What are the Process Standards and Why Are They So Important?
Lora Holt M.Ed.
The content standards, the content standards, the content standards! You hear those words thrown around a lot when people talk about Science curriculum. The content standards are the "What?" in the curriculum, they are the big discoveries in Science that lay the foundation for further Science studies. They are the fun topics that teachers like to teach, like doing an erosion lab with stream tables or figuring out how to build parallel circuits with electricity. If you go to a Science training it will usually be on a content standard topic, a best practice or lessons that support say, chemical changes, or Newton's Laws of Motion. As science teachers we love going to these workshops because they are fun, they are usually hands-on and they involve inquiry. In the training you will probably be given or referred to an alignment sheet that will tell you about how the content lesson you just learned to do is aligned to a Readiness or Supporting content standard (that means the "what" is tested and its safe to do in your classroom because you wont be off topic and your principal will love you in the walk through.)
However, you will rarely see a presenter saying here are the PROCESSES that are aligned to our lesson. If they did they probably gave you a list of about 10-20 standards jumbled together that made you feel safe because you are covering all these TEKS as well! The process standards are the "How?" of the curriculum because kids also have to learn about HOW to think and discover like a scientist. This includes being safe in the classroom, asking questions, predicting outcomes, collecting and interpreting data and using tools. You've probably been to many trainings where you've been told that those process standards should never be taught in isolation and that when you teach content the process standards should be folded into the lesson. The elements of inquiry lessons naturally lend themselves to processes of Science so therefore if you are doing inquiry you are killing two birds with one stone per say, but nothing could be further from the truth.
As the amount of dual coded questions steadily increase with each STAAR and EOC administration, we notice a trend, that our students don't do well on questions that are aligned to certain process skills. How can that be if the trend in the science classroom is to be doing hands-on inquiry based lessons?
Why those inquiry labs you are doing do not direct teach process
Its not easy being a Science teacher. It requires a lot of prep. For instance you have to find interesting labs and activities that are aligned to your content standards, gather materials, set up your stations and run off your lab sheets. You have to come up with deep level questions to ask your students as they poke and probe their investigation, and after all of that you have to grade all those lab sheets or ISNs (interactive science notebooks) We also have to teach the scope and sequence in a timely manner, which means you only have so much time with a topic before you have to move on, hoping somehow that your kids get it.
So its no surprise that most Science teachers look for good labs and activities that have deep questions already written for them, and to make sure that data collection is accurate and done quickly, you may choose to use a preset worksheet that scaffolds the student into learning the content and reaching the obvious conclusion. Here is a typical example:
This inquiry worksheet is taken from a sample from STEMSCOPES that you can get as a free download. This is an 8th grade lab sheet and the alignment is to Process Standards 8.2.C collect and record data using the International System of Units (SI) and qualitative means such as labeled drawings, writing, and graphic organizers and 8.2.D construct tables and graphs, using repeated trials and means, to organize data and identify patterns
This worksheet is misleading because the process standard that it cites is actually asking that STUDENTS construct a table to organize the data. One might argue that the student would be collecting and recording data using a graphic organizer such as this worksheet, but pretty much everything is done for them including developing their own questions because they are being led through the inquiry. They have even supplied all of the headings for the columns, all the student needs to do is fill it in. In the real world scientists aren't supplied with worksheets when they collect data. They design and present their information on their own.
Now don't get me wrong, this isn't a witch hunt for STEMSCOPES, actually WE LOVE STEMSCOPES!, its a terrific resource, but actually all Texas Science curriculum, including the old CSCOPE lessons have pre-designed worksheets and graphic organizers. The fact is that during this adoption year every book company offered consumable workbooks to go with their curriculum. They did that because TEACHERS ASKED FOR WORKSHEETS AND WORKBOOKS!!! By making worksheets and workbooks a non negotiable for our adoption we have actually made it so that we don't have to think about how we teach science. We have turned into short order cooks that serve up a lesson, tear it down, wash the dishes and start on a new lesson. We don't write our own lessons. We don't even tweak it, we just serve it up like a blue plate special and hope that our customers (the kids) like it enough to remember it when the test comes along.
As the amount of dual coded questions steadily increase with each STAAR and EOC administration, we notice a trend, that our students don't do well on questions that are aligned to certain process skills. How can that be if the trend in the science classroom is to be doing hands-on inquiry based lessons?
Why those inquiry labs you are doing do not direct teach process
Its not easy being a Science teacher. It requires a lot of prep. For instance you have to find interesting labs and activities that are aligned to your content standards, gather materials, set up your stations and run off your lab sheets. You have to come up with deep level questions to ask your students as they poke and probe their investigation, and after all of that you have to grade all those lab sheets or ISNs (interactive science notebooks) We also have to teach the scope and sequence in a timely manner, which means you only have so much time with a topic before you have to move on, hoping somehow that your kids get it.
So its no surprise that most Science teachers look for good labs and activities that have deep questions already written for them, and to make sure that data collection is accurate and done quickly, you may choose to use a preset worksheet that scaffolds the student into learning the content and reaching the obvious conclusion. Here is a typical example:
This inquiry worksheet is taken from a sample from STEMSCOPES that you can get as a free download. This is an 8th grade lab sheet and the alignment is to Process Standards 8.2.C collect and record data using the International System of Units (SI) and qualitative means such as labeled drawings, writing, and graphic organizers and 8.2.D construct tables and graphs, using repeated trials and means, to organize data and identify patterns
This worksheet is misleading because the process standard that it cites is actually asking that STUDENTS construct a table to organize the data. One might argue that the student would be collecting and recording data using a graphic organizer such as this worksheet, but pretty much everything is done for them including developing their own questions because they are being led through the inquiry. They have even supplied all of the headings for the columns, all the student needs to do is fill it in. In the real world scientists aren't supplied with worksheets when they collect data. They design and present their information on their own.
Now don't get me wrong, this isn't a witch hunt for STEMSCOPES, actually WE LOVE STEMSCOPES!, its a terrific resource, but actually all Texas Science curriculum, including the old CSCOPE lessons have pre-designed worksheets and graphic organizers. The fact is that during this adoption year every book company offered consumable workbooks to go with their curriculum. They did that because TEACHERS ASKED FOR WORKSHEETS AND WORKBOOKS!!! By making worksheets and workbooks a non negotiable for our adoption we have actually made it so that we don't have to think about how we teach science. We have turned into short order cooks that serve up a lesson, tear it down, wash the dishes and start on a new lesson. We don't write our own lessons. We don't even tweak it, we just serve it up like a blue plate special and hope that our customers (the kids) like it enough to remember it when the test comes along.
So how do we get away from worksheets and lab sheets?
You ever notice that if you are at a busy chain restaurant on a Sunday morning and they run out of something, say they run out of blueberry pancake mix for the blueberry pancakes, the alternative may be nothing, because hey, the cook only knows how to make blueberry pancakes from a mix and he cannot alter the menu. You are out of luck. A chef on the other hand doesn't have this problem. Blueberries out of season? No problem, it just so happens that we have ripe peaches to make peach pancakes and some peach cobbler to boot. It may not always be on the menu, but it might be just what the customer needed or was looking for... That is how you should be in the classroom, like a chef that can take a cookie cutter lab or a great resource and can tweak it, twist it and teach it so that it meets the needs of the students. In the slightly modified words of the banditos of the movie Treasure of the Sierra Madre "Worksheets? We don't need no stinkin worksheets!!!"
However, in order to know how to get rid of worksheets and lab sheets, you do need to know your process standards backwards and forwards. Why do you need to know the process standards? Because they are the HOW of the lesson. How are the kids going to show you they know it? It isn't by just filling out a questionnaire which is all that a worksheet is. Do they know how to present that information to you like a scientist would? Can they make the connection of what they just learned and apply it to a new situation on their own without the help of you or a piece of paper with a scenario? Can they demonstrate it, simulate it or justify why their thinking is correct? If you aren't teaching those skills at the same time that you are teaching content, then your kids aren't ready for a STAAR test. But before you think, "oh no, not one more thing on my to-do list as a teacher", calm down, because knowing how to think like a scientist my friend is an easy thing to do. You probably already know how to think that way, you just haven't applied what you know to your standards. After learning this simple process of chunking your process standards, you will never look at the long jumbled up list of process standards the same way. In fact you will pick and choose what you like or what your kids need from that list and learn to direct teach it while at the same time teaching the content (readiness and supporting) that your principal is so hot for. If you can count to four you can memorize your process standards pretty quickly (its as easy as that.)
You ever notice that if you are at a busy chain restaurant on a Sunday morning and they run out of something, say they run out of blueberry pancake mix for the blueberry pancakes, the alternative may be nothing, because hey, the cook only knows how to make blueberry pancakes from a mix and he cannot alter the menu. You are out of luck. A chef on the other hand doesn't have this problem. Blueberries out of season? No problem, it just so happens that we have ripe peaches to make peach pancakes and some peach cobbler to boot. It may not always be on the menu, but it might be just what the customer needed or was looking for... That is how you should be in the classroom, like a chef that can take a cookie cutter lab or a great resource and can tweak it, twist it and teach it so that it meets the needs of the students. In the slightly modified words of the banditos of the movie Treasure of the Sierra Madre "Worksheets? We don't need no stinkin worksheets!!!"
However, in order to know how to get rid of worksheets and lab sheets, you do need to know your process standards backwards and forwards. Why do you need to know the process standards? Because they are the HOW of the lesson. How are the kids going to show you they know it? It isn't by just filling out a questionnaire which is all that a worksheet is. Do they know how to present that information to you like a scientist would? Can they make the connection of what they just learned and apply it to a new situation on their own without the help of you or a piece of paper with a scenario? Can they demonstrate it, simulate it or justify why their thinking is correct? If you aren't teaching those skills at the same time that you are teaching content, then your kids aren't ready for a STAAR test. But before you think, "oh no, not one more thing on my to-do list as a teacher", calm down, because knowing how to think like a scientist my friend is an easy thing to do. You probably already know how to think that way, you just haven't applied what you know to your standards. After learning this simple process of chunking your process standards, you will never look at the long jumbled up list of process standards the same way. In fact you will pick and choose what you like or what your kids need from that list and learn to direct teach it while at the same time teaching the content (readiness and supporting) that your principal is so hot for. If you can count to four you can memorize your process standards pretty quickly (its as easy as that.)