Day 16 - Lab Safety

The problem...

What is the safest layout for a Science lab/classroom?

Why?

• Cover the Science Lab-Safety curriculum expectations in an engaging way
• Utilize Third Teacher principles (environment as third teacher) that enables students to take more ownership of their classroom environment (while considering safety)

Minecraft Classroom Image from:

http://dbatty.wordpress.com/2012/06/23/minecraft-brings-about-so-many-opportunities/

Each science course has a lab safety component to the curriculum.  It makes sense.  Lab activities use dangerous chemicals and apparatus.  There needs to be procedures in place to ensure safety that the students are aware of.  Usually, lab safety is taught over a day or two followed by a quiz. Why not make the way they learn about safety engaging?  

Minecraft!

What I propose is give the choice for students to model the classroom/lab in Minecraft and then experiment to determine the safest way to arrange the classroom would be.  They could also figure out procedures for dispensing and collecting dangerous chemicals and the best way to store apparatus.  I probably wouldn't force them to use Minecraft.  It would be one way they could attempt to solve the problem.

The Lesson...

First, to facilitate Self-Regulation, I would discuss with the class what would make a successful classroom layout and have them establish some success criteria.  They would then come up with some sort of method for carrying out the task.  It may look something like this:

1. Organize! Students determine roles for constructing the model.
2. Model the classroom - including desks, lab desks, teachers desk, windows, doors, intercom, materials storage and anything else of note.  
3. Label the safety equipment in the model - fume hood, eye wash station, sinks, fire blanket, sprinkler, fire extinguisher and anything else.  Students will really know where all the safety equipment is after this!
4. Layout - In groups, students discuss how to improve safety by rearranging and experimenting with the layout.  Not all safety items are movable but desks and storage of equipment are.  This is where students can take ownership of their classroom environment.  Different layouts can be discussed and actually implemented in the class.
5. Material Distribution Procedure - What is the best way to distribute lab materials/chemicals - come up with a plan!
6. Emergency plan - Plan for an emergency and try it out! With everyone sitting at their desks (in the model) re-enact the procedure.  
7. Make a video.  Groups create videos of the student's avatars interacting with their models acting out safety procedures (what to do when there is an acid spill, chemical distribution, etc). Each group could choose a different procedure to demonstrate. They can post their videos on YouTube to share with the rest of the class.  

Students could continue to modify the model throughout the year if a layout isn't working or if there is a more unconventional lab that will happen.

Why Minecraft?

Whenever tempted to use some form of ICT I think it is important to ask yourself if that is the best way to deliver a lesson or you are just using the tech for the sake of using the tech. If you can't rationalize the tech actually enhancing the learning experience for the students, don't do it. In this case I chose Minecraft for a few reasons:

• It provides a Collaborative environment for groups of students to experiment with designs
• Students can try different designs in a short amount of time.  It's a good platform to support Real-World Problem Solving.
• The first person perspective is more personal and engaging for students
• The digital environment may be more comfortable to students who would not normally contribute in group discussions
• Really, I'm just excited about the idea of using Minecraft in a class

There are limitations to what furniture/equipment you can build in Minecraft but if students are creative enough, they would probably be able to model anything they need for this exercise.  

One criticism of this may be that students wouldn't take lab safety seriously but I am fairly confident a student is more likely to remember the procedure from a classmate made video about what to do if there is a chemical fire in the class than from a teacher-directed lecture.

Ultimately, I students should decide how they want to come up with their ideal (safe) classroom.  They could use Minecraft if they wanted to.  For example, an alternative to Minecraft would be Trimble Sketchup (formerly Google Sketchup) or other 3D modeling software. The downside to that would be a loss of the collaboration and first-person immersion within their environment.  Experimenting with the classroom in real life may not be practical but is another option.


1. Collaboration: entry - adoption - adaptation - infusion - transformation
3. Real-World Problem Solving & Innovation: entry - adoption - adaptation - infusion - transformation
5. Self-Regulation: entry - adoption - adaptation - infusion - transformation
6. Use of ICT for Learning: entry - adoption - adaptation - infusion - transformation

Future lesson ideas

• Retrofit school to accommodate classes in portables (can be tied into math: measurement, etc)
• Classroom layout using magic plan or other app to get dimensions

Connect 2013

I attended the Connect 2013 conference with the 21C/AICT team and other representatives of the TCDSB on Monday and Tuesday.  

The conference is a 'Canada-wide' exposition of educational technology and 21st Century Learning.  Representatives of several Ontario school boards had booths and gave sessions that demonstrated how they were supporting 21st Century Fluencies the their schools.  At the TCDSB booth, I explained to visitors what the neXt Lesson framework was and how it is being rolled out in TCDSB schools.  I had some interesting conversations about 21st Century Teaching and Learning with some of them.

The majority of the booths were educational technology vendors advertising their products to the school board representatives.  The keynote was given by Robert Herjavec who discussed trends in technology and education (while promoting his company and book). 

I have highlighted some of the main things I learned throughout the conference below:


Blogging as a Portfolio

George Couros gave a talk on using your blog as a portfolio.  I like this idea in principle.  Its way more convenient and practical than a paper portfolio.  You can easily put the URL on a resume.  It gives the public an opportunity to comment on, critique, share and steal ideas: an absolutely essential part of PD!  For OISE, we were required to put together a portfolio containing examples of our teaching practice and teaching philosophy.  I think it would have been a lot more useful in blog format.  I could have started building it from the beginning of the year.  My classmates could provide me with feedback as it was built.  My biggest regret of the past year is that I didn't start blogging earlier!

Couros also talked about the great opportunities for students to start creating their digital footprint by blogging.  The feature I am most drawn to is how it is completely under the student's control.  They can carry whatever work/projects they choose over their school careers.  Couros did make a point of saying that he would never evaluate a student's blog.  This can undermine the awesome freedom of expression the blog gives to students.

I understand that blogging is just one way to create a digital footprint. It's just where I am going to try and start taking ownership of mine.

The Third Teacher

I had heard the term before but I wasn't really sure what it is.  Some of the members of the 21C/AICT team lead a poster session on the Third Teacher so I took the opportunity to learn about it.  From a discussion with one of the team members, the learning environment is the third teacher (a student's peers is the second teacher).  Its interesting to think about why I go to different places I go to study, read or write this blog. The Third Teacher got me thinking about what kind of environment would be most conducive to the learning I would want to happen in my class and what freedoms I would give your students in creating their optimal learning environment.  This ties into Bioregion Based Learning, an aspect of Sustainable Development Education that interests me.  It's something to look into and discuss more in the future.


Using Technology to make Learning Visible

This session gave me a few ideas for a classroom.  One of the activities the presenters demonstrated was how they took video and pictures (on iPads) of their kindergarten/junior students working on problems and then played the video or showed the pictures back to the students and their peers and asked them to explain what they or their peers were doing.  The idea was to improve metacognition among students as well as give the teachers a chance to share authentic data with other teachers and even parents.

Derrick Muller is the creator of one of my favourite YouTube science channels, Veritasium.  I recently read his Ph.D thesis is on Designing Effective Media for Physics Education, where he studies the effectiveness of a video exposition of lecture material, where the material is presented directly to the students by an instructor, and a video dialogue of comparable length and concept content.  The dialogue video portrays a student attempting to answer questions with a tutor.  On their way to the correct answer, the student encounters misconceptions which they work through with the aid of the tutor.  Muller's conclusion is that a student watching another student struggle through a question and working through their misconceptions is a more effective way to learn a concept than the concept being presented explicitly to them.

Though the presenters from the session were specifically talking about younger students, I think the idea of making learning visible through technology could be modified for a high school classroom based on Muller's findings.  Recording students working through problems or taking pictures of solutions and playing them back to a class could be a powerful way to address misconceptions and improve metacognition in a math/science class.  I haven't really thought through the logistics of how this would actually look in a class.  Alternatives to this are blogs (as discussed above) or using an app such as Explain Everything, where students can record what they write and say and play it back at a later time.  


21st Century Learning does NOT equal Technology

On Monday, I spent some time at the TCDSB booth explaining what the neXt Lesson framework was to representatives of other school boards and various technology vendors.  As I have discussed before, a common misconception is that 21st Century Learning just means using technology such as Smart Boards and iPads to teach.  I found this was the predominant feeling among attendees at the conference.  Although it was an educational technology conference, I was still surprised at this stance.  I explained that there is so far we can come (in the other 21C competencies) before even considering the use of technology and the fact that there are equity issues that come with the assumption that technology itself will transform education.