Student: So you think they breathe through their skin or what?

Casey Fletcher: You tell me.

When students are compelled to ask the questions that I’d want to ask them, but they’re creating these questions on their own, that’s when their minds are actually engaged.

Do you see any sort of respiration happening anywhere?

Student: No. I do not.

Arria Coburn: Here at the Springfield Renaissance School, I think if you step into any classroom, you’re going to see a teacher who isn’t lecturing but really doing a balance of catch and release student-centered learning. We begin with what do your lessons need to look like in order to make sure that students have a part in it. When teachers are designing a lesson, they’re really thinking of what am I going to have students grapple with today? What am I going to have them figure out?

Casey Fletcher: All right. So let’s go look at some really gross bugs.

I think if you over-structure a lesson, then you lose your students. Yeah, you might be really, really organized and you might tick every one of your boxes, but you lose them. So if I can be flexible enough as an educator to let them guide the instruction, that’s where real learning lies. To start the class, the do now was to list the characteristics of an organism that you would need to know in order to determine its role in an ecosystem.

Think specifically about the physical qualities of the animals. Right? So what would you notice about it that would help you go, hmm, this thing might bite me?

Student: If there’s more teeth or sharper teeth, they most likely eat animals.

Casey Fletcher: We shared out the list at the beginning of the class and created an anchor chart on the board of these characteristics that would want to be paying attention to.

All right. Jaidin, what are you thinking?

Jaidin: Way of transportation or its legs.

Casey Fletcher: You’re going to look at some of these organisms and you’re going to be, like, I don’t even know which end is which. So if you get stuck like that, come back to the list.

Jaidin: We are looking for body size, the mouth, if it had legs or if it swam. The first station I was at, there were worm-like things and they were an inch long, each of them. They were tangled together, and they were squirming on top of each other. It was kind of gross and awesome at the same time.

Casey Fletcher: While students were off in their different groups, there was a level of intense curiosity.

Student: Ms. Fletcher, is there a reason why–

Casey Fletcher: This is exactly what we’re talking about. Like, those really weird body–

Student: Feathers on it.

Student: I wonder what–

Student: I don’t think it has–

Casey Fletcher: Feathers. Okay. Tell me about that.

And when I know that, yes, I got them, is when they start asking the questions that I’m hoping that they would ask.

Student: These roly-poly-looking ones, they’re the isopods?

Casey Fletcher: Yeah.

Student: Okay.

Casey Fletcher: If I’m not excited about what it is that I’m teaching, I definitely can’t expect my kids to be excited about it. So if I’m modeling what it looks like to be curious and to safely investigate life, then they, I think, feel empowered to stand alongside me and do the same thing.

Jaidin: Ms. Fletcher, she’s pretty curious, and it makes you want to go along with her and learn with her. Because she’s only human; she doesn’t know everything. So it’s really fun to learn things with her.

Student: Why are they moving?

Casey Fletcher: That’s a good question. Why wouldn’t they move?

Jaidin: So that we can’t see them?

Chantel: Curiosity allows you to push yourself to understand more, to ask questions. It allows me to see for myself so I can have my own understanding of it. Because Ms. Fletcher, she gives you understanding, but when you see it up close, you can write your own notes and have your own meaning behind it.

Casey Fletcher: So this weekend for homework, what you’re going to be doing with this information is hypothesizing what you think these organisms do in their environment based on the qualities that you are observing.

I could have very easily just shown them pictures of the organisms and told them what role they play in the ecosystem. But there’s not a lot of critical thinking that’s involved in that. It’s just sort of passive consumption. It’s really hard to look at the mouth of a dragonfly nymph without getting really, really close to it, but they did because they were curious.

Student: They can sense if prey’s around or something.

Casey Fletcher: Having all those little feelers out to be able to detect?

Student: Right.

Casey Fletcher: They’re asking the questions. They’re finding the answers. And I’m just a facilitator. That’s my job. And those are the moments that they take with them.

And for an organism like that, why might that be important?

Student: Because they’re very small.

Casey Fletcher: So do you think this is a prey animal or a predator?

Student: This is definitely a prey.

Schools That Work

The Springfield Renaissance School