Suggested STEPWISE-informed Lessons & Student Activities
This page provides suggestions for using the STEPWISE pedagogy for helping students to achieve its major learning goals; i.e., to learn STEM-SE; Skills; Products and to learn & conduct RiNA projects. The schema here suggests that teachers using STEPWISE for the first time should gradually increase complexity of teaching & learning goals, perhaps involving at least two repetitions of the 3-phase STEPWISE pedagogy, before asking students to independently design & conduct RiNA projects to help overcome harms of their concern in STEM-SE relationships.
Different jurisdictions (e.g.. state or province) typically determines sets of attitudes, skills and knowledge (ASK), etc. that they would like all students to learn and be able to use in novel contexts. In Ontario, where STEPWISE was developed, there have been 3 overall learning goals – as depicted at right/below. Deciding what students must learn is, undoubtedly, political; e.g., decided by the most influential people and groups. Often, because school systems are largely oriented towards serving businesses (I believe), they focus mostly on Products and Skills Education – perhaps largely because they are relatively more certain and easier to assess & evaluate. Foci on them can limit foci on STEM-SE education, possibly because such education can raise critiques about STEM fields and about powerful members of societies – both of whom would prefer school graduates are prepared to fit into societies, rather than to change them. More ideas about curriculum learning goals are available a here.
To help (most) students to develop expertise, confidence & motivation to independently develop & implement research-informed & negotiated action (RiNA) projects to try to overcome harms of their concern in relationships among fields of science & technology and societies & environments (STSE), we recommend teachers use the 3-phase schema illustrated at right/below. This pedagogy is based on constructivist learning theory, which recognizes that learners’ prior experiences can affect new learning. This pedagogy, detailed here, basically involves: Students reflecting on their prior learning, Teachers teaching important hard-to-discover attitudes, skills & knowledge, and Students practising RiNA projects before self-directing RiNA projects.
Introduction
As elaborated in the video at right/below, here and here, based on constructivist learning theory, we recommend that teachers facilitate students’ expressions (e.g., verbally or in writing, etc.) of their reflections on their current (and ongoing) attitudes, skills & knowledge (ASK) that may apply to topics (e.g., plant biology) that the teacher plans to teach. Once students become more conscious of their existing ASK, they may be better prepared to change them – as they see fit – when exposed to alternative ASK (e.g., in Teacher Teaches phase of the 3-phase STEPWISE pedagogy). Reflections also may occur after each Students Practise phase. Teachers, meanwhile, can influence needs for further teaching on students’ reflections.
Stimulating Student Reflections/Expressions
The teacher can encourage students to reflect on and express their existing ASK by providing them with stimuli, such as pictures of STEM products, as at right/below, and then asking them to describe and evaluate them. To help ensure students feel free to express their ASK (and not try to guess what the teacher thinks is correct), teacher instructions & questions should be mostly student-directed & open-ended (see Lock (1990) model). Teacher instructions and questions should, in other words, err on the side of divergence – allowing for many different responses. Questions asked might include: ‘What do you like/dislike about the commodity, and why?,’ ‘What other people & groups might like/dislike the commodity, and why?,’ and, ‘For harms related to the commodity, what should be done to overcome them and explain what work might be necessary to do so?’ If done effectively, such questioning can promote divergent thinking. Such diversity can be encouraged by, for example, asking students to evaluate different people’s controversial positions relating to STEM processes & products – such as STSE Cartoons or from this list of possible STSE actions.
See STSE Commodity Cards &/or Names.
Introduction
As elaborated in the video at right/below (and here), although teachers should honour attitudes, skills & knowledge (ASK) expressed by students in the Students Reflect phase of the 3-phase STEPWISE pedagogy, many students – due, for instance, to limitations of inquiry-based learning (also see here) related to their cultural & social capital, sanitized STEM curricula and public propaganda (e.g., Merchants of Doubt) – can benefit from direct instruction of certain ASK (e.g., in 3 learning domains; also see here). We particularly recommend direct Teacher Input (with relevant Student Application activities) of STSE harms linked to influences of pro-capitalist networks and related RiNA projects.
- Resources: All Nine Resources (.zip file).
- STSE Case Methods (and Case Methods Model).
- Multi-Actant Documentaries.
More Detailed Resources for the Teacher Teaches phase
Summary Lessons & Activities
After lessons & activities like those discussed above, teachers may choose to provide ‘summary’ lessons & activities to further deepen students’ attitudes, skills & knowledge about STSE relationships & RiNA projects. The two videos at right/below provide some suggestions for such summary lessons and application activities.
Resources: Slideshow for this Video; JASTE: 5.1; 9.1; 11.1.
Resources: Slideshow for this Video; News articles: #1; #2; Drug Co. CEO Interview; Student RiNA Report.
Introduction
As presented in the video at right/below (and here), to deepen students’ attitudes, skills & knowledge (ASK) regarding ASK taught by teachers during the Teacher Teaches phase of the 3-phase STEPWISE pedagogy, we suggest teachers encourage students to design and carry out small-scale RiNA projects to overcome harms of their concern/interest in STSE relationships. For such practice projects, the teacher may provide assistance – as requested by students, and as described, with examples, below.
Student Practise: Project Assignment & Supports
Supports students need tend to vary – depending on, for example, their ages, abilities & experiences with RiNA projects. Firstly, teachers may limit guidance to that in assessment schema within assignment sheets like here. Some students may, then, benefit from a list of possible STSE Issues to address. Others may find a list of ’cause’ & ‘result’ variables helpful. In planning projects, some students then may find useful our RiNA project tips sheet. Meanwhile, for secondary research, they may benefit from some insights from a school librarian – as depicted in the video below. For primary research, suggestions on the Skills Education page may help. Related to that, although many may be familiar with experimentation, most likely need to learn about correlational studies. In terms of actions, students may find descriptions of types of actions helpful. As science students, teaching them about engineering design & popularization may be particularly useful. Finally, although we would prefer students be intrinsically motivated to develop/implement RiNA projects, asking them to prepare for a public STSE Fair like here can help extrinsically motivate them.
RiNA Project Tools
To help students to develop – perhaps collaboratively – RiNA projects, either as practice (in this stage) or as student-led projects (in the Student-led RiNA Projects stage, we have provided links to a series of online tools (e.g., for graphing, report-writing, etc.) – via the image at right/below – for carrying out such projects. As suggested here, the tools are generally arranged in order of conduct of RiNA projects, as illustrated below. Students may choose to use these tools in different orders and repeatedly, as required.
Chatting Tools
Drawing Tools
STSE Issues
Web Search Tools
- https://mediasmarts.ca/
- https://www.google.ca/
- School District Databases
Graphing Tools
Spreadsheet Tools
- https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/0/
- Microsoft Excel (https://www.office.com/)
Statistics Tool
Network Mapping Tools
Poster-making Tools
Petition Tool
Social Media Tools
3-D Printing Tools
Word Processing Tools
- https://docs.google.com/
- https://www.libreoffice.org
- Microsoft Word (https://www.office.com/)
Credits: Jasmine Yeung, Dave Del Gobbo, Minja Milanovic, Sarah El Halwany, Majd Zouda, Nurul Hassan & Larry Bencze.
Students’ RiNA Projects Analyses
After students conduct small-scale RiNA projects in the Students Practise phase of the 3-phase STEPWISE apprenticeship, teachers may ask them to reflect on their ASK relating to the unit of study (e.g., cell biology) and about the ‘nature’ of STSE relationships, research and actions. For example, a teacher of science asked his students in grade 10 ‘academic’ (university-qualifying) class to reflect on the nature of STSE & RiNA by completing this reflection sheet, including by sharing their personal reflections with a few classmates. Shortly afterwards, he conducted – as illustrated in the video at right/below – a whole-class discussion on the nature of STSE & RiNA.
Students Applying their Reflections in Future RiNA Projects
There is much educational research support for lessons & activities to help students to reflect on the nature of their thinking & acting; that is, metacognition – in this case, on the nature of their RiNA projects to overcome harms in STSE relationships. Such reflections represent, essentially, reflections on the nature of science (and STSE relationships, including RiNA projects). A common benefit of such metacognition are improvements in learners’ self-control of future cognition and learning. Regarding the schema at right/below, for example, sample student reflection on the nature of STSE Issues, Research & Actions from their experiences with previous RiNA projects (as World <–> Sign relationships) can be applied to design & implementation of their next RiNA projects. For example, students’ finding that experiments may be more time-consuming than studies may lead them to prioritize studies in their next RiNA projects.
STSE-RiNA Education Review
After lessons & activities like those discussed above, teachers may choose to provide ‘summary’ lessons & activities to further deepen students’ attitudes, skills & knowledge about STSE relationships & RiNA projects. The two videos at right/below provide some suggestions for such summary lessons and application activities.
Resources: Slideshow for this Video; JASTE: 5.1; 9.1; 11.1.
Resources: Slideshow for this Video; News articles: #1; #2; Drug Co. CEO Interview; Student RiNA Report.
Overview
After one (or more) STEPWISE pedagogical 3-phase cycles, teachers may decide many students need at least one more such cycle(s) or decide students have sufficient ASK to be asked to design and conduct their own RiNA projects to overcome STSE harms of their interest. We recommend teachers make such projects as student-directed & open-ended as possible – to help increase students’ intellectual independence. Such independence is critical in democracies, although this can vary – depending on specificity of assessment & evaluation (e.g., as here). Also, some teachers may choose to provide some students with a few relatively ‘benign’ supports – such as a list of Sample STSE Issues and Sample RiNA Project eTools.
If you would like one or more of us on the STEPWISE Team (e.g., here) to collaborate with you – remotely or in-person – to develop and field-test teacher lessons & student activities based on the STEPWISE pedagogical framework, then write to me at: larry.bencze@utoronto.ca. With your permission and that of your principal, students and/or parents, we also would like to collect ‘data’ (e.g., lesson plans, student assignments, interviews) so that we can also collaborate to write reports for journals and/or books.