Docent Lesson Success

Module 4/4

Science Educators’ Professional

Development series
This section presents 10 strategies for
successful lesson facilitation by the Mattos
science docents.
Strategy 1: Student-centric Learning Philosophy
Strategy 2: Misconceptions are Learning Steps
Strategy 3: Avoid Cookbook Approach
Strategy 4: Recitals Replace Inquiry
Strategy 5: Emotional Connection
Strategy 6: Physical Setup Plan
Strategy 7: Dropping Ineffective Practices
Strategy 8: Work Together
Strategy 9: Social Cognition
Strategy 1: Student-centric learning
philosophy
• The educational system, choice of
subjects taught at educational
institutions, instructional design,
learning practices, tools and resources
have continually evolved over time.
• Mattos NGSS (Next Generation
Science Standards) science learning
will prove to foster fair and deep
science knowledge to the community
when the docents adhere to the
global, student-centric cognitivist lab
facilitation practices. Figure 1: Creative learning tools,
SCRATCH lab
• Cognitivist
learning practices
lean on the empirical evidence of
belief on how brain learns the
best.
• Brainis like muscle. The learner
needs to work it through mind
engaging activities to
comprehend the science. The
curriculum supplied hands-
on science investigatory
practices promote fun and
the students find it natural
to coordinate mind with the
learning concepts. Figure 2: Taken from a Khan academy video
showcasing neural expansion of brain with
age
 Strategy 1I: Misconceptions are
Learning Steps
• Piaget’sconstructivist model says that
intelligence is not a fixed trait.
Structural plasticity is a natural brain's
ability to actually change its physical
structure as a result of learning.
• Thedocent-led lab experiences are
Figure 3: A brain neuron mapping capable of growing children’s mental
simulation showing strong
connections (achievable through capacities the same way.
learning experience) and the lit
parts showcasing the activity
during thinking and decision
making
• The docent accesses the prior
knowledge of class or individual as the
situation demands, and wrong
answers and discussions showing
shallow or misconstrued scientific
knowledge are welcome in a
constructivist/cognitivist classroom
model as it actually indicates the Figure 4: “It was the
gravity’s fault, my ball
students’ willingness to learn and stood in the air for some
participate in the lesson. time. Yeah, I got it back!”
• The students need to undergo self-reasoning process to reframe
their minds so that the previous knowledge, assumptions,
knowledge conflicts and misconceptions transforms into lesson
intended conceptions.
• Depending on the complexity of science at study, the process may
take from few minutes to hours or may not even happen within
an year.
• National Research Council (NRC) 2008, p. 38 says that the
science educator help the learners confront their misconceptions
by facilitating an environment fir for student reasoning.
• Illustrating and bulleting
the student findings and
leading gradual and
iterative discussions
(spanning over several
hands-on activities or even
several lessons) are some of
the helpful science
instructional strategies.
Strategy 1II: Avoid Cookbook Approach
• Many scientists discovered that cookbook like
laboratories frequently bore students, but “the more
involved a student is in the laboratory the more
productive the educational outcomes will be”
• Docents let the children to be creative rather than
procedural during hands-on time and group discussions.
For example, the docents cannot have a mental make up
on the scenes on how children should learn using the
materials. They are bound to explore in
unexpected ways.
• While going over a food chain of organisms in Tule Ponds for a
fifth grade lab, the students may not gain much learning
experience if the docent asks a question that is bound to
produce straight factual answers like pointing to the tail of a
Largemouth bass and asking them to recall a fish body part learnt
from the regular school curriculum.
• Instead, relative features may be discussed together in a
class. “Did you notice the mouth? How big do you think the fish
will be? Shall we discuss about the large eyes adaptation? …Does
the pond have murky water?”
• The inquiry centric questioning helps with the possibility of
attitude development among students to look for, identify the
fish and carry out advanced study about the ecosystem during
their science field trips to the Tule ponds.
• Scientists
call this (neurological) phenomenon, “students
developing increased metacognition”, where acquired knowledge
from classrooms get transferred to other fields.
• A second grade flower dissection lab should be
left open for students to carryout dissections in
authentic ways and the learners be able to find
and describe the flower parts they have
identified, without showing the already
documented parts like petals and sepals ahead
of time.
• The students are gaining the decision making
ability of “when I cut open this way, this and that
could happen…”, a metacognition that applies
towards many scenarios far from the specific
science activity. Figure 5: “Not all
investigations yield results”
 Strategy 1V: Recitals Replace Inquiry
 In inquiry-centric science labs, children do not answer
questions like “what is evaporation?” And “Have you
heard of sublimation?”

 Instead, they spell and solve problems. Example of inquiry

questioning by a docent to arrive at leading the children to think
about evaporation rather than reciting the definition, the process
that lacks deeper brain connections:
“Top surface of the water heats up, now what will happen?”

 To answer the question, they must have left water jar outside on a
hot day for few hours, tested the water markings during the start
and end, record temperature etc.
Strategy V: Emotional Connection
 The students may lead the docents towards discussing
scientific facts and aspects that may not be part of the
core lesson idea. The docents still need to
acknowledge and spend considerable time in answering
students questions instead of giving “yes, no, nope, we
are not doing that today” kind of answers.

 The success lies in understanding the kind of

mood the students are in rather than forcing
them to listen to the what the science educator
instructs and derive automatically the
conclusions as they were told to.
• The flexibility of lab handling
may be achieved by
developing subject matter
confidence;.
• Studying the
“background section” of
every lesson plan linked to
the grade level NGSS Mattos
curriculum contributes
towards successful lesson
facilitation.
• Alsousing body and hand
moves while taking
expresses passion and offers
guidance for the audience.
Strategy VI: Physical Setup Plan
• Thedocent planning about an activity like setting up
beakers, should not only visualize on collecting the right
number of beakers, funnels, stickers and filter paper,.
• Butthe docent should ask oneself to arrive at the best
possible lab setup catering to the varied interests, fun
and learning motivation the materials could provide.
 “Will leaving it ahead of time on group tables motivate the
learners?
 Which of the materials in this activity will give a better
sensory stimuli?
 For the collaboration and peer scientific argumentation to
happen, how many filter papers need to be left on the table?
 The tone in which we talk, will it convey a message that they
are welcome to repeat the investigation multiple times with
varying the quantities of sand and water?”
Strategy VII: Dropping Ineffective Practices
The past 40 years of research in Mind, Body and Education
discourages educators from using the following traditional tactics
as they are ineffective and sometimes contributes to the adverse
effects of nurturing human cognition and development.
1. Drill / Rote work
2. Repetitive practice
3. Bonus points (providing an incentive to do more)
4. Participation points (providing an incentive to participate)
5. Verbal Recognition (“You got the exact answer as the
textbook says”)
6. Establishing Rules (“You cannot touch anything!”)
Strategy VIII: Work Together
• Inan interview, the former Biological
Sciences Curriculum Study (BSCS) Director
Janet Carlson and former BSCS senior
science educator Nancy Landez says that
students’ mind should grapple with the newly
taught idea even after the lesson gets over.
• The research findings contribute to how a
specific part of the brain named the medial
prefrontal cortex is active even during one’s
sleep in the process of linking recently
acquired knowledge with the past.
• Closurecould take overnight or two to
Source: worrywisekids.org three weeks sometimes.
•

• The inquiry-based lessons assume that the educator

should also take the role of learner, a supportive one.
They investigate, get inspired at the new ideas and
findings, making rounds and working across the groups.
• Student learners are not patronized
by over-rewarding easy tasks, but
the docent in essence orchestrates
the science experience for the
students to cohesively tell a
concept to themselves.
• Certain observation processes
without the right guidance could
easily overwhelm and frustrate the
classroom. For example, many
students could run into loosening
of fine screw, meddling with optic
tube adjustment while trying to
observe a mold sample using the
microscope.
• Inall circumstances, the essential laboratory resources
are the sole students’ tools that they can use to
discover, invent and design using Science, Technology,
Engineering, Arts and Mathematics (STEAM) skills they
possess.
• In
that case, docents setting up the slides for the
microscope while the students passively look through
the eyepiece is highly prohibited.
Strategy IX: Social Cognition
• Children learn by observing others. Hence the hands-on
exploration done partnering with one or two more peers
and the conceptual discussions serve to be highly effective in
the learning process.
• Isolating few children and projecting them as role models
and asking children to regurgitate or repeat a docent told
science jargon are in general practices that do not belong in
this science learning model.
• Assigning partnering groups as soon as they enter the room
are considered ineffective since they will have a hard time
relating to the physical act of moving places to the subject to
be learned. Logical memory associations are the key to the
NGSS Mattos instructional model.
Strategy X: Smooth Flow
• Students get distracted and even annoyed when teachers
stop their work repeatedly during the class period to add a
forgotten direction, explanation, or procedural note. One of
the supportive laboratory-educator behavior is to value
students work and facilitate the whole learning process
without more than needed interruption.
• DOCENTS ARE EFFECTIVE PART OF THE MATTOS
LEARNING COMMUNITY AND THE END OF THE YEAR
FEEDBACKS AND SUGGESTIONS ABOUT THE
CURRICULUM ARE HIGHLY VALUED INPUTS TOWARDS
IMPROVING AND MAINTANING HIGH STANDARDS IN
STUDENT-CENTRIC LEARNING.
“Many elementary educators do not receive an adequate
amount of professional learning to gain the confidence
needed to teach science (HorizonResearch 2013;McClure
et al. 2017).”
•
Resources
• A Brief History of the Science of Learning: Part 2 (1970s-present)
• Hardiman, M, (2003) Connecting Brain Research with Effective
Teaching.
• Learning Theories
• McClure et al. (2017) STEM Starts Early: Grounding Science,
Technology, Engineering and Math in Early Childhood.
• McComas, W. (2015, September 14). Laboratory instruction in the
service of science teaching and learning.
• NRC (2008) Ready, Set, SCIENCE!: Putting Research to Work in K-8
Science Classrooms.