STEM + Arts Series | Visual Thinking Strategies for SEEd Phenomenon Observations | Heather Francis & Tina McCulloch

Links Mentioned In This Episode:

• Piet Mondrian’s Broadway Boogie Woogie
• Visual Thinking Strategies
• Critique as a part of Visual Thinking Strategies

Don’t forget to peruse the bank of lesson plans produced by the BYU ARTS Partnership in dance, drama, music, visual arts, media arts, and more. Search by grade level, art form, or subject area at www.education.byu.edu/arts/lessons.

How to Integrate STEM + the Arts

Heather Francis and Tina McCulloch discuss a specific arts strategy that Tina uses to help her students substantively inquire about different scientific phenomena.

As a classroom teacher, Tina was experiencing rapid changes in classroom education: new theoretical models, new curricular materials, new state standards; she noticed herself and others losing their teaching identity. Arts integration proved a lifesaving practice. Her goal for this podcast series is to create a comfortable environment for teachers to move forward in STEM and inquiry-based learning through the arts.

How to Teach to the New Utah SEEd Standards

In 2015, Utah adopted new SEEd standards for the K-12 classroom. The rollout for materials distribution and testing has been slow: state standards testing for fourth and fifth grades didn’t occur until 2021.

Previously, teaching STEM was based on a more formulaic model: teach facts, present worksheets, answer multiple-choice questions. The teacher presented content and found out what the students’ misconceptions were, then planned another lesson to correct learning or memorize new facts.

Now, students lead the investigation: they ask questions, create their own models, and the teacher facilitates class discussions. Students and teachers are both uncomfortable; the teachers’ instinct is often to jump in and try to rescue the struggling student, but the value of inquiry-based learning rests in the process of student exploration, struggle, perseverance, discovery, and making connections as a class.

To get started with SEEd concepts, teachers can ask students:

• “What are you curious about?”
• “What questions do you have?”
• “How can we construct knowledge together?”

Teaching SEEd Phenomena: A Real-Life, Local Example

Tina shares an example of her experience teaching to the new standards using the principle of presenting a phenomena. She explains:

“I showed them this flash flood coming down. People could hear it and they could hear the rumble. They knew that it had rained and you could hear the people talking in the background. Then the flash flood comes through carrying big tree trunks or rocks and just muddy, muddy water. My students didn't understand why that was such an unusual event. They didn't understand what precipitated it and why it was flowing the way that it was flowing; they had never been witness to this type of event. The video wasn’t enough—the students didn’t have enough context and experience to understand the magnitude of what it means to witness a flash flood. Yet, for the people down in San Juan County—and only one of my students who had hiked in that area and seen one—they see flash floods often. So when those flash flood warnings come out of those slot canyons, it's an important thing to make sure you know. So that's when I thought, “Oh, I really have got to come local,” and find better phenomena for my students to see by using events they could witness right here in their backyard that would drive their questions.”

Tina brought the phenomena home by incorporating the knowledge that many of her students’ fathers are involved in construction. She drew their attention to the east bench of the Wasatch mountain range by showing a news clip of a new-build home that slid off its foundation and landed in the street. She also shared how a local high school is sliding off its foundation every year that it’s a wet winter—it’s being rebuilt now. Her students realized that that’s the high school they will attend. Linking two local events that directly impacted her students’ lives made the difference for their learning. The questions began: “‘Now, Mrs. McCulloch, we live down here in the valley. We're okay. Right, my house isn't gonna slide if I leave the garden hose on?”

“I said, “No, your house isn't gonna slide.” Then we talked about why their home was safe. As we finished the whole unit, one kid said, “I'm always going to make sure that I never live on a mountainside.”’

Being Uncomfortable: The First Step Toward Rich Conversations

Moving from earth science phenomena—a topic where students can clearly understand the impact—to other types of science proved t...