Jonathan Paul Loomis

December 13, 1999

Independent Study: Education

Mona Weinburg

Introduction

I have selected this particular unit to review in depth for my final project simply because it was and is the most complex that I have yet taught at Hyde, both for the material, and the degree to which I had control over the unit. It also serves well for this final project because it offers ample opportunity for self-criticism.

Origins

In the late spring of 1999, I was a sophomore competing a year of tutoring at Hyde Elementary School in Georgetown, Washington, DC. I had worked approximately six to nine hours each week in the fifth grade classroom with Mary Ann Gaudette, an experienced teacher who had guided my development as a teacher since the beginning of my freshman year. To her I owe much of what I know, not just because she gave me the opportunity to watch her teach or because she would willingly converse with me regarding educational topics, but also because she would allow me to teach in the classroom, giving me the chance to test my own ideas and theories.

In late May the American University had let out for the summer and I was staying in town to take advantage of the chance to work full time at Hyde. It was during this three-week period that Mary Ann presented me with the opportunity to plan and carry out a complete unit. The unit was simply "space."

In the curriculum that the District sent to the school it mandated that fifth graders would study "space," but gave no further explanation. We were restricted to about one hour each day to dedicate to science, so our unit would be limited time wise. We were, however, blessed to have a section of our reader dedicated to nonfiction and space. In it we found excerpts from Sally Ride's To Space and Back, and various other selections regarding the planets and the future of space exploration.

Although I would not have to spend much of my "science" time reading about space because we could cover the subject simultaneously in "reading," (one of the few times that I saw integrated studies used effectively in the classroom) I still did not have much time. I was presented with the question of what exactly to teach.

Formation of the Unit

Given this time limitation I took time to brainstorm a few of my options. I made a mental list of the various aspects of space that I could cover.

• The Planets. We could make and effort to learn about them, their names, origins of their names, what they were like, how they were like and unlike Earth, their order from the Sun, etc. I noted that the reader covered many of these subjects with some detail, making it a valuable resource if I chose this course of action.
• Other Celestial Bodies. This would have been perhaps more interesting, presenting the opportunity to work with black holes, other solar systems, the possibility of other life, and such other subjects sure to interest fifth graders. However, we had almost no resources to back up such work, and my own personal knowledge stopped about at fifth grade. This subject would be entertaining but tricky. I was also a bit concerned about the redeeming value of spending our "space" unit on such subjects. "Perhaps," I thought, "they are not the most important."
• The Space Race. Mary Ann presented this idea to me and it certainly ranks as important in the subject of "space." I gave it some thought, considering the opportunity to create some sort of role playing game within the class to simulate the Space Race. Ultimately I chose to ignore the subject almost all together simply because our reader did not mention it at all, we had no supplemental resources, and the space race was over with and before the time of our students. Thirty years ago this might have been the most important of any subject one could mention when speaking of "space," but in 1999 I felt that it's impact on the students would be minimal, confusing, and in the end, not very helpful.
• Space Exploration. The Space Race led to Space Exploration which seemed to me more relevant. The reader did treat the outer planets by talking about Voyagers 1 and 2, which passed those planets and sent back photos. The moon landing deserved to be mentioned I felt, as well as some of the other milestones in space exploration. This subject dabbled back into the Space Race, creating a sort of catch-22. I couldn't really mention space exploration without mentioning the Space Race, which I didn't have time or resources enough to cover well. And I really didn't want to be doing too much of the talking anyway. I began to search for subjects I felt the students could discover for themselves.
• The International Space Station. Space Exploration led me to think of the Space Station and it stuck me as an ideal subject for fifth grade. It was right within their comprehension level. The Space Race was too advanced, the Planets perhaps too basic, but the International Space Station would be perfect. I noted that it lent itself especially well to a group project because the actual station was being built by many nations on Earth and assembled in space. We could build our own in many groups and assemble it at the end of the unit. Like the real space station each group/nation would contribute something but the final product would have to be a team effort. This idea appealed instantly to me because it was a chance for the students to be part of something not one of them could create on alone but could by working together. Although our reader was too old to directly address the International Space Station the Sally Ride selection would come in handy describing life in space. In the end I decided that if I could inspire interest in space by doing an exciting project on the subject I would teach the Planets, the Space Race, Space Exploration and so on in a round about way because they would want to learn more on their own. I felt that inspiring interest was a crafty but necessary means of teaching more than I had time to do in class.

The Unit's Parts

Having settled on a space station as the center of the unit I set to work planning it, as well as the other aspects of the unit. Here they are, as they manifested themselves in the classroom.

• Bulletin Board. I created a bulletin board featuring construction paper images of some of the planets, the sun, and a space shuttle. It also contained a list of the planets in order. It was not necessarily impressive visually but helped as a constant reminder in the classroom as to what we were studying.
• The Readings. We read "To Space and Back," by Sally Ride and a selection on Mars, together totaling about sixteen pages of text. We also made references to selections on the planets during various discussions with the entire class and with small groups and in one-on-one situations.
• "The Planets" Writing and Listening Exercises. Perhaps the most creative of my ideas for the unit, one morning I brought in my CD of the concert work "The Planets," by Gustav Holst. I had each student get out a piece of fresh notebook paper and a pencil. Then, without any explanation as to what the music was called I had them sit and listen to the first work, "Mars, the Bring of War." During the music they were to write continuously, whatever thought the music inspired in them. It worked amazingly well. They wrote like crazy for the entire five minutes of the song, some of them filling more than one side of a sheet of notebook paper. Following the end of the song I asked if any of the students would like to share with the class some of the ideas they had put on paper. We shared for nearly ten minutes. Their ideas were all clearly related to the music, ranging from battle, to Darth Vader, to images of darkness. I was so impressed with their reaction to the exercise that we went ahead and did three more songs, each with similarly successful results. After forty minutes they had written more than they had for almost any other assignment I had seen them do in the entirety of the year. I was most especially happy with the effect this project had on my "poor" writers. They all wrote as much as our best writers and in some cases more. I was also pleased because by making them think outside the realm of activities they normally would associate with school had tricked them into writing/brainstorming and enjoying it. At the end of the activity I did go on to explain that the composer had particular planets in mind when he wrote his music and the class seemed to agree that his preconceptions were in line with their own.
• The Space Station Project. By far the most important segment of the unit, the space station took up the most time in class and was the most appealing (on various cognitive levels) to the students. In the beginning I spent a few minutes describing the actual International Space Station, who was building it, and how. Then I broke the class into teams, about seven in all, some pairs, others as large as four. I was mostly concerned with creating combinations that would be able to work together. I explained that each group was to first make a brainstorm list of what a space station should have. After this was done I let the groups select what aspect they wanted to do, as the teacher making sure that there would not be seven rec. rooms. Then the students brainstormed what their particular room needed. This process lasted about two days. As each group finished I had them begin writing out in paragraph form a description of their particular module of the space station. While one or two students were doing this, others began construction the actual model station. I had in mind that the students would bring in shoeboxes from home and that we would decorate the outsides of the boxes. My fifth graders, however, didn't seem to have much understanding of what a real space station should look like, but they knew exactly how the inside of their room was going appear. I was hoping for an opportunity for the students to visit NASA's International Space Station web site, but our computers were not Internet equipped in time. So, in the end the rooms each measured about a foot or two each way, being made from much larger boxes. The outsides were more or less neglected, the insides bearing the weight of their attention. At first I thought about trying to whittle the project down and rerouting it back to more of my own imagined product, but chose to let the students actually build "their" space station, in the way they wanted. After about four days Mary Ann and myself broke out the hot glue gun, and a fair amount of string and tape to try to put it all together. Due to the large size of the pieces our job was not easy. We did, however, manage to get everyone's segments assembled and as a crowning achievement we hung then entire apparatus from the ceiling. (Note that in the back of the photo below the bulletin board is visible.)

Assessment

I must confess, as my first self-criticism, that I had no clear assessment for the unit. In fact, due to the fact that I wanted them to inspire an interest in space more so than teach specific facts about it, I was unsure as to what sort of assessment would be appropriate. In many ways the space station writing and model was their best assessment. Those who did a good job could be thought of as having a greater mastery of the concept. However, if I were to truly use this as a form of assessment, I should have made the students aware of this from the outset, and should have included a list of what they would be graded on. In such a test a rubric is essential, and it is further essential that the students understand what is expected of them. Although I did expect that they would complete their work, I never told them that it would be their evaluation.

I was also somewhat disappointed by the fact that I wasn't able to bring hands on connections to the real space station, or at least some sort of visual aid. I would have loved to have used the NASA web page, but as mentioned before, that was not in the works. I would also have loved to visit the Air and Space Museum, but our field trip slots had already been used for the year and Mary Ann told me it would be impossible. I did make a Saturday trip down there to look for appropriate posters, but was disappointed with their selection. As it was, I tried to make as many references to the actual space station as possible while we were working on our model. If I saw something that a group was doing that was similar to the real station I would point it out and encouraged students to find such similarities and differences on their own. A few did use the Internet at home to look up space, so in a way I could say that I know for sure I accomplished my goals with at least a few students.

Personally I was most pleased with the way in which the unit covered science, reading, and writing. One could easily incorporate math as well, and in many ways space and the exploration of the Americas (a major social studies unit) could be done together well with a broader theme of "Encounters." Such an integrated unit I would love to teach.

As my final self-assessment I think that it is appropriate to take a look at the ways I managed to work in the various intelligences into the unit.