It's Time for Science, and it's time to talk about the importance of activating prior knowledge and a multimodal approach to science education through establishing noticing, wondering, and connections routines! Tom talks to Dr. Joel Donna, professor of teacher education, about routines that help students access prior knowledge
and lived experiences, setting the stage for learning by centering student thinking. They also discuss teachers leveraging their
own prior knowledge, how AI might begin to fit in to the science classroom, and much more!
Joel Donna is a professor of teacher education at the University of Wisconsin–River Falls, where he prepares future elementary through high school teachers to teach science by engaging students in doing science. After earning his degree from UW–River Falls, he taught science in Kasson-Mantorville, MN, then earned a Ph.D. in Science Education from the University of Minnesota. He served as STEM Specialist at the Minnesota Department of Education, overseeing Math Science Partnership Grants and leading state STEM initiatives. He’s been a Lecturer at the University of Minnesota, a Bush Fellow, and Assistant Professor of Physics at Winona State. He also founded 3Ring, a nonprofit supporting new science teachers.
He’s taught science at elementary, middle, high school, and college levels, consults with schools, and has served on regional science education committees. He contributed to the development of the OpenSciEd middle school curriculum. His research focuses on curriculum design for teacher learning and exploring teacher purposes of teaching science. He has published five peer-reviewed articles and two book chapters and led over 20 professional development workshops for districts. He’s presented at 60+ teacher conferences. He lives in River Falls with his wife and son and enjoys time in the water.
Tom talks with professor Joel Donna about the importance of activating prior knowledge—asking in the classroom what can we do together collectively as a science community?; how teachers coming into elementary science often believe they don’t have the experience or knowledge to teach science and how important it is to leverage a teacher’s prior knowledge, and then how modeling to do that with students. They discuss the the process of noticing, wondering, making some connections, slowing down, making space to see what we’re seeing and hearing and what does it make us think of and connect to; asking teachers to bring in relevant experiences to bridge to students experiences; how when we engage in routine, we have a goal together, and need to make space for time for students to think. Dr. Donna describes the silent count—waiting and giving students time to think, which positions the teacher as co-learner; following routines of noticing, wondering, making connections, and then into group discussion; how high quality instructional materials (HQIM) then fit in; positioning teachers as co-learner BOTH for the teacher AND students. They discuss the importance of no right answers in initially activating prior knowledge and how these techniques can be taken into other disciplines, such as social studies; the importance of HQIM and Dr. Donna's shift from thinking teachers should design materials to partnering with them in appraising and evaluating HQIM; the importance of facilitating sense-making. Tom and Dr. Donna talk about the importance of kids seeing themselves in science and valuing the experiences and language they bring; bringing in vocabulary after students have worked to make sense of phenomena using observations and data; dealing with phenomena-fatigue through connection to real-world experiences and thinking. How teaching is not about perfection; practice makes progress; how science can be a beautiful messy environment where we do the best we can to make sense of the world; and the essential importance of failure. They discuss leveraging AI within teacher pre-service; some ways to approach AI with both preservice teachers and students; what the teacher's role becomes with a space where AI can develop a reasonably complex model of phenomena; and how AI cannot replace teachers' role in collective sense-making work. How preparing students to listen to each other, beginning in kindergarten, helps them become not just more engaged students, but better members of society.