The Minimalist Educator Podcast
A podcast about paring down to focus on the purpose and priorities in our roles.
The Minimalist Educator Podcast
Episode 061: Deep Dive into Effective Science Teaching with Lisa Fort
Can mastering only 70% of the material at a high level of mastery truly prepare students for life’s scientific challenges? Join us on the Minimalist Educator Podcast as we chat with Lisa Fort, an accomplished earth science teacher from New York State, who believes it can. Lisa shares her expert strategies for organizing science curriculum and planning lessons that emphasize a deep understanding of core concepts through backward planning. She stresses the importance of reinforcing practical skills like measurement and graphing, ensuring students build a solid foundation that equips them for real-world applications. By prioritizing depth over breadth, Lisa aims to cultivate informed citizens and lifelong learners.
Discover the secrets behind effective science teaching as we discuss methods for engaging high school students through interactive activities and real-world connections. Lisa talks about the significance of relationship-building in maintaining classroom focus, especially in the age of social media distractions. From memorable Mars exploration projects to hands-on activities that simulate real-world scenarios like forensic crime scenes, Lisa’s approach fosters curiosity, problem-solving, and communication skills. Tune in to learn how nurturing these foundational skills and curiosity in students can prepare them for more complex scientific challenges ahead.
Lisa continues her almost 20 year career as a science teacher in New York State. Lisa’s classroom is a rigorous learning environment with strong collaborative relationship-driven education. In addition to constantly improving the inquiry student-centered learning, she works with teachers around the state to create assessment kits for the new science standards. She continues to share her love of science and classroom structure at a variety of conferences and social platforms.
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Welcome to the Minimalist Educator Podcast, a podcast about paring down to refocus on the purpose and priorities in our roles with co-hosts and co-authors of the Minimalist Teacher Book, Tammy Musialski-Borneman and Christine Arnold.
Speaker 2:In this episode, lisa shares her love of science education with us. Her Pair Down Pointer is all about the brilliance of organizing. Her pare-down pointer is all about the brilliance of organizing. Lisa Fort continues her almost 20-year career as a science teacher in New York State. Lisa's classroom is a rigorous learning environment with strong, collaborative, relationship-driven education. In addition to constantly improving the inquiry student-centered learning, she works with teachers around the state to create assessment kits for the new science standards. She continues to share her love of science and classroom structure at a variety of conferences and social platforms.
Speaker 3:Hello everyone and welcome to today's episode of the Minimalist Educator Podcast. Today, christine and I are talking with one of my very good friends, lisa Fort, who is a high school science teacher, and she and I met, oh geez, like 18 years ago. I think it was Lisa, right.
Speaker 4:Almost 20. Almost 20. Yeah.
Speaker 3:So crazy. So Lisa and I both moved to New York City at the same time to start teaching there, but I, of course, was moving from West, from Edmonton, and she was coming from Ontario, but we converged in the same place and have been friends ever since. So welcome to the show, lisa. How are you today?
Speaker 4:I'm good. Thank you for having me. You're a good opportunity.
Speaker 3:And how are you, Christine?
Speaker 2:I'm doing very well. Thank you Good good, good.
Speaker 3:So I'm excited to talk to Lisa today because, well, I've known over the years just like how very organized you are with things and I feel like at the high school level, how very organized you are with things and I feel like at the high school level, so you're an earth science teacher and I feel like science is an organized situation.
Speaker 3:I'll call it phenomenon, right. There's like so many things with like rules and all these things. But I feel like I like I'm just not super familiar with the high school world because Christina and I are both elementary people, but you have some really like we've talked about a lot of the things you do with your high school students that are just so thoughtful and strategic. I think that really, um, I think people would benefit from hearing from them because you have a lot of content to cover and and we know that, you know we try to we try to get past this idea that teachers are just deliverers of content. But at the high school level, like you have exams that the kids need to take and there's a lot of content to cover. So what are some of the things that you put in place in your planning?
Speaker 3:let's say before we even talk about the teaching that ensure that you're going to get to as much content as possible, but ensure that the kids are also like getting those skills that they need.
Speaker 4:That's a great question. You're right, we do have a lot of content in earth science, which is what I do teach now. I did start off as a biology slash, living environment teacher and so similar. Just lots of content for the students. I think the biggest thing for myself is early on in my career I really learned to look at what I wanted the students to be able to do and almost backwards plan. You know that's sort of long ago. That was sort of the idea is decide what you want your final assessment, summary assessment, to be like and what. How are you going to get the students there? And I think that's the biggest thing. You know where I teach now. Yes, we have a final exam. That is a ballpark, but I also know I can't get to everything and so I really am kind of a firm believer in students. If they know 70% now we probably get past 70%, but if they know at least that 70% at 100% level, that's much better than getting through 100% of the material and I'm only knowing it at 70%. So for me I really try to focus on the stuff that interconnects. That really works at an overarching understanding. I really think that for myself I look at as my students are going to be individual citizens of this world, not only this country and what is it that they need to know to be individual citizens of this world you know not only this country and what is it that they need to know? To be lifelong learners and lifelong understanders of media that they see and events that are happening. And ultimately, I try to make sure that I'm covering that breadth.
Speaker 4:When it gets down to like the nitty gritty skills, I have to follow a little bit with what my colleagues do, so we start off the beginning of the year with setting up those skills. I have to follow a little bit with what my colleagues do, so we start off the beginning of the year with setting up those skills. And then there's like there's two sets of skills. I think there's the skills of can they actually like measure using a ruler and understand centimeters versus millimeters? Because we don't, even though here in the United States we don't use the metrics as we do in science, and so they do have to understand centimeters, meters, kilometers and all that stuff. So there's those basic understanding of using those measurement tools. There's being able to do some basic math skills, which is always fun, and some basic graphing skills and we start off the year by building those and then they come into play over and over and over again, which is really nice. They can keep saying I know you don't remember, back in September we learned this, but here it's coming back at us again and that you know. Some of the students laugh along with me when I sort of mentioned that, because it feels like September may have been only a couple months ago, but you know, by the time you get closer to the end of the year it's like nine months ago and you're kind of like, ah, did we do that? What was that? We watched a video. They seem to forget those things. I think that in the same vein there's those skills, but at the beginning of the year, and I think there's. I'm going to kind of go off track a little bit here.
Speaker 4:I think there's a misconception that you have to start everything at the beginning of the year. I'm also a firm believer that if I get to October, November, december, january, whatever month it is, and I'm like this is just not working or the students need this skill, we need to take a step back. I take ownership of it with my students and I say you know what, guys, I've noticed we are not getting this, and it's, you know, my bad. Let's step back, let's do this thing, let's reorganize, let's change seats, whatever that is that needs to happen. And because I always say, you know my, I made you a promise in September that I was going to help you learn this content, and what I'm seeing in front of me in this classroom is not supporting that promise, and so I think maybe what we need to do is do a few of these little tweaks, or I need to introduce a new way of working in our classroom and we're going to kind of build and scaffold what that'll look like.
Speaker 4:But you know, ideally maybe you started in September, and so I think, along with building those skills of what do they need to be able to do to handle the content, there's also the skills of how do we talk in class, how do you know? Just those little like how do I ask to go to the bathroom or whatever it is? When is it appropriate to ask to go to the bathroom? You know, when you walk into class and the bell has gone, is not the time when I say, get out your notebooks, to be saying, oh, can I go to the bathroom, you know Ms Ford's going to look at you like, really is this the best time when you're going to miss instruction? Really is this the best time when you're going to miss instruction?
Speaker 4:So we try to set those kind of procedural things up at the beginning and then reinforce them, you know, throughout the year. But, as I said, you know, if something doesn't feel right and it was like it works for one of my classes and it doesn't work for the other, then I change things up for that class and we we look at how do we work together and a lot of this stuff. At the beginning I have like laminated question sheets. So when we're working in groups, here's some sentence starters, so this is how we talk to each other. Um, and I think that that's very similar to elementary in some ways. Um, you may have um shorter sentence starters where we're like I really like how you talked about X, y and Z. I'd like you to consider this and it's a deeper content piece.
Speaker 4:But I think there's still that really important scaffold piece that oftentimes I think that some of my colleagues overlook and they just assume that students they're in high school, they should know how to do this by now. But I think each one of us, as a teacher, has a different expectation for our room and if we don't decode it for our students, then they're left guessing and that's why we don't see the results we want, because they're like I don't know what this teacher wants and if I bring in what I do in my English class, they get mad at me or I don't get the content. So we have to teach them what we want in our classroom so that they can be successful. I think that was a long-winded answer to your question.
Speaker 2:I really liked what you said, though, about not being afraid to go. Okay, stop, we need to rethink this, restart this, try this again in a different way. I think that's a really important one, because, you know, if we do get caught up in that idea of coverage, you can feel like I don't have time to go back, I just need to keep going. So I think that's a good reminder for us. I have a bit of a double barrel question for you, lisa, oh no, so I'm thinking about you know what you you know. How do you decide strategically, what are those core concepts, core skills and knowledge that you need your students to have, and how do you get rid of all of the extraneous things that are not that helpful and not serving your students? And the second part of my question is do you, do you feel like those core concepts and skills and knowledge? Has that changed over the course of your career, and what sort of influences have changed? What's at the core of the science for you?
Speaker 4:Oh goodness, that is a loaded question. But you might have to remind me the second one, because I'll start with the first, about how I decide what to cover, and then you might have to remind me that you had that question about how that's changed. So I think the biggest thing when I think about how to pare down the content is I literally have on my wall the calendar for the year and I have sticky notes with all the content and I just start putting it up. Where does it fit? And then that of course, gets all shuffled around as soon as the calendar for the school year comes out and they say, oh, oh, by the way, on this date we're going to have assemblies for all of the students or whatever.
Speaker 4:But ultimately I look at the big, like big topic concepts. How much is that? So, if I, if I can go specific? So in earth science, if I'm looking at, well, our new earth and space science, so if I'm looking at space, you know, I think okay, in order for them to understand, ultimately, earth's place in space, we need to understand how the Earth came about. Well, then we need to understand, you know, the solar system and how it was developed. But then we need to understand what was out there before and so we start like building in this background knowledge. And I think you know, ultimately it's really important not only for me to kind of have this scheme of what I'm going to be covering and this time frame of doing that. And that goes back to what I alluded to earlier, that I am kind of under with my colleagues under a time frame. I do have to get through content in a certain to stay together. We have quarterly common formative assessments, so you have to make sure you're through the content by certain times. But ultimately I look at what I can build on and I think that year I kind of have this like plan and I've went from the wall to it now being on paper and it's on my clipboard and sort of my. It's sort of like a pacing calendar, I guess you would call it and. But ultimately that can shift because if I get feedback from my formative assessments from students and I'm like, okay, they don't have this, I need to take a step back and figure out where.
Speaker 4:But I start most units with kind of figuring out, trying to figure out where they're at, what they remember and unfortunately, in the way that the my state system works. The last time many of them saw I teach their 10th graders with 9th grade accelerated students. So they took living environment in 8th grade. So they didn't even get the general science or science in 8th grade. So they haven't seen it since 7th grade, if that, and my 10th graders haven't seen it because the year before was biology for them. So they've also been a year removed from earth science.
Speaker 4:And unfortunately, I think many and I'm guilty of it too of teaching in such a way that it's just delivery of content and just have to like, almost like the memorization of this. These are the facts you need to know, and the students are great at memorizing for that test at the end and then as soon as that test is over, it's like they press delete, dump, like a computer, and then you're like where is it? And so I often try to start a unit with activities that pull out and tease out almost like a computer technician. Right, that is like going through is there any data still left on? Here I have the ones and zeros. Can I translate that back to anything of value? And so once I have that kind of understanding of where students are at, it's much easier to build and I know that, like brain science says, if you can bring back that background knowledge, it's easier to put new material into the brain because they have something to link it to. If you're just randomly feeding them data, that's why at the end they forget it, because they have nothing to build it onto. So I really try to make sure. That's why I say like when I'm doing astronomy, I think, okay, the end goal is that they understand Earth's place in our solar system, with the sun and the moon interaction. But in order to understand that, we do have to build back and thankfully for us I think it's sixth grade they do the solar system and they go into it in some depth and they typically have done like the model building or whatever. So I like, pull that back out. Remember when you were using the styrofoam balls and you made the solar system and they're like oh, and so we do that.
Speaker 4:How has it changed over the course? Is I probably got more strategic about making sure that I'm really finding that background knowledge and also the delivery method that I use? I think when I first started I tried to really do kind of like a 5E model, where they investigate and then I teach them, and now I probably still do that. I've just revamped it a little bit in terms of, you know, getting that background knowledge content first, letting them explore and then talking about it in the classroom and giving them notes. Or if I give them notes first, which sometimes I do, it's very short. I don't talk much more than 20 minutes to my students because I know their retention span is like and my particular blocks have been quite long, and so in a typical period I might actually get through two pieces of content because I'll stop them after some time.
Speaker 4:Doing lab. We have the fortunate piece of having lab time, but I would say for non-science students it would be break it up Like don't talk, for you know, 50 to 80 minutes, whatever your class time is. But I think that's the biggest change is trying to, because we're fighting against social media. To be honest, my students, as high schoolers, they are totally invested in social media what's being said, who's saying what, snapchatting all the time, and that's what I'm fighting their attention for. And so to get their attention span, I have to do a little bit more whiz, bang, showmanship, whatever.
Speaker 4:I mean, we've always I guess I've always heard that you're kind of like actors on a stage anyway, but it's just a little bit more like hey, this is really cool, look at how this happened, or whatever, and yeah, so I think that's I've become better at how do I bring them back to my class. And some of that just has to do with relationship building. If they they feel like you care about them, ultimately they'll give you more attention. And if they're off track and you call them on it, they're like oh, sorry, sorry, miss, that's not my bad, you're right back to their, their work. Um, but if you don't build that relationship, they're just going to fight you on it or two minutes later they're going to have their device back out again.
Speaker 3:Right, yeah, you've mentioned a lot of things about, like that, memory retention and like how to build the knowledge.
Speaker 3:So, like you know, accessing their prior knowledge and the relationship piece, like that emotional connection to this We've talked about just getting some of the feedback from your students too, because they will tell you you know, this was great, you know, and you have kids from previous years coming back to you and you still have that connection with them. What are some of the things that your students have said to you that do really stick in their memories? From some because you've created some very interactive units over time and investigations, because you used to also teach forensics, which is really interesting and cool and so like yeah some of the things that students have come back to you with and just said I still remember this or that.
Speaker 4:Yeah, well, aside from when you bring in food, um, for them, which is always a hit. I do a glacier lab where I bring in ice cream and cookies, and that always is a comeback. But I think that stuff where you get them to do the thing, you know, I'll stick with space, because that's what I was talking about, but I have an activity that's really centered around Mars and Mars exploration, because that's that's going to be their generation. Within, supposedly within the next 10 to 15 years, we're going to put humans on Mars. Well, what does that look like? And so I have the students build rockets and we launch those rockets right in the school. We have a we are very fortunate to have an entryway that has a high ceiling and we go out and, uh, they're just stomp rockets, so nobody listening or excited. We I am actually the rocket advisor as well and we do go outside and launch the ones with the chemical, but in the classroom we just do stomp rockets and then they have an opportunity to look at what they build and fix it, to launch it again, to, to kind of and go through that. You know, scientific process of mine didn't make it to mars. What do I need to change to get it to mars. We do activities where we look at materials that with would withstand meteor showers, because mars atmosphere is very different than ours, so meteorites and stuff the particles from space could fly right at you and go right through your space suit. So we need to make sure that we have, you know, not Kevlar stuff that is super heavy and cumbersome to move around, but something that's sturdy enough, and so I have little propulsion devices that they push on and it launches something at different materials that they're holding on a device and have them do communication.
Speaker 4:One of the favorites that always comes back is I do a communication thing where the kids are in two different spaces and it's like Earth and Mars and the people on Earth have the booklet of instructions and the people on Earth have the booklet of instructions, so as my son would call it, the map of how to build the thing, and the people on Mars just have all the parts. And you know I do explain to the students. This would normally take like a 17 minute lag in between your conversations, but you can talk back and forth People on Earth. You can't show what the picture is because right now we don't have the technology to send pictures but people on Mars, because you'll be there with different technology, you could show what you're building and then they can say, yes, no, fix this, whatever it is. That's one that they always come back with and you know I can hear people saying, well, that where does that fit in the content? And the reality is, is the questions that we're being asked now are more application questions. You know, how do you do this? How's this future? This is building those, you know, communication skills in my students to be able to talk with somebody else and not get frustrated about it. That is one thing that they often say. I'm like, so frustrated they won't listen, and it's like, okay, well, this is going to be a skill that is going to be important for your future, because, no matter what you do, you're always going to be talking to somebody and feel like they're not listening to you, like you haven't been heard. So there's always value in those skills as well, even if it's not truly in my content, but I try to get something like that in every unit my landscape systems unit they actually play with sand and Lego and they move water around like the earth would, and they really enjoy those kinds of things, those connections of being like real world scientists in a very small scale, because everything has to be downsized for the classroom. I would love to be able to get them out and I'm very jealous of colleagues in other schools and other districts that have the ability to take their kids out because they have a creek running through their property or whatever. But ultimately I just try to bring everything into the classroom so that my students can get that experience.
Speaker 4:Yeah, you mentioned forensics. Forensics is this year my students and potentially what would they look at? Things like, you know, being blood splatter experts. And actually I think the biggest thing is, every time I asked them to make a crime scene, they're like I'm not this violent and they're like I don't think like this. They get worried that I'm going to like think of them as murder criminals and stuff like that, and I'm like it's okay, like it's never crossed my mind. I'm asking you to do this, to think about it, and then you, you know, then another group will come and analyze that and see if they got it, got it right, and they kind of like that.
Speaker 4:I hear from them a lot that they really like solving, like that's really it's about solving these cases that somebody else has created, and ultimately that's what they do. As their final project they they create a case. I give them a sample one so they can kind of mirror off of the one that I've done. And then they create one and they have classmates that solve it, and so, and then they judge each other's. You know, did they get all the pieces, did they not? And I think that's the same in earth science. I try to have the students, you know, communicate with each other in. You know, I said it before like this is an interesting thought. Did you think about this, or I didn't think about that? Could you explain it to me more? That sort of thing.
Speaker 2:As elementary school teachers. We I'm sure Tammy, I'm speaking for Tammy now as well but we would love to hear what do you, what would you love to see from our little budding scientists that are coming up through elementary school? You've talked about communication and you know some of those foundational knowledge, but, as kids coming into the high school with you, what are some of the key things that you'd love to see from them? Like curiosity or risk-taking or like what? What sort of things would you would you love to see from the kiddos as they're coming to you?
Speaker 4:You nailed it actually, as you were saying that exactly your question is. What I was thinking is, oftentimes, by the time the students get to high school, they've lost the question of why, and I don't know what that is that you know, we go through that stage as young people where we just ask why of everything and finally people start yelling at us and say stop, stop asking, stop asking. And I think that's the hardest thing as a high school science teachers try to bring back that curiosity and to say I want you to wonder, I want you to continue to ask. And and maybe like understanding that as a teacher we don't always have the answers, I tell my students all the time if I don't know, I'm going to tell you I don't know. And wouldn't it be fascinating for us to find out together? And I think that's the biggest, probably the biggest thing is just letting students be curious and and I know that that sometimes it's tough because sometimes they have a curiosity and within our times, you know, within the silos of elementary just, you don't have the time to be able to spend that extra 20 minutes on that question. But I would say don't forget their question, you know if there's an opportunity later to come back to it or when it's, you know, your special of library or something.
Speaker 4:Tell the librarian that they have this curiosity and help.
Speaker 4:Let the librarian help them find a book about it or something like um, not only does that build the relationship between you and the student because the student feels heard, but it keeps them curious and it doesn't like, well, nobody cared about my questions, so I guess I don't really have good questions or whatever, like I think that's the big thing.
Speaker 4:I try to support my students like that too. We actually just had a student who was writing an English paper on climate change and I was talking to her about the weathermakers from Tim Flannery ironically Australian source book and we got it. We didn't have it in our library, but we got it from another library and I talked to her about the chapters and I and it was just you know, that little support just really connected and you know, and and it doesn't just stay within that student they let all their friends know I was doing this thing and this teacher like went above and beyond to help me with this and and you know it didn't take any time from me I gave it to the librarian and said could you find this book for us? You know, so I think that's the biggest thing is trying to make sure that kids don't lose that sense of wonder.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I definitely would have, I think, prospered more in high school had I had it. And maybe this was me as a student too, Maybe I was the student who didn't really ask why, Not that I didn't want to learn things, but you know, I just feel like I really only had one standout teacher in all of high school where I was actually interested in learning, like math. But anyway, had I had Elisa Fort in my life in high school, I think I would have had more fun. You've said so many just thoughtful things about your planning process and what you offer to the students. We're at the time of the show already where we ask our guests for a pare down pointer. So just any kind of little tip that you can give to, you know, just help people pare back or prioritize or anything. And it could be a personal thing that you do at home or something at school.
Speaker 4:I think I might bring it right back around to the start of the conversation, where you flattered me with my organization, and I think that's the big thing is that when you do find things that work or have a system where all the material like for me for science, all the material for that goes into one place so that when I need it I just pull out that bin or that piece, I think that's a big, big piece of the puzzle.
Speaker 4:If you don't have that, then you're scrounging and you're like what can I pull together? And then I think from that that organization piece goes as well, just with how do you organize your classroom? You know, I have my stations up from day one, my agree disagree posters up and day one, and usually students are like what are all those for? And I'm like you'll see, it's all. You know. We're going to be doing lab activities and you're going to move between those lab activities because we can't all do the exact same thing at the same time because they don't have enough material. But it's knowing that all that material is in one bin, all eight stations come out at the same time, and I think that's the big thing that really helps me in terms of just looking at content and prioritizing, as just staying organized with stuff and knowing exactly where it is.
Speaker 3:Exactly yes, yeah, just save your time and sanity. Just keep it in the bin. Bins are wonderful.
Speaker 4:Yes, yeah, absolutely. You don't have to go out and buy a label maker. Those little white sticky notes or masking tape with a Sharpie work just great.
Speaker 3:Exactly exactly. Thank you so much for your time, lisa. That was great chatting with you about something that you know I wish I just enjoyed more in high school high school science. Thank you.
Speaker 4:Oh, thank you for having me. It's been a pleasure.
Speaker 2:Today's episode was brought to you by Plan Z Professional Learning Services forward-thinking educator support. Find out more at planzplservicescom.
Speaker 1:Be sure to join Tammy and Christine and guests for more episodes of the Minimalist Educator podcast. They would love to hear about your journey with minimalism. Connect with them at PlanZPLS on Twitter or Instagram. The music for the podcast has been written and performed by Gaia Moretti you.
