The+Humanities+and+Science+Connection

The Humanities and Science Connection
Conveners: Tommy and Rob LaVelle

Where and how do we strengthen the ties between these topicas and make them relevant to our community?

Humanities and Science Connection Unconference notes August 22, 2011

Rob LaVelle, Tommy Johnson, Francis Brindle, Dave Worden

Caution to not losing the fact that there are differences between the disciplines. Example: Poetry is not science. Beware of muddling the science. Would like to see more writing in Science.

Writing as an assessment for a science class. Short answer explanations are good for this. Processing skills are critical and writing it out helps to focus their thinking and making the information understandable. Resource: Berkeley videos rapping science concepts. Helps kids remember the details.

Writing as a communication skill. Can you explain a concept clearly and in an organized manner.

Some kids who are great writers can’t put a math concept into words. They can’t explain a function or how to solve a problem.

Cool connections with lower school math. They make the kids explain how to do math. They have to explain the process, not just do the process.

Idea: At Princeton Friends, they had a math problem of the week. And the whole school would work on this. Each grade level approached it differently, parents would get involved and it engaged kids in different ways. It emphasized process and communication. Kids had to write down their results, process. Sometimes at the end of the week, a kid would share their process with the community. Problem solving skills and engagement.

Resource: Liping Ma. 1998, 1999? 4 Math problems (5th grade level?) knowing and understanding math. Knowing and Teaching Math for Understanding. How do you teach: -dividing fractions -multiplying fractions -subtracting 19 from 54 (don’t use the word “borrow” Asked for best teachers in US. In China, asked just any teacher. The difference was remarkable. Language approach in china was much more developed. The language needs to be more precise and descriptive versus learning operations. You need both for an understanding and a facility with the process.

What is the skill set and language for teaching kids to do this? Do LA teachers have series of steps for an essay format that would transfer to applying these skills to explaining a math problem or a science experiment? Learning the elements of the structure helps provide the tools to explain your thinking.

Resource: __River of Doubt__ (Teddy Roosevelt’s trip down River in Amazon) Author did a great job of mixing in science concepts, history, and politics into a great adventure story. What a good hook for non-science kids. Provides good __points of entry__.

Unbroken. About an athlete/runner who became a POW during WWII. Goes into a lot of detail about the science of starvation.

Differentiated Reading strategies for this. Some kids read the whole book, other kids read key parts, and the class puts it into context. Ideally, they are reading the book in LA class and referring to it in science class.

Collaboration is hard for us. We want to stay in our rooms and do our plans and it is hard to give up control of materials and topics. Plus we never have time.

Supplemental Lab class that can spend time tying together these themes. That mixes the subject/disciplines. The Geography slant, the language arts slant, a musical or movement approach. Example: make evaporative coolers and test them. Gather data and present it. Use US 7th and 8th periods to do this. Does this work for the language arts teachers, art, and dance teachers? Is the science class pulling everyone along?

Feeling a tension between the demands of different classes and performances. Especially when there are performances that require extra time and effort from students. This happens intensely during certain times of the year. It eats into other times. Schedules and Curriculum collide.

Aside: We don’t present ourselves as a science math rich school. We do put ourselves out as a language arts, dance, and creative arts school. We are perceived as being weak in math and science and we are not.

How can we strengthen the Humanities/Science/Math connections that we have, both within our classes and between classes? What can we do with the structure that we have? What gets in our way and where could we build on our strengths?
 * Part Two Focus:**

Rob LaVelle, Tommy Johnson, Francis Brindle, Dave Worden, Alejandro Moreiras, Jim Rose
 * Part Two**

Do we have a map of the humanities skills and concepts that would help us see where we can tap into the abilities of the students to use them in Science and math?
 * Curriculum Maps for each discipline/class**

We need to look for ways to mix in special days/weeks/chunks to do this interdisciplinary work.
 * Special Calendar Times to mix it up**

October 14 Field Trip Day in US. Activities geared towards interdisciplinary work. One day is not much.

In MS we have an Emphasis week. Music, Design, etc. Can be hit or miss in each class, but it can be really successful in certain classes.

__Exploratoriums, End of Year Trips,__ Should we have an elective class that ties into these trips/experiences that support the end of year experience? The trip is the culmination of the class. This can take a year in advance to set up, especially in the US.

Curriculum has restraints. Especially in US. We just don’t have the time in our classes. We have shorter contact time with students. This limits us from doing more interdisciplinary activities and inquiry. In MS we have the block schedule, but it doesn’t work so great. Too much for some, and not enough for others. First Year Block is set up really well for the integrated Humanities. The key is that they have time together and they have built the curriculum around this integrated approach.

If we look at our curriculum concepts and skills, can we find areas of easy overlap and connection? Easier to do in the MS, because most kids are in the same classes for Humanities and Sciences. It is more fragmented as kids move through US. Except for the 9th graders who have the 9th grade experience.

__Meeting Time__. We need time to meet with teachers in other disciplines who are teaching the same kids to identify these topics and skills to find ways to develop them in both classes. Set up lunch meetings once a week, once a month to make this happen.
 * Time**

__Planning Time__ is key to making any of this happen. In MS we have more part time elective teachers to make this happen.

__Class Time__. A lot of these interdisciplinary activities and labs take more time than a usual class period.

Random Idea: T shirts with schedules on them. Upside down on the front and right side up on the back.

Mapping curriculum skills Integrating content and skills Finding points of entry Resources: Books, etc. that work across the disciplines. Writing prompts, skills, tools that work in several classes. Using block time and special days in more focused ways to play up these connections. Recruit allies from other disciplines
 * What next?**

Use this Wiki as a starting point for this. Start a Google Group.

The important thing is communication between colleagues. To know what each other is doing will allow us to pepper one another's classes with language and concepts from other classes. This would be a nice way to form stronger connections among the various disciplines that we teach. The kids love to have that "aha" moment when one teacher's content confirms another teacher's content. -Alejandro