E1: Vocabulary talk

Something I've noticed from watching lots of Energy Project courses is how concerned teachers are with their students learning vocabulary.  I haven't figured out why this is the case: is it because the state tests are concerned with vocabulary?  Is it because the teachers' think that this is what learning science is about (learning vocabulary words)?  Is it because language acquisition is part of building a community of learners? 

Perhaps not surprisingly, I'm noticing a concern with vocabulary among the teachers in E1.  But I'm also noticing examples of teachers arguing that sophisticated vocabulary might be a hindrance to learning -- so I'm finding counterexamples that might help me to clarify exactly what about vocabulary seems so critical to teachers, and what isn't.

This post includes two clips -- one an example of a teacher demonstrating a concern that students learn vocabulary and one a counterexample.  This first clip -- the former -- takes place in the midst of a conversation on the first day of class.  The participants have gone outside on an 'energy field trip' to look for 'an event that involves energy.'  They've come back in and made whiteboards that illustrate what happens with the energy, and they've done a gallery walk to examine other groups' work.  They are talking as a group about the similarities and differences in the ways that different groups represented their energy events.  Sid (off camera) then says this:

Episode title: E1 120806 1447 T6 vocabulary 1

Transcript: [00:00:01.02] Sid (?): Along the same lines as that, I was saying that we...prior knowledge.  We all have that knowledge, and so we're using that to (?).  But if we had kids do this, going outside and coming in to do the whiteboards, maybe their vocabulary may be more, you know...

[00:00:20.02] ..."this is moving, this is not moving.  The guy is sweating."  But then it would be a really good, um, starting point for them to have. (?)  I was saying that maybe for a vocabulary intro.  You know, they come up with all these fabulous ideas, they sort of know what energy is and see it working...

[00:00:39.11] ...but they don't have that vocab, that science vocab, and then um, it would be simple for us to say, "you're right, it is moving.  We call that kinetic," you know, and...

This struck me because Sid compares the vocabulary usage of her peers to that she expects from her students and suggests that moments like these (group conversations about whiteboards) might be a good time to introduce vocabulary.  So this statement seemed like a case of 'teachers' concern that their students learn the appropriate, scientific vocabulary.'

After some conversation, Wendy (off screen) says that it's difficult for her to know where the bounds of an energy event are, and she needs a huge whiteboard space in order to capture it all.  Lane says this leads well into the next thing they're going to do, which is to narrow their scope.  He adds, as an aside (?), that not only do students not necessarily have a shared language for talking about science, but neither do teachers.  That's where this clip starts:

Episode title: E1 120806 1447 T6 vocabulary 2

Transcript: [00:00:00.00] Lane: And then, the other I think is I actually feel like, I totally agree that our students don't come with negotiated understanding of science words or equations or arrows.  But I also don't think that WE necessarily do as a group.  We, I mean, people have different backgrounds in chemistry, biology, physics, earth science in here.

[00:00:29.05] Lane: And even if we didn't, even if we all came from the same discipline, we still wouldn't have (?).
?: That was one of my things that I was walking around with.  As science people, you can tend to get lost in the vocab.  Do you know what I mean?  So I almost feel like it would be even more rich with kids because it's so authentic and it's so the way they speak and see their world...

[00:00:52.01] ...as opposed to us who have learned a lot of vocab words and can use that readily.  I think you can get lost in using the words without having much meaning associated to it.  So I think it'd be interesting.  Like when I think about doing whiteboards, I usually do it at the end, after I've taught a concept, as opposed to really figuring out what they already know before we (?)...

[00:01:20.21] ...It's interesting almost can hide behind those big, science-y words, and they don't really have any meaning anymore, you know?

[00:01:30.06] Bryan: And I think that's what turns a lot of people off about sciences.  I mean, I know vocabulary is so important in science, and I understand that it explains ideas that we don't, so we won't have to explain as much, but when you can explain it to a kid on a layman's terms and stuff like that, it's ten times more powerful than throwing all fancy science jargon at 'em.  So, yeah, I gre up, one of my deals was the nomenclature that we do.  I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing, in talking about science.  I didn't know.

[00:02:00.19] Joe: A little perspective on that.  When I took this, uh, two years ago with just elementary school teachers only and, uh, there were a few people there who had some background knowledge.  But in general, like the uh overall level of knowledge about things, particularly like words you would use or concepts or phrases in this group is much higher.  So to approach it with a group of people who didn't know...

[00:02:24.10]...kind of where to start, I think we were very much like the students would be in the sense where we saw things and, you know, we knew of energy sort of vaguely.  And uh, it was an interesting experience.  It was frustrating because a lot of times we kept coming across things that we wanted definitions and we did want words for, very quickly.  Um, and it was frustrating to feel that somebody knew the words and the bastards weren't going to tell us the words.  (Laughter.)

[00:02:53.10] ...But they were working with the Algebra Project, right, that was kind of the idea.  Is that you were to go out and basically find things that you needed to define and therefore have sort of ownership with them in the end.  I don't know, it was kind of a mixed bag.  Speaking from a student's perspective, there are things about it that were really empowering and there were things about it that were really, you felt like somebody had the answer and it was being withheld, too.  So, yeah, I don't know.

[00:03:21.04] ...It feels really different.  It's really interesting to watch this same lesson happen with a group of teachers who've been teaching this stuff for years than with people who, not that we're not morons, we have that reputation, but, uh, in terms of content knowledge in science, you learn what you need to learn to teach.  So, we often don't get into deeper formulas or we stay, uh, conceptual.

Commentary: I was originally struck by this clip because of the contrast between what the unnamed (?) teacher says about vocabulary and what Sid says.  I haven't taken the time to think about whether these two clips could help me to clarify why teachers might be concerned with vocabulary, but I think they might be helpful for that.  My first impression of the second clip is that Bryan is saying, "Learning vocabulary is not what science is about, and we turn people off by making it seem that way."  Whereas Sid is saying, "Here's a way that we could introduce vocab (because we have to?) that would make it more meaningful for kids."

Watching it again, I was impressed by Joe's straightforwardness in expressing that, while he understood that there was a reason that he wasn't 'getting answers' in UE1 two years ago, he felt that information was being withheld from him, and he's still working out whether that was empowering or frustrating.  I also appreciated how meta- his comment was -- he's owning his identity as an elementary school teacher but enjoying 'watching' the same things unfold with secondary teachers.