Wednesday’s Lesson

Teaching Friction in Multiple Ways

By Cynthia McIntyre

Your new group of fourth graders is scheduled to arrive for the start of school next week, so you scan through the roster of 23 names: 14 boys and 9 girls. You recognize three or four surnames as siblings of students you’ve had in class in previous years, and you know that while a younger sibling may resemble the older in appearance, their learning styles and abilities will undoubtedly differ: each child is unique. You also read four IEPs, carefully noting the details about a student’s hyperactivity disorder, another’s visual impairment, an English Language Learner, and one student with autism. It’s daunting—to say the least—to think about meeting all their needs.

UDL Science

The Concord Consortium’s Universal Design in Science Education project is developing software so that elementary teachers can meet each student’s needs when science is taught. Universal Design for Learning (UDL) educational materials are created with multiple means of representation, multiple means of engagement, and multiple means of expression. In a word, UDL software represents choices: opportunities for teachers and students to select ways to approach a topic; to choose how that topic will be presented (for instance, in English or Spanish, in a larger or smaller font size, with different background colors, or to be read aloud); and to decide how best to demonstrate what the student has learned.

Figure 1. Students use a force sensor to measure the friction of different shoes.

We are designing seven units around the theme of energy for students in grades 3-4 and 5-6. A variety of inquiry activities both on and off computer address a number of driving questions (see Science units sidebar).

Try it out

This lesson explores the question: What if there were no friction?

Go to: www.concord.org/resources

Try the sample friction units for grades 3-4 and for 5-6. The software opens in a Java Web Start File, which automatically saves student information—for example, a probe measurement, a written or drawn response to a question, or a snapshot of a model. The student’s information is available when she reopens the program. The teacher can also access this information at the end of a work session.

Students start with a short pre-test, which allows the teacher (and the researchers at the Concord Consortium) to assess each student’s prior knowledge of friction. At the completion of the pre-test, links to six activities—four in science, one in math and another in language arts—become available. As with all facets of UDL, the more flexibility, the better. Thus, students are not required to complete the activities in any particular order, though they cannot take the post-test until the teacher permits them to do so.

Smart graphs and models

Each activity starts with a discovery question and uses probes to support lab investigations or computational models to explore virtual environments. In “Dragging shoes” students use a force sensor to measure friction values of shoe soles (see figure 1) and in “Hot stuff” they experiment with a model to observe the effects of friction at the molecular level (see figure 2).

Figure 2. Students experiment with a molecular model of an object being dragged over a surface.

We are currently developing “Smart Graphs” and “Smart Models” that will provide meta-analysis. That is, a graph will be able to describe itself in words while highlighting the feature being described, for instance the maximum, minimum, slope, time between two measurements, difference of two measurements, or the average y-value of a segment of the graph. And a molecular dynamics model will be able to communicate important features of the display, including number and kind of atoms and molecules, average potential and kinetic energy, or the states of matter–liquid, solid and gas–that are present.

Scaffolded assistance

Students are asked to explain their learning and are often given the choice of using text or a drawing. Assistance is available with various levels of support. For example, students are asked, “Which caused more heating, rubbing the penny on the wood or rubbing on the waxed paper? What is your evidence?” The student sees an open text box plus one or more of the following scaffolds:

Level 5: (No extra hints or scaffolding is provided.)

Level 4: Think about your graphs and what they show. (Clues are given for data or information that students should use.)

Level 3: When the penny and the wood are rubbed together, the graph of temperature _____. When the penny and the waxed paper are rubbed, the graph of temperature ____. Using the _____ caused more heating. (Parts of a response are provided, and the student is asked to fill in missing content.)

Level 2: Data show that: a) the temperature graph was higher when the penny was rubbed on the wood, so wood caused more heating, b) the temperature graph was higher when the penny was rubbed on the waxed paper, so waxed paper caused more heating. (The student selects the best of several suggested responses.)

Level 1: The temperature graph was higher when the penny was rubbed on the wood, so wood caused more heating. (One or more examples of good responses are provided.)

Such scaffolding provides clarity to students. For some, a quick metacognitive reminder to re-read the question suffices, while for other students, more structure is necessary, sometimes in the form of model responses.

Coaches

The Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST) has done significant work studying brain networks and has identified three primary networks and how they function in learning, which they have applied to reading comprehension. Our science coaches—animated robots that address the student with prompts, hints, and models—align with the affective, strategic, and recognition networks and help students by sparking ideas and questions around the science content. The affective coach seeks to engage and motivate students by linking scientific knowledge and exploration to their real-world experiences and goals. The strategic coach helps students focus on what they need to know and how they can go about finding that out. The recognition coach guides students in gathering facts through exploration, observation, and experimentation and helps them both to display and interpret their results.

Design options

Our UDL software is designed so the look can be modified to match a student’s tastes or learning style. For example, a student who is easily distracted may require a high-contrast screen, with each feature prominently displayed; on the other hand, a student who would most benefit from a low-stimulus environment may need calm colors. Additionally, an advanced reader may choose to read in a smaller font, allowing him or her to see more text per screen, while an English Language Learner or one with a visual impairment may require a larger font and can also choose to have the text read aloud. English and Spanish versions of each activity are available, and we are designing the underlying technology to support additional languages in the future.

Conclusion

Just like the variety of fourth grade names on your class list, you know that students learn in countless unique ways. New universally designed software provides the flexibility to accommodate learner differences. Our hope is that by designing a set of UDL exemplars in elementary science, others will follow and create even more opportunities for all students to learn—no matter what their style.

Cynthia McIntyre (cynthia@concord.org) is the Director of Communications and Online Learning. She assists with coordination and editing of the UDL science curriculum.