before settling on one. Better yet, challenge them to analyze and combine various models. Such comparisons help develop a deeper understanding of concepts.
Reflect and Refine
Allow students to interact with other students’ models. This allows giving and receiving feedback and facilitates reflective discussions. Encourage students to share insights, challenge assumptions, and refine their models and understanding of ideas based on evidence they collected and observations they received from others.

Models Build Skills and Awareness

Integrating models in Phenomenon-Based Learning leads to more dynamic and engaging educational experiences. As students explore real-world phenomena and make and use models, they develop a deeper appreciation for the interconnectedness of knowledge and the wonders of the world. By fostering curiosity, critical thinking, collaboration, and problem-solving, models become powerful tools that empower students to embrace the complexities of the universe and become lifelong learners.

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Unlocking the Unexplored: Creating a Common Learning Experience for Understanding Difficult Concepts

August 02, 2023 / Oskar Cymerman

By using a real-world phenomenon at the beginning of a lesson, or a unit, or a series of lessons, teachers push students to undertake a journey of discovery - a journey that leads to students discovering on their own why and how this phenomenon happens. To this end, they are encouraged to collaborate as they seek and find answers to the questions they themselves generate when observing and analyzing the phenomenon.

But what should we do if the phenomenon itself is too hard for students to connect to or is too complex for students to break down?

When we encounter complex topics that may leave students overwhelmed and disengaged we can employ the power of exploration to spark curiosity, understanding, and confidence that they can indeed tackle the hardest of topics. A common learning experience can be such a tool to help your students unlock the secrets of challenging concepts.

Creating a Common Learning Experience for a Phenomenon

Identify the Conceptual Roadblocks
Before diving into a phenomenon that represents a difficult concept, it's crucial to understand the specific challenges your students may be facing with the concept. Identify the misconceptions or gaps in their understanding, and use this insight to tailor your common learning experience accordingly.
Craft a Compelling Context
Set the stage for the common learning experience by grounding the difficult concept in a real-life context that resonates with your students' interests and experiences. Whether it's a practical application, a thought-provoking problem, or a fascinating scenario, a relatable context fuels curiosity and motivation to dive deeper. At the end, students will be able to relate to the phenomenon you present to them.
Introduce the Wonder of Exploration
Share stories of famous scientists, inventors, or explorers who faced challenges and persevered through exploration. Check out this article that includes the failure and success stories of Albert Einstein, Henry Ford, and the Wright brothers for ideas. Encourage your students to view the difficult concept as an uncharted territory waiting to be explored, rather than an insurmountable obstacle and emphasize the thrill we all feel when our efforts pay off.
Design Hands-on Activities and Give them the tools
Hands-on investigations help unlock comprehension. Create interactive activities, experiments, or simulations that allow students to manipulate variables, observe outcomes, and draw their own conclusions. Give them the tools such as lab materials and encourage them to use online and other resources to investigate the concept actively.
Check out this gas properties investigation I use to help chemistry students gain some background and understanding of gas properties.
Encourage Questions and Hypotheses
As they investigate, encouraging students to ask questions and formulate hypotheses about the difficult concept. Emphasize that it's okay not to have all the answers and to make mistakes, as exploration is a process of discovering of what we do not yet know.
Make it Collaborative
Learning is enriched through collaboration. When students work together, they support each other, share insights, make mistakes together, and collectively overcome obstacles. Encourage sharing of perspectives, discourse, peer teaching, and team problem-solving.
Reflect and Connect
Throughout the common learning experience, prompt students to reflect on their discoveries and connect them to real-world applications. Encourage them to draw parallels between the ideas they are discovering about the difficult concept and their everyday lives.
See them and Celebrate Small Wins
Be in the space with your students as they work through the problem. Acknowledge and celebrate the small wins you notice when they investigate. Positive reinforcement motivates students to persist, boosts their self-confidence in overcoming challenging concepts, and scores you major building relationships points.
As a bonus, being in the space gives you the opportunity to help students by asking questions that lead them to the correct conclusions without giving the answers away.

Make it relevant first

Using a common learning experience tailored to the needs and interests of your students, even the most difficult concepts can become fun. By activating curiosity, using active learning, and promoting collaboration, the learning process can be transformed into captivating explorations into difficult ideas. The ensuing improved understanding of the concepts this challenging idea includes empowers students to persevere and gain confidence in their ability to conquer future challenges that will present themselves inside and out of the classroom.

So let’s make it relevant first by letting them unlock the unexplored for themselves.

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Phenomenon-Based Learning: How to Break Down Phenomena

July 29, 2023 / Oskar Cymerman

The ultimate goal of Phenomenon-Based Learning (PhenBL) is to help students develop skills necessary to solve real-world problems.

To provide meaning and context, PhenBL does away with passive strategies such as lecturing or reading about frequently abstract and difficult-to-relate-to concepts in favor of guiding students in active discoveries of the skills and knowledge required to solve real-world problems.

Phenomenon-Based Learning classroom

In a Phenomenon-Based Learning classroom, teachers look for real-world phenomena that represent the main ideas of the lesson or unit and use these phenomena as starting points lessons or units. Then, students interact with these phenomena to “solve” them - they investigate and find patterns, contrasts, causes, effects etc.

These “phenomena solutions” are achieved when students design their own ways to study and explain the whys and the hows of the phenomenon - they use provided resources (books, articles, the Internet etc.) and create products, such as visual or physical models, simulations, and experiments.

Teachers may choose to use these student-generated products as measures of student learning (performance assessments) instead of traditional tests.

Such a series of lessons is called a storyline and while storylines may vary depending on the topic or discipline, the idea that each part of the storyline should be driven by student questions and investigations makes it crucial for students to have a solid grasp on the phenomenon that starts each storyline. To this end, students must learn how to break down phenomena.

Breaking Down a Phenomenon

In my article Where and How to Begin with Phenomenon-Based Learning, I used a High School Earth Science phenomenon I named How Do Different Minerals Form? to help me create a plan for learning, but I posed this question to students: Each made of carbon; a diamond is forever, but graphite not so much. Why? The reason for showing images of diamond and graphite - two minerals all students should be familiar with and know some facts about - was to start the process of students connecting that while diamond and graphite are made of the same element carbon, they are different due to the conditions they formed in.

I realize that while investigating students could choose to focus on figuring out the processes and conditions related to graphite and diamond only so I might have to add extension lessons to help students learn and understand other ways in which minerals form. However, starting with this phenomenon is advantageous in two ways. For one, students can relate to it easily. Two, it gets the ball rolling on a major concept that temperature and pressure are key factors that affect mineral formation.

However, most students will most likely not know the specifics about diamonds and graphites and learning that they are both made of the same stuff should arise their curiosity and motivation to find out why. This might prompt them to grab their tech and start Googling, and it’s great if they want to do so, but I implore you to stop them, because you do not want superficial learning. You want in-depth, super kick-ass understanding and this requires strategy.

Observe and Ponder Chart is so oP y’all

**Click on the Image for a FREE Google Doc COPY of the Observe and Ponder Chart you can use in your classroom.**

I use the Observe and Ponder (OP) chart to help students break down a phenomenon. In small groups, they compile the two lists. First, they brainstorm and write down all of the the observations they have collected about the phenomenon. I always make the phenomenon image/video available to students in the LMS (learning management system ex. Google Classroom, Schoology etc.) our school uses, so they can review it as they complete the activity.

In the second column, students write down any questions that come to mind about the phenomenon and the observations they’ve made. These questions help direct student investigations.

The goal of the Observe and Ponder activity is to teach students a strategic way of looking at different phenomena and ultimately to help them become better at investigating and solving problems.

Taking it further: Looking at Phenomena as a class

At this point, you may allow students to start their investigations, or, if you feel they’d benefit from peer and teacher feedback, you may want to facilitate a class discussion during which students share their observations and questions they’ve generated. This provides an additional scaffold - especially useful at the beginning of the school year - that allows students to see if they are on track.

Creating a class OP chart allows you to compile and combine observations

SHD (Subtle Hint Dropping) is an additional tool you can use to aid the phenomenon breakdown process. It is extra helpful when you find glaring omissions in the Ponder column or when working with younger students who experience more difficulty in converting observations into questions to investigate. Basically, point to the specific observation in the class OP chart and ask students if anything else comes to mind that may be important to look into. You may also ask them to make an inference, or guess the reason for this observation.

And if all fails, do a think-aloud during which you tell them what you’re looking for but you don’t just give them the answer - you demonstrate your thinking process step by step that got you to it.

Why Your Phenomenon-Based Learning Future is Bright

As students participate in PhenBL activities throughout the school year and become more comfortable with Phenomenon-Based Learning and gain more confidence in their ability to deconstruct phenomena (aka becoming more OP at school and life), you can remove the scaffolds and let students guide themselves and collaborate with others.

Handing control over to the students will require that you “be in the space” with them so you can scrutinize and support their work. Just make sure you’re kind in your guidance, you have fun, and you occasionally strike up a random conversation, because they’ll appreciate the small brain breaks this provides and they’ll find out that you’re human after all. They will also enjoy having you around.

Play your cards right and you’ll become the OG who’s pretty OP. And that’s a dub and a wrap.

Sign up for my Teaching Tips, Resources, & Ideas Newsletter to get the next PhenBL post when it drops. It’ll be about Creating a Common Learning Experience for Difficult Phenomena and is free.

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Filtering by Category: Science

Phenomenon-Based Learning: Making Models for Understanding

Phenomenon-Based Learning: A Quick Recap

The Power of Models in Phenomenon-Based Learning

Better Understanding through visuals and manipulatives

Connecting Theory to Reality

Promoting Inquiry and Exploration

Encouraging Active Learning

Fostering Collaboration

Facilitating Communication

Developing Scientific Reasoning and Logic

Strategies for Integrating Models in Phenomenon-Based Learning

Scaffold and Guide Student Investigation

Make Models

Incorporate Multiple Perspectives

Reflect and Refine

Models Build Skills and Awareness

Unlocking the Unexplored: Creating a Common Learning Experience for Understanding Difficult Concepts

Creating a Common Learning Experience for a Phenomenon

Identify the Conceptual Roadblocks

Craft a Compelling Context

Introduce the Wonder of Exploration

Design Hands-on Activities and Give them the tools

Encourage Questions and Hypotheses

Make it Collaborative

Reflect and Connect

See them and Celebrate Small Wins

Make it relevant first

Phenomenon-Based Learning: How to Break Down Phenomena

Phenomenon-Based Learning classroom

Breaking Down a Phenomenon

Observe and Ponder Chart is so oP y’all

Taking it further: Looking at Phenomena as a class

Why Your Phenomenon-Based Learning Future is Bright