Growing as a Science Teacher Online

MACT Synthesis Paper

In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the

Master of Arts Degree in Curriculum and Teaching
Department of Teacher Education, Michigan State University

Erin L. Barger
PID A42057906
December 16, 2018
 In May of 2014 I finished my year of student teaching in a 5th grade classroom in Holt,

MI. At the start of the 2014-2015 school year I found myself in a long-term substitute teaching

position in a 7th and 8th grade science classroom in Madison Heights, MI, and then substitute

taught around the Metro-Detroit area from December until March. On March 9th, 2015 I was

hired as the 6th grade science teacher at Michigan Connections Academy (MICA), a k-12 virtual

public charter school that serves students throughout the state of Michigan, and I am still in that

same position today. It has been extremely taxing learning how to be a full-time teacher with my

own classroom, more specifically in the foreign setting of an online school. Teaching online has

its own set of challenges, and adapting my knowledge of teaching to fit the virtual environment

was quite slow at first. Throw in Michigan adopting the new Next Generation Science Standards

(NGSS), too, and you have quite the interesting journey for a brand new teacher.

My school believes in continuing the education of their teachers and offers tuition

reimbursement for teaching-related graduate courses, so I was able to begin completing

coursework in order to work toward earning my MATC degree beginning in the summer of

2016. My personal goal for all of my coursework has been to grow as a science teacher in order

to help my students learn as much as possible. I have been able to take three classes specifically

geared toward science classrooms, and even one for teaching students online. My MATC

experiences have kick started my growth as a science teacher at my school and given me strong

foundations for how to build better lessons and teach my students, despite the challenges of

designing lessons for the online environment rather than the brick-and-mortar classroom. MATC

has also given me understanding about how the individual backgrounds and cultures of my

students can influence their learning experiences, and how we can improve their learning by

making certain changes to school practices and working to build meaningful relationships.
Teaching Science Better

One valuable aspect of taking the series of TE 861 courses (A, B, and C) was that I

immediately took a close look at the NGSS and Ambitious Science Teaching and started

developing lessons centered around them in the content areas that I teach in my course. Within

my first year or so teaching at MICA we heard about the adoption of the NGSS, but we didn’t

spend much time really exploring and understanding them together as a team of science teachers.

We also talked about the use of phenomena to teach students, but we had a difficult time

understanding what that meant and how to incorporate them in our lessons. My experiences in

TE 861 courses allowed me to get a guided look at understanding the NGSS and through

Ambitious Science Teaching observed what it really looks like for students to observe

phenomena, discuss their ideas and observations together, and eventually explain what they see

with evidence. I was then able to take the information gained from my coursework and share

ideas with my team. Spending time thinking of phenomena we could show our students either

through videos, online simulators, or over webcam became a regular occurrence, and I was so

excited to hear fellow teachers talking about LEGOs in chemistry and realize I could use that to

demonstrate photosynthesis and cellular respiration to pique my students’ interests in a unique

way.

By the end of these courses I walked away with a couple series of high-quality lessons

that I could then immediately use in my online course to teach seasons, and another to teach the

movement of matter and energy through ecosystems (Artifact 2). Each lesson sequence had been

revised multiple times throughout each course using feedback from my instructors, and the

lesson series from TE 861B (Inquiry, Nature of Science, and Science Teaching) was taught and

immediately reflected on so I could make changes for the future. Through the intensive writing
and revision processes in making those lessons, I now have ingrained in me a process for future

lesson planning that will help me ensure that I am aligning with the NGSS, using phenomena as

much as possible, and having my students exercise their skills of explaining their ideas and

supporting them with evidence. It also helped me see the benefits of questioning students about

their prior knowledge of science topics and designing exit tickets following each of my lessons.

Without asking, I have no way of knowing if there are major gaps in knowledge I am not

covering or if there are misconceptions that I need to address.

Lack of Motivation and Effort

A seemingly insurmountable challenge for me in the online teaching environment is

helping students who are chronically behind in their work and/or failing multiple courses, and I

have noticed that there appears to be a lack of caretaker support at home for these students.

Motivation is also a frequent issue in brick-and-mortar classrooms, too, but there seems to be so

much more you can do about it when you are in a classroom with a student, and so much less

you can do when they are tens of hundreds of miles from you. I was curious about the causes

behind a lack of motivation in my students and how I could help them become more motivated to

learn the material and pass their classes in my unique online environment. I was also curious

about if there were any connections between caretaker involvement/actions/attitudes and student

motivation and success in school, and how I could help the caretakers of my student who are

trying to figure out how to help their students succeed.

In TE 861C (Action Research in K-12 Science and Mathematics Classrooms) I designed

an action research proposal that could answer these questions I had about my classroom (Artifact

1). With the help of nine academic articles I learned all about what influences student

motivation, as well as factors that can specifically impact student motivation and hinder success
in an online environment. I also looked into how parents influence student success and

motivation through their interactions with their students and their involvement in their child’s

school. Using the information I learned I designed a student survey and a parent survey (29-31

questions) that, combined with student gradebooks and any interviews I would conduct after I

received survey results, could be used to answer my questions and solve my problem. I have yet

to conduct this action research proposal in my classroom, but the product is finished and ready to

go at any time. If I moved forward with my proposal and analyzed the results it would be a huge

benefit to the colleagues at my school who must also be struggling with these problems.

Achievement Gaps at MICA

Lack of motivation in students is only one of many issues that I have encountered as an

online educator, but one that is not unique to online education is achievement gaps between

different student groups, as seen by test scores. In TE 820 (Power and Pluralism in School

Practice) I studied the unequal opportunities of students within and across schools in the United

States and looked more closely at my own school. I learned about many of the factors that cause

these inequalities, such as housing, economic inequality, segregation, gifted programs, tracks,

disciplinary policies, resources, funding, and differing cultures. Many of these differences we do

not have the power to change, but in our own school we do have power over some of them. I

wrote a paper (Artifact 3) explaining three specific ways my school could shrink the achievement

gap between black and white students, including editing the gifted and talented policy to bring in

a greater diversity of students and becoming more educated on their cultures.

An important action that we could take at MICA would be educating teachers and parents

about how to better identify gifted and talented (GT) students so that we can increase the number

of students exposed to this challenging curriculum. Black, Hispanic, and English language
learning students, as well as students who have problems with behavior, are all less likely to be

identified as GT, so many students could lose out on the opportunity even though they would

belong in the program and increase their learning. I was forced to realize that I likely did not

have the skills to identify students for GT programs and I could very well be letting students slip

under the radar due to my unintentional bias, and likely other teachers at my school are doing the

same thing. At my school I would love to have some formal training for teachers to identify GT

kids, and also for parents since they are the biggest advocates for their children and may

recognize their potential more than we would since they spend more time with them.

I am a white Christian upper-middle class female who grew up in the affluent suburbs of

Metro-Detroit with two still-married parents and two siblings. The school district that I grew up

in had mostly white and Asian students with very small percentages of other ethnicities, and a

low percentage of students eligible for free or reduced price lunch. I was identified as gifted and

talented in late elementary school, so by high school I was taking mostly honors and AP sections

of courses with most of the other “smart” white and Asian students. To say I know little about

black and Hispanic culture is an understatement. About 16% of the student population at my

school is black, 6% are two or more races, and 5% are Hispanic or Latino. 49% of students at my

school are eligible for free or reduced-priced lunch. I learned in my coursework (Artifact 3) that

teachers are less effective at engaging students when there is a difference in social background

because most teachers are unable to grasp their students’ realities. I was hit with the reality that

arguably I am less effective at teaching half of my students; I don’t understand where they are

coming from because I haven’t experienced it myself and have little knowledge of it. I also am

not in a brick-and-mortar classroom with my students all day to interact with them and build

rapport, so it is even harder for me to build those relationships with the students that I don’t
immediately connect with. I realized that MICA should provide teachers with professional

development in order to educate us on the cultures of minority students in our school, especially

those of black students, so we are better able to cultivate relationships and mutual understanding.

This will also enable us to understand how their culture influences their educational needs and

how we can differentiate instruction and improve achievement. We have a professional

development team at MICA and I would like to either join the team in the future or at least make

a suggestion to the team that these topics would be valuable to address, as the vast majority of

teachers at my school are also white and middle-class. In the meantime, I need to do what I can

to educate myself and work hard to build rapport with my students despite not fully

understanding their cultures and home lives.

Getting to Know my Students as Individuals

Despite the challenges I face when trying to connect with certain students who just won’t

engage, I need to continue pressing on to reach my students. It is my belief that the relationships

that teachers build with their students are equally as important as the lesson content we try to

teach them, because without that relationship many students are unwilling to learn from us.

Unfortunately, building relationships with students and parents is much more difficult in an

online setting since we rarely have opportunities to meet students in person, and we do not

communicate with one another every day. I try to build rapport with my students and families

right from the start of the school year during our first “welcome call.” During my first call to a

family I follow a worksheet (Artifact 4) that guides me through each required topic as well as the

additional topics I feel are important when it comes to getting to know students and their

families, such as the unique reason that caused them to try online school, and their student’s

individual interests, strengths, and weaknesses. These pieces of knowledge are useful for me in
understanding each family’s unique dynamic, which often influences a students’ success, and I

can use information about their interests to spark topics of conversation down the road.

After the welcome call there are scheduled biweekly calls with students once every two

weeks where we discuss both personal and academic subjects. I prefer to have those “calls” in

my LiveLesson room where the student and I can see each other over webcam, which I believe

helps to build that relationship since I’m no longer just a voice over the phone. The format of the

calls typically follows the same pattern but with certain things switched in or out depending on

the time of year, and we always follow a template (such as Artifact 4). I always start these

conversations by asking the student to update me on their life, things that have happened recently

and/or things that are coming up for them soon that they are excited for. Most of our time is

spent discussing school topics, such as checking in on their progress in terms of grades and

lesson completion, if/how their grades are changing, and goal setting, either making a new goal

together or checking in on the progress of one. Through these consistent talks I am able to get a

strong picture of how each student is doing academically and how things could improve to help

them do even better. I am able to determine if their needs are being met and can share concerns

with the rest of the sixth grade team if I see problems and need advice or need to provide the

student with extra support of some kind. Weekly I meet with the other sixth grade teachers as

part of a Professional Learning Community (PLC), and working together for the betterment of

our students has been extremely vital to my success as a teacher and therefore the success of my

students (Artifact 6).

Many students need extra support in each content area, which is why we provide tiered

supports to our students. This year there has been a big push for providing Tier II interventions

and tracking progress, so I have modified the tracker that another teacher created in order to keep
track of each individual student’s grades, lesson completion, and interventions offered. By

updating my tracker each week I am able to see how students are progressing through my course,

if they are attending the interventions that they are invited to, and if they are making progress

and improving if they are attending interventions. If students are attending but their grades are

not improving, this lets me know that I need to try something else for that student, possibly

scheduling individual LiveLessons with them rather than small groups. By also taking a close

look at where each individual student is at in my course (since some are in various stages of

being behind) and how they have performed on certain assignments, I can create small groups

that would focus on different topics to make sure that each student is being offered something

that would be beneficial to them at that time rather than offering them all the same intervention.

Without keeping track of progress for each student and doing it in this particular way, I would

have no idea how to best help my students, and I also would have no idea if my interventions

were successful in helping improve student learning. Tracking allows me to more successfully

differentiate my teaching for my students.

Something else that helps be to individualize our program for my students is the work

that I do in my science PLC (Artifact 6). This year there is a heavy focus on Tier II, so we

discuss strategies for success quite frequently so that we can reach as many students as possible.

We also discuss differentiation of portfolio projects that students complete, working with each

other to revise directions, assessment tasks/questions, and grading rubrics so that we focus on the

most important aspects of what students should be learning and demonstrating knowledge of

(such as NGSS), and we also make sure that there are multiple ways for students to demonstrate

their knowledge and understanding. We also spend a lot of time discussing best practices and

sharing advice with each other so that we can all be the best teachers we can be for our students.
Conclusion

After nearly 4 years of teaching at Michigan Connections Academy and 2.5 years of

taking courses to complete my MATC degree, I still struggle with my science teaching online

and helping my students grow to their potential, but I am so much more skilled than when I

started. I am more knowledgeable about the Next Generation Science Standards and can whip up

quality phenomena-based lessons that allow my students to make observations of events and

connect it to their scientific knowledge and their daily lives. I have a tool that I designed based

on my problem of having unmotivated and struggling students that could quickly give me more

insight into why I see this problem and what I could possibly do to mitigate it. I have new insight

about action steps that my school could take this year to begin closing the achievement gap

between black and white students, and I can go to my principal and professional development

team to present my ideas and academic literature to actually make change happen. I can make a

difference with the staff at my school by continuing to participate in PLCs, make a difference

with my students by working hard to get to know my students as individual people and figure out

what makes them tick, and continue to examine where each of my students are at and what their

needs are so I can address them for each student and help them learn science.

There is so much more that I want to do in the future, such as take up a leadership

position at my school so I am in a better place for sharing ideas and enacting change, and seek

out my own information and professional development opportunities to continue addressing the

problems of practice that I experience. I also want to learn more about the cultures of my

students and how to build a stronger community in my virtual classroom so that students feel less

isolated or alone and are more motivated to learn. My journey with the MATC program may be

over, but my learning is not. As a teacher, I am a lifelong learner who must constantly work to
improve her practice. Teaching science online is especially challenging, and perhaps as online

schooling becomes more prevalent there will be a larger community of online science teachers to

share ideas and best practices with, as well as general tips and tricks for best helping students and

parents who are learning in this unique environment.