A Cache Withdrawal: A Vivid Learning Experience

"A Cache Withdrawal" posts will consist of vivid memories in my educational experiences that have helped shaped who I am as an educator. Consider post an introspective of my philosophical beliefs regarding education.
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If you are an educator who travels the United States of America to teaching conferences that are held throughout an academic school year, one of the issues that plague our schools, regardless of location and geographical region in the country, is that teachers have a difficult time bridging the gap between what students do in school and what students will do once they obtain a job.

As it stands, the two seemingly different domains can be thought of as typically existing in the following way.

What students do in school is separate from what students will do whenever they seek obtain their job. Note that both domains are not connected to each other, and also notice that each domain contains a different shape. The structure of the school environment and the structure of the environment at a specific job are entirely different, and the boundaries of what is allowed and expected are usually different as well. Consider the contrasting colors represented by the school domain and the job domain; these different colors represent what students will typically do in both domains – purple represents acquiring knowledge for the sake of knowledge (with the hopes of applying what is learned once a student is hired) in a school environment while the green represents the fact that students will spend more time applying knowledge and using skills in order to complete a given task. With different structures, different boundaries, different expectations, and different skills that are emphasized in both domains, it is not difficult to conceive that many students have a significant amount of trouble as they transition from school into the job market.

As an educator who is currently working on doctoral coursework in STEM Education, I am highly interested in the blending of the two domains in order to provide a better transition for students as they enter adult-hood; I also want to see a blending of the two domains in order to show students and workers that a person’s education and an individual’s job are inherently linked in such a fashion that “education” can be acquired by “working” while “working” is a result of “education”. In a perfect world, the two domains would more closely resemble the following illustration to your left.

A student’s work completed at school and work completed for a specific job should contain the same expectations, the same boundaries, and should both mimic each other from a practical standpoint. Let’s meld a student’s experiences at school with a student’s experiences at a job so that the two almost become seamless.

One such way to help bring school experiences and workforce experiences closer together is by implementing a cognitive apprenticeship in your own classroom if given the opportunity. While one can study the research associated with a cognitive apprenticeship, it is pertinent to know that, a “Cognitive apprenticeship is a theory of the process where a master of a skill teaches [teacher] that skill to an apprentice [student].” (Wikipedia, 2016 – See Link Below). Rather than dissecting the theory of a cognitive apprenticeship, I do want to share an experience that is still the most meaningful learning activity that I have ever had a chance to participate.

Imagine, if you will, the spring semester of my senior year of high school. The year was 2007, and I was enjoying my final days of my glorious high school years. I was enrolled in a Chemistry 2 course, which was a continuation of the school’s first Chemistry course since our school did not offer Advanced Placement Chemistry at the time. Two weeks before the end of the semester, my teacher assigned the course’s final project.

The final project was assigned as follows:

- A school employee has been murdered (a member of the science department)

- The murder scene consists of the dead body (with a bruise on the back of his head), a rope tied on one end, broken class, the top rim of a fish tank, one dead fish, spilled liquid (clear), spilled liquid (brown), and another mysterious liquid that appeared to have a pinkish color.

- A list of eye witness accounts of where five of the department’s science teachers were at the time of the murder along with their personal statements regarding where they were and what they were doing

- It was our job to determine the contents of all three liquids, identify the three liquids, and connect the three liquids to the murder of the dead individual.

- After determining the contents of the liquids and the identification of the liquids, it was the students’ jobs to piece together how the three liquids were related, and how the three liquids contributed to the murder of the individual.

Without much guidance, we were instructed that we had two weeks in the school’s chemistry laboratory to run whatever tests that we desired. We were allowed to use chemistry equipment found in the laboratory which also included technological probes that could be used to make accurate scientific measurements.

As we me made measurements in the laboratory in order to ultimately determine the murderer, all students were required to keep a notebook of the following components:

-       Notebook Cover Page (Name, Date, Class, Class Period, and Title of the Project)

-       Driving Question Page (What we were required to investigate)

-       Evidence Page (An annotated list of all forms of evidence available to the students)

-       Data Pages (An organized, sequenced collection of pages of collected data, calculations, data tables, and graphs)

-       A summary of findings

-       An account of how the murder took place by connecting the three mystery liquids to the broken glass, the rope, the rim of a fish tank, the dead fish, and the bump on the individual’s head.

-       An accompanying PowerPoint that summarizes the content of the notebook so that it can be presented to the rest of the students in the class

Over the next two weeks, I ran the following tests on each of the three liquids

- Density (as a result of measuring the volume and mass of a given liquid) calculations were conducted for each of the three liquids

o   Each calculation was meticulously shown to be reported later

- Freezing Point Test – To see at what temperature the liquids froze

- Computerized Graphs for each liquid were created to show how the liquid’s temperature changed over time

- Boiling Point Test – To see at what temperature the liquid began to boil and to see if any residue was left as a result of boiling away the liquid

o   This also showed if more than one liquid substance was contained within the “sample liquids”

- Computerized Graphs for each liquid were created to show how the liquid’s temperature changed over time

- Particle Separation Test – To see if the liquids contained any particulate matter

o   Data tables were constructed to qualitatively show if any large particulate matter was left behind for each liquid

o   If particulate matter was left behind, measurements in terms of mass and size were conducted and also placed in the data tables

- Centrifugal Liquid Test – To see if any of the liquids contained more than one liquid that could be separated in much the same manner that a blood centrifuge can separate blood components.

o   Photographs were taken of each centrifugal test and liquids identified by color (after separation) were recorded based on the density of the liquids

Since a test is only conclusive with multiple trials, each test was conducted at least three times to ensure that data acquisition was confidently collected.

Whenever data was collected, tables were created, and graphs were constructed, all of results were required to be organized in a notebook in a logical, sequential manner. It was also required that anything placed in the notebook (written statements, calculations, data tables, and graphs) were required to be completed on a computer in order for the notebook to remain professional.

At the end of the two weeks, complete analysis of the three liquids were conducted, the three liquids were connected (salt water, blood, and soap containing soil) to the crime scene in order to form a written account of how the murder took place.

At the end of the activity I found that the murdered individual was carrying his salt water fish tank on the second floor of the building, accidentally slipped on a rope that was laying on the floor (which was used earlier in the day by the JROTC for their daily training), and fell down to the first story of the front foyer. The individual landed on his back, but his head bumped the floor during impact, the fish tank fell to the ground next to his body, and salt water (with the salt water fish) was spilled all over the floor. The dead individual started bleeding, but the blood had sat long enough to develop a brownish/rust-like color. The football coach (who happened to be another science teacher) witnessed the accidence, used soap to attempt to clean up the scene, and accidentally got dirt from his football field mixed with the soap. For fear of being accused of killing the other science member, the football coach left the scene to return to the football field house.

While the minutiae of the activity is not necessarily important, it is evident that I was given an opportunity to complete an investigation as if I worked for a Crime Scene Unit, and I was able to apply my Chemistry knowledge with the help of teacher who served in the capacity as a mentor throughout the project. In essence, I was a part of a cognitive apprenticeship that more closely mimicked the real world when compared to what students typically do in a traditional Chemistry class. It is this cognitive apprenticeship that has allowed me to keep vivid memories of the experience even though it took place almost ten years ago.

My teacher successfully blended the domains of school and a job into a singular domain in which success relied on both so that I could leave long-term memories of my experiences in my final year of high school.

The question is…

How can we do this in more academic disciplines in such a way that these experiences are the norm rather than unique projects?

And with that, I am caching out!