Learning in the new age

By Hugh Fisher
hfisher@kannapoliscitizen.com
Biotechnology is revolutionizing Kannapolis, thanks to the North Carolina Research Campus.
And it is revolutionizing educations in Kannapolis City Schools, as well. The construction of the campus has encouraged educators to emphasize science and technology in the classroom.
Construction of a new science wing at A.L. Brown High School will begin in January 2009. But teachers are already laying the groundwork for studies that will take place there.<!–more–>
Scott Rogers has been a science instructor at A.L. Brown for 16 years. He has taken the lead in preparations for future biotechnology studies by developing a new science course that goes online this fall.
The best way to prepare students to study biotechnology, or any other science, is to make them skilled at critical thinking, he said.
“What they need is inquiry-based science,” Rogers said. “The problem is, true inquiry happens when the kids are posed a problem and they question it — they do all of the things that lead them to the answer.”
That means beginning with a question and designing experiments themselves — and, at times, coming to a wrong answer instead of a correct one. But during the school year, pressure to prepare for end-of-course tests limits the time available for experimentation.
“We don’t have time for wrong answers,” Rogers said. “We have to lead them to the right answers. And you learn a lot more from finding the wrong answers.”
The new inquiry-based science course, available to students beginning this year, will not be required to have a state end-of-course test.
In the class, students will learn the rigorous scientific methods of proper experimentation. They won’t start with a tray full of instruments and be led through a process. Instead, they will develop the process for themselves.
One project, Rogers said, will involve using a construction set to design miniature bridges and roller-coasters that work, as a means of learning physics principles.
Trial and error will lead students to an understanding of the proper procedures — with appropriate instructor guidance.
“Through this project, I hope students will learn aspects of engineering that are physics-related, about mass, about energy,” he said. “They get to talk about the science, then build it.”
Although this won’t be a “biotechnology class,” at least one project will have a biotechnology focus. Rogers hopes to have a unit on nutrition science, touching on the types of knowledge researchers will be studying in Kannapolis.
The emphasis at A.L. Brown, Rogers said, needs to be on developing good thinkers who can then go to college and become biotech researchers, physicists, nutritionists, engineers — anything they want to be.
Learning the scientific method of experimentation — how to think critically in solving problems — is a good way to get students heading in the right direction.
“If you think about it, that’s what’s going on at the research campus,” Rogers said.

New technologies
Rogers is not the only instructor taking new approaches in the classroom.
A $1.6 million federal IMPACT grant awarded to Kannapolis City Schools is providing teachers with new technology and the training needed to use it.
Teachers are being given their own laptop computers to use in teaching and developing lesson plans.
Also available are Mimio “smart board” tools that allow teachers to print, save and digitize their classroom presentations and video cameras for recording presentations.
Rogers is one of several educators who has helped others learn about ways of using these new tools effectively at training sessions held this summer.
“We are finding out how to take the standard paper-and-pencil curriculum and include 21st-century skills,” said Brenda McCombs, director of Instructional Technology for Kannapolis City Schools.
That term, “21st-century skills,” means learning how to use the Internet, computers and other classroom technology to their full potential, not just as gimmicks.
Dr. Chip Buckwell, principal at Kannapolis Middle School, said teaching students the right ways to use technology is more important than ever before.
“Children today are what is called ‘technology natives,’ ” said Buckwell. “They’ve never known a world without the Internet, without instant messenger. …
“We are making the new technology a primary focus of how we teach. It will be infused in everything we do.”
Rogers hopes that new emphasis on technology, and a fresh emphasis on science education, will lead to a close interaction between the education system and the research campus — allowing scientists there, or at other schools, to interact with Kannapolis schoolchildren via the Internet.
The new technology and the opportunities offered by the research campus are good opportunities, he said.
“We are actually going to be the ones leading the way,” Rogers said. “We are going to be ahead of the game instead of hanging on and trying to catch up.”