.jpg)
Science Connections
From the science classroom. For the science classroom. Science education looks different today than it ever has before. The constant flow of new ideas and challenges opens up exciting opportunities for scientists, educators, and learners alike to reexamine our world and our place in it. Join middle school science educator Eric Cross as he sits down with fellow educators, scientists, and engineers to explore the best ways we can improve our K–8 science teaching practices and create wonder for young minds.
Science Connections
S2-05: Moving students forward with project-based learning: Janis Lodge
In this episode, Eric Cross sits with K–5 educator, Janis Lodge to chat about building on her own science curriculum to create meaningful project-based learning experiences. Janis shares her work teaching Gifted and Talented Education (GATE), and how to use those practices to help accelerate the learning of all students. Eric and Janis also talk about making time for science within K–5 classrooms.
Check out the project Janis created for her class here!
Follow Janis in her classroom on Instagram: @JanisLearningLodge
To me, the reward of having those kids feel like they accomplish something and the way that they can take ownership of it and go in so many different directions, I cannot take that away from them. That's such an opportunity that if I have the means to do it, I have to just take it and run with it.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Science Connections. I'm your host Eric Cross. My guest today is Janice Lodge. Janice is a third grade teacher in Orange County, California with a specialization in gifted and talented education. Recently, Janice was awarded the Orange County Council for the Gifted and Talented Education Classroom grant. This grant funds a project that provides an extension to her third grade science unit about environments and survival. Through this project, students will think like a biomimicry engineer as they design a robot that is inspired by an innovation found in nature. In this episode, we discuss how she uses interdisciplinary teaching practices to make time for science learning why gifted and talented education strategies can benefit all students and her process for creating a problem based lesson that ultimately earned her a grant for her classroom. And now please enjoy my conversation with Janice Lodge. One. Welcome. Thanks for being here.
Speaker 1:Of course, I am happy to do it. I'm excited for the opportunity.
Speaker 2:Of course. Yeah. And elementary school teachers in science, I feel like there's so many things to have conversations about and some of the things that you've really focused on I think are, are really, really important. And so, but I wanna start off with kind of your journey of, of you becoming a, a teacher in, in the classroom. And so would you kind of give your, your background, like your origin story, how did you end up as a, as a third grade teacher? Well,
Speaker 1:My story is definitely not a traditional story. Uh, before I was a teacher, I was actually living in Maui, Hawaii. I moved there right after college. I went to Chico State in Northern California. And I got a degree in graphic design. And after I graduated, well, I should give a little bit of a backstory. My last summer before graduating, I spent the whole summer in Maui and I just fell in love with it. So when I graduated, I decided instead of applying for jobs in Northern California, I'm just gonna put some resumes out in Maui and see if I can get a job. And I did. I ended up getting a job doing graphic design and marketing for a kite serve company out there. And I ended up just staying for seven years on the island. And, um, after about seven years, I kind of got a little bit of island fever and decided I wanted to come back to California. I wasn't sure exactly what I wanted to do, but I just had this kind of like this calling that I need to do something a little more fulfilling with my life. And I started thinking about different ideas and dreams I had. And I actually started thinking about when I was younger, right? I had this dream. If you were to ask me when I was 10 years old, what I wanted to be when I grow up, it would be elementary school teacher, really, believe it or not, when I was younger, I transformed my bedroom into a classroom. My stuffed animals were my students. I just thought I'm gonna be the next best teacher ever. And um, you know, as I went through life and kind of went different directions, I kind of lost sight of that dream a little bit. But, um, for some reason when I decided to change careers, I just remembered that. And so I just decided to go get my teaching credential and see if it worked out. And it was probably the best decision I made. I, I feel like everything just fell perfectly into place. Um, I ended up getting a job at an amazing school and now five years later I'm a third grade teacher.
Speaker 2:So the, one of the questions I have to ask and, and talking to elementary school teachers, this comes up a lot. How do you make time for science as an elementary school teacher who's teaching everything? And let me kind of premise this with, at least for those of us in California, and I'm sure the rest of the states too. But we know this, there's kind of this pressure with pacing and then even depending on what school you're at, math and English tend to get the bulk of things. And maybe there's this perception also of like, well, I gotta teach math and English, and sometimes science gets put to the back burner for different reasons.
Speaker 1:Well, um, you're exactly right. The beginning of the year we were provided with a pacing from the district. And you know, we, they try to keep us on track saying you should be starting unit two at this time. And, um, but other than that, there's really no specific guidelines of how many days we're supposed to be teaching in or for how long. Um, but one kind of secret that I've discovered is that I can weave science into the other subjects, um, specifically with language arts. So quite often what I do is I take a look at the language arts standard and if it's identifying the key details and the main idea, well I can do that with the science books used from the curriculum. So I'll just pull those readers and we'll do the exact same skill, start with the same standard, but we'll use the content from science by doing that. We call that kind of like that interdisciplinary study. And the students really enjoy that more too, because they're using the same skills but they're diving deeper into the content. Right. And so also that helps build the background knowledge. So then when it comes to time where if I want to do a science lab or a science investigation, now they already have that background knowledge cuz we've, we already dove deep into the reading and they can apply that pretty quickly right away into their lab or whatever activity they're doing. Can,
Speaker 2:Can you give an example maybe of how you might pull out something that might be a skill that you're trying to develop, maybe in an English content, but you would pull that out of a, in a science lesson maybe? What would
Speaker 1:You do? We're actually doing that right now. So we're in our second unit of science and they're studying inheritance and traits and they're looking at different organisms to see how they have adaptations to help them survive in their environment. So coincidentally part of the literacy skills is to look at multiple sources, do research and summarize and make analysis of what they're reading. And so we have different varied resources. I have websites, I have books, eBooks, videos and pictures. And they're choosing which four sources they want to use. And then, then they're coming up with a, uh, summary at the end and then putting together a Google slide presentation based on whatever organism that they chose. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Did you have a science background before coming into becoming an elementary school teacher?
Speaker 1:Um, not none. Besides what I, you know, took in high school and college.
Speaker 2:Did you find it easy to kind of, to lean into the science or, or well, was it something you just kind of jumped into and said, all right, I'm gonna get after it?
Speaker 1:What's interesting is if, you know, throughout my education, my, my favorite subjects were English and reading and writing and art. And it quite honestly, science wasn't my favorite subject. But I've, and I think because of that, that inspires me to come up with creative ways of presenting the information to them and making it exciting and engaging for them because I don't want them to feel that way. I want them to be excited about all subjects. And I think that's the beauty of combining the, the different subjects like I mentioned before. Like I say, you know, what would a, a scholar do? What would a what think like a wildlife biologist, um, and like with my project, think like a biomimicry engineer. And so it kind of shifts their thinking. Like it's not just, oh, we have to do study science. It's like, no, you are the scientist, you are a meteorologist or you are an author. How would an author write about this? How would an illustrator capture this in a photo or a comic strip? Um, and so when you really combine those disciplines, you can take it to another level. So even if science isn't their favorite subject, like maybe it wasn't for me growing up, they can still take something they're passionate about and apply the science content to it and they really resonate with them.
Speaker 2:You leaned into your strengths, which are more like coming into it. You had all these kind of creative strength mm-hmm.<affirmative>, you have that background as a graphics designer, you were into the arts. But then with those strengths, did that kinda give you more confidence to, to kind of dive into the science work because you approached it from this, your, your assets that you were already coming into the table with? Yeah,
Speaker 1:You said it perfectly. If you look at it from a different lens, there's all these different ways you can approach science.
Speaker 2:I find it in my own science class too. It's, we're all teaching similar sta the same standards mm-hmm.<affirmative>, but how I approach it is through Eric Cross's kind of personality and understanding and, and my angle and another teacher might do it a different way, but we're, we're all leading to the same destination.
Speaker 1:Exactly.
Speaker 2:That kind of leads me to my next question and, and this is kind of having to do with the project that you just alluded to the the biomimicry project. So you did a biomimicry project. Would you consider that like a project based learning assignment? Well,
Speaker 1:This will be the third year that I've taught this unit and when I wrapped it up last year, it's through the amplified science program. And they do a wonderful job of having um, a lot of investigations and really thinking like a biomimicry engineer. But the final part of the unit was to design a robot inspired by, um, a giraffe to eliminate invasive plants in a particular environment. And the project part of it at the end was to create a model, um, using Popsicle sticks and pipe cleaners. And then the other part of it was a digital simulation where they would put in different shape structures of teeth and um, kind of reconfigure the shape of the mouth and then they'd put in what they think is effective and then the computer would say, oh, you're 98% successful or 70% successful. And I remember at the end of it the students were like, okay, well when do we make the robots? And I thought, well, we're just doing the simulation or we're just doing this model out of Popsicle sticks, we're not actually gonna make a robot. And they just seemed so disappointed. And that's kind of how the wheels started turning my head like, well what if they actually could make a robot? The only thing stopping me is I don't have the materials to do it. So, um, shortly after that unit wrapped up, coincidentally I saw the email about this grant opportunity that was being offered through the Orange County Council for Gifted Education. And they said If you have a project that you wanna get funded that would promote gate strategies within the classroom, then you can submit this proposal. So that's how the ball got rolling for that proposal. And um, I researched different robotics kits and different companies and I found one that was really user friendly for third graders and not so difficult for me to learn as well.
Speaker 2:You're a risk taker. Like I'm already seeing this as I'm talking to you. Is that just who you are or do you have a network? Like what keeps you taking these risks?
Speaker 1:I don't, I don't really consider a risk because it's exciting for me. Like I said, I don't know that much about robotics, but the idea of learning more and then teaching that to my students is exciting. And you know, there was a little bit of risk cuz I'm deviating a little bit from the curriculum from the standard lesson. But to me, the reward of having those kids feel like they accomplished something and the way that they can take ownership of it and go in so many different directions and on top of that, develop coding skills and computer science skills and robotic skills, to me it was just like I cannot take that away from them. That's such an opportunity that if I have the means to do it, I have to just take it and run with it. So I think just being inspired by the potential outcomes of what could happen is what made me take that risk.
Speaker 2:Did you just kind of create this from scratch? Did you work with a team of people? How did you come to the point where you were ready to present this for the grant?
Speaker 1:Um, pretty much from a scratch. Like I said, the Amplify Unit, it does teach them about robotics that were inspired by nature. So some of the materials that they read, and there's some videos that show really great examples. There's like a robotic arm that was inspired by an elephant trunk. There's a book that shows what this field is biomimicry engineer. They actually show like what they do in that field. And I thought this is a perfect way to apply it because the less the curriculum's already pretty much set it up for me now I just have to add this one final component to it. And essentially it becomes project based learning at that point because they're taking their knowledge and their skills that they've learned up to that point. Um, even the unit that we're doing doing right now is building up to it. So it's kind of that final, instead of giving them a test at the end and saying, okay, tell me what you learned about inheritance and traits and environments. They can actually take that knowledge and apply it to, um, an innovation or creation that comes out of their own, their own mind, which is so much more powerful.
Speaker 2:Do they, do they connect to any other learning goals as they're doing these projects?
Speaker 1:Well I think first and foremost it, the 21st century skills that we, from day one I tell, tell them, you know, the four Cs, collaboration, creativity, communication, and critical thinking. Um, all of those are woven in through this lesson. From the beginning we talked about the whole engineering design process. So from the beginning they start with a question and oftentimes that actually can be the hardest for them to think about what's a scientific question or a problem that I wanna solve. If they're passionate about maybe a sport or the environment or something within their school. And I go, there it is, okay, that's the problem. How can you design something inspired by nature to solve that problem? And then from there they go into the planning and the designing and the testing and then the improving. So going through that engineering design process, um, I think is what really makes them feel like they are the engineer going through this. And they can make mistakes. They can take risks. Um, a lot of my students I found are afraid to take risks. They wanna make sure they succeed and they need that challenge to know that if they do fail, that's okay, we can just revisit this, we can test it, we can look at it in a different way.
Speaker 2:You maybe wonder about how, how do you assess something like this?
Speaker 1:Um, I think that's where all those stages along the way are important because I, I wanna make sure that they have a plan and that it's based on the knowledge that they've gained in the unit. Um, I think one of the other things about project based learning is the, the final product of how they demonstrate their mastery. And in my classroom I oftentimes give them a choice of how they're gonna present that to me. So maybe they're going to write it out like an essay. Maybe they're gonna create a Google slide, maybe they're gonna make a video, maybe they're going to, obviously in this part they will have the model, but they'll have to have some way to explain it to me. And I think giving them that choice gives them, um, the opportunity to show it in the way that's meaningful to
Speaker 2:Them. And are you using like a rubric when you're grading these, these assignments? Or how do you actually grade it?
Speaker 1:Yes. So we have a rubric that's provided to us for the written component that all the students will do at the end. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, but I can take that same rubric and see if they've applied that to the project. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>. So even the verbiage wouldn't really need to change. I think it's still important that the students are able to demonstrate this in written form and so all of them will still complete that written component, but to also give them the opportunity to show that in like the modality of their choice, I think is really important too.
Speaker 2:Right. And you have some students that feel much more comfortable being able to, able to present orally versus Exactly. Versus writing versus maybe doing a video. I, I mean we see that in middle school and, and in high school too. Students show their knowledge or their understanding of a topic depending on the medium in different ways and some better than others. Some uh, may find that they can communicate it a lot better orally, but when Penn goes to paper or fingers go to keyboard, you might grade it completely different cuz you're not, they're not able to transfer what's in their mind into writing and the way you're doing it and giving that student choice, they probably have so much more buy-in I'd imagine because they got to pick what they get to do.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:You, you said something earlier and I wanna come back to it. So you mentioned GA and this is GATE is not something that I, I hear a lot in my world, but it was something I heard a lot when I was in school. There were kind of all of these perceptions and ideas about gate mm-hmm.<affirmative>, you're a GATE teacher, correct. Right. What is GATE and what is it like being a GATE teacher? What are their misconceptions if, if any, that you might have heard or come across?
Speaker 1:Um, well, so GATE stands for Gifted and Talented Education and, um, first and foremost I think a misconception is that we're just kind of doing whatever we want. We come up with our own lessons and, and teach a totally different curriculum, which is, is definitely a myth because we start with the exact same standards as any other third grade class that you'd walk into. That's definitely like where we start. But I think in addition to the standards, we also implement what are called GATE standards. So they're depth, complexity, acceleration, and novelty. And there's a lot of tools that we use in the classroom. Different strategies. You'll see things like the prompts of depth and complexity. We'll use things like think like a disciplinarian, which I'm doing think like a biomimicry engineer. Um, but really all they are are just thinking tools and strategies to elevate students thinking and kind of go below that surface level of the content to dive deeper. Um, it also provides opportunities for acceleration. So for example, with this, our last science unit, it was on magnetic force and there was a handful of students that just grasped the concepts right away and they're ready for something else. They're ready for more rigor, they need some challenge. And so at that point I can kind of pull that group aside and provide some differentiation for them. And I said, okay, well you, you understand the concept of magnetic force balance forces, so now what I want you to do is think about something that you're really passionate about and how could you use magnetic force somewhere in that field again to solve a problem, problem based learning and present it to me. So they create this, um, form, it's like a think like a disciplinarian frame and one of them was think like a hockey player and he's trying to think of, um, a way that he can incorporate magnetic force. Anyway, I could go on and on, but basically it's, it's<laugh> finding what these students' passions are. And I do that with all my students. And I should probably preface this by saying that even though these are standards that I implement in my classroom because it's a GATE classroom, these are practices and tools that can be applied to any learner mm-hmm.<affirmative> at any age. And they really just enrich the education for all students.
Speaker 2:So your classroom is, is a mixed classroom. There's GATE students and then general Right. Students, non gate, uh, students in the same class. It's interesting because I imagine GATE is kind of scaffolding up to, to a higher level, but then mm-hmm.<affirmative>, you also said something that I've noticed when I'm creating scaffolds for my students to, to support them who may not be at a grade level, maybe in reading or literacy or math, those same scaffolds can help all students.
Speaker 1:So yeah, I don't, I don't just go, okay, you're my GATE students, I'm gonna use these practices on you. I use it for the whole class. Um, but I'm also surprised by having that mix of these different learning styles. A lot of times students are inspired by other students or, you know, we have this big thing about one of the prompts is multiple perspectives. I try to do that as much as I can because students are inspired by the ideas of their peers. And quite often, you know, if they hear it from a peer, it could be exactly what I just said, but they heard their students say it in a different way and it just clicks and they're like, wow, I get that.
Speaker 2:I, and I think a lot of teachers struggle or, or maybe feel ill-equipped to support higher level students. Did you get trained to be, to be a GATE teacher first? Lemme ask that question. Did you get a special training for this?
Speaker 1:Yes. I went through a course, I think it was like a six weeks, six week certification course through my
Speaker 2:District. And Okay, so you, you got, you got a special training, which I've been in the classroom for nine years. I teach at a university as an adjunct professor, but I've never been trained on teaching gifted or accelerated students. And I'm kind of wondering now, like, did it, you feel like it made you a better teacher? Absolutely. And, and if so, how do I, how do I get to do this?
Speaker 1:Well, it's through the county. I mean, I, anybody can get trained and certified how to teach this way. But, um, just like you said, I think coming out of that, my eyes were just open. And my biggest takeaway is that these practices, even though they are designed for gifted and talented, um, it really kind of reshaped my thinking about how I number one present material to the students. That I'm doing it in an engaging way and I'm not just lecturing at them. There's opportunities for them to collaborate and communicate and use multiple resources. Um, so you know, how I'm teaching has changed. Um, and then also how I'm providing opportunities for them to demonstrate their learning. And a lot of that is project based learning because once they have the knowledge and skills they want, they need to do something with it. I mean, that's really the true definition of innovation is taking the skills or taking something that you've learned and now go with it. Run with it.
Speaker 2:How, uh, how can we take what you've learned and then, and kind of spread it. So teachers have this in their toolkit too. Like for me, I have, uh, the multiple ways to be able to support reading and literacy and math and tools and sentence frames. Mm-hmm.<affirmative> and my students who have, uh, special learning plans, I have a have a lot of tool sets for that. I wanna build my tool sets for this other area for my students who want to continue, who wanna run or go beyond or even stretch themselves. I think we need to take some of the things that you're doing and not make them kind of like this exclusive group, but also let's, let's share it with everyone cuz it's mm-hmm.<affirmative>, everybody can access it. I
Speaker 1:Agree.
Speaker 2:We might, we might see a lot more potential or a lot more opportunities for students who might not otherwise
Speaker 1:Have them. And one thing, my school, I'm really proud to say that my principal has, has seen that. You know, he's like, well why are we just keeping this in the gate classroom? So he's working on getting all of our teachers certified.
Speaker 2:No, I love what you're doing and your principal sounds, sounds awesome for doing that and recognizing that this can, this can benefit more students than just the ones who mm-hmm.<affirmative>, you know, pass the Raven Test, I think is what it's called when I was taking, or whatever it is, you know, whatever it is back then. Exactly. We've talked about project based learning, the Gate classroom. I, I kind of wanna come back to you and as, as we wrap up thinking about like, the jobs that you and I do and the people that listen to this podcast, we have one of the few jobs that people remember us for a lifetime. And I wanna ask you, who, who was someone that was maybe inspirational in your educational career that inspired you or is maybe one of the most memorable? You might have several mm-hmm.<affirmative>, but who is someone that, that was memorable to you in your career and why? Why were they memorable to you?
Speaker 1:Yeah. Well obviously when I was younger I was definitely inspired by all my teachers. The fact that I turned my bedroom into a classroom, I just was just in awe of this profession. Um, but I think one that really resonated with me was my junior year in high school. I was taking a newspaper class and the teacher was Mrs. Kavanaugh and she really taught us everything from writing the articles to the editing, to putting the pages together. And I remember in that class I was working on this program called Cork Express. I don't even know if it exists anymore, but I was just fascinated with putting all these pieces together that we'd worked on for so long and getting the articles, picking the pictures, the illustrations and the titles. And I remember her looking at me saying, you really enjoy this, don't you? And I said, yeah. And she said, well, I have a computer graphics elective class that you should take next year. And I thought, okay, I'd love to do this, this opportunity to expand my knowledge and my skills. So because of that, I took the computer graphics class the next year and um, I just remember throughout the, the whole time, she was just constantly encouraging me and acknowledging my skills and I find myself doing that as a teacher as well. Um, and cuz that really resonated with me. And it's funny, this summer I was going through some boxes of some old stuff from high school and I found this handout that I had made because I remember my senior year of high school, she said, Janice, you know what? You're doing such a great job. Uh, we have these new incoming students coming into the newspaper class and I'd love for you to actually teach them how to do this page Nation on this co express program. I want you to put something together and actually teach it to them. I thought, wow, she believes in me that much that she's gonna let me teach this to the incoming students. Um, but I think my takeaway from that was that she gave me the opportunity to take those skills and, and actually do something with them to apply them right away.
Speaker 2:Mrs. Kavanaugh, miss Kavanaugh, shout out to Miss Kavanaugh. Uh, as you told that story, I heard you as a teacher because I'm hearing she's applying these gate strategies in that situation. That's what that's what I heard.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:She personalized this learning. She created a specialized opportunity, you presented to a real audience that was authentic. Mm-hmm.<affirmative> it, it had this personalization in it and this rigor and this challenge and it made a huge impact. And it's, it's, it's just amazing to listen to you and hear this come full circle and now you're doing this with little ones. Uh, and I just wanna thank you for your time on, uh, in doing the interview, sharing your story with, uh, how you became a teacher, your students, the projects that you do. And just like so many teachers going the extra mile for your kids and bringing in these really important 21st century skills gonna be so much better off for it. And I know it makes my job easier when I get them in the classroom, so thank you.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Well thank you for the opportunity.
Speaker 2:My pleasure. Thanks so much for listening and we wanna hear more about you and the educators who inspire you. You can nominate them as a future guest on Science Connections by emailing stem@amplify.com. That's s t e m amplify.com. And be sure to click subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts and join our Facebook group Science Connections, the Community. Until next time.
