Scenario 1: Is it Just Noise?

After four months in her classroom, Ms. Shoney, a first-year teacher, decides to supplement her direct instruction approaches with a hands-on project. Most of her colleagues are veteran teachers who primarily use seatwork and lecture. The overall culture of the school supports "keeping the students quiet" to minimize behavior problems.

Ms. Shoney increasingly feels that these strategies do not best serve her fifth grade students. She develops and assigns a diorama project. Students will work in small groups to create a diorama of one of the earth's biomes: aquatic, desert, forest, grasslands, or tundra.

The students are divided into six groups, five-six per group. The "desert group" talks excitedly and shares the items they brought from home. Rico tells his group how he found sand for the project. Tanya shows the two rubber snakes that she borrowed from her brother. Even Miguel, Ms. Shoney's "problem" student, is busily drawing cacti for the background of the diorama.

Janelle, a girl in the "forest group," is sitting alone with her head down. Ms. Shoney talks to Janelle and finds out that she forgot to bring in leaves for the forest floor. "You can make some leaves using construction paper," Ms. Shoney suggests. "But I don't want to," Janelle pouts. "Who can help Janelle with the leaves?" No one offers to help. Ms. Shoney stands and waits. Maria, a new girl in the class eventually volunteers to work with Janelle.

Ms. Shoney moves on.

One member of the "tundra group" glues cotton balls to the bottom of their box to represent snow. Tamika glues a small mirror into one corner of the box to represent ice. She looks at her checklist and makes a checkmark next to "land." Tamika reads through the list, "plants, animals, land, climate, and location." She says she can't remember which animals live in the tundra.

"Look in the book, STUPID!" Darnell teases. Ms. Shoney stands near him. "Darnell, how do we speak to each other in here?" He doesn't respond. "That's a good idea to look in the book, so you can help her." Darnell rolls his eyes. "Tell me when you find information about those animals," Ms. Shoney says, walking on to the next group.

"Aside from a few setbacks, this is turning out to be a great project," Ms. Shoney thinks to herself. She has never seen her students so excited or engaged before.

The classroom door flies open. Ms. Wade, a veteran teacher from across the hall, enters and shouts, "WHAT is going on in here? What do you think you're doing?" The students freeze. Ms. Wade notices Ms. Shoney standing in the middle of the room and laughs.

"Well Ms. Shoney — you ARE in here. There's so much noise I didn't think there was a teacher in here. Hmmmph." Ms. Shoney tries to explain, "We're making science proj-" "I don't know WHAT you're doing," Ms. Wade interrupts. She turns to leave and mumbles under her breath, "What a mess."

1			Which of the following instructional strategies best describes the science project assignment in this scenario?
			A)	discussion
			B)	cooperative learning
			C)	direct instruction
			D)	independent study
2			The kind of project described in the scenario demands a lot from teachers in the areas of preparation, delivery, and closure. Which of the following characteristics of a good project leader did Ms. Shoney BEST display in the classroom?
			A)	preparing handouts and resources
			B)	introducing the project
			C)	monitoring the teams
			D)	assessing student achievement
3			Which of the following would be the most appropriate way for Ms. Shoney to respond to Ms. Wade's comments?
			A)	Return to her former strategies of using lecture and seatwork. It's best to follow the overall culture of the school.
			B)	Realize that Ms. Wade's attitude is outmoded and she should be ignored.
			C)	Confront Ms. Wade in the hall about her inappropriate comments.
			D)	Reflect on the noise level and devise a plan to signal to students when they are getting too noisy. Showcase the students' learning and invite other classes, including Ms. Wade's, to see the final projects.

Scenario 2: Who? What? When? Where? Why? How?

Mrs. Wilkinson is a second grade teacher. To celebrate the months of spring, she plans to conduct a unit on plants. She finds several worksheets on the Internet that introduce the parts of plants, but she wants to do something different. Mrs. Wilkinson purchases sunflower seeds to grow Mammoth sunflowers because they reach over six feet tall. Outside her classroom windows is a small patch of bare ground that she will use for the sunflower garden. She also purchases bean seeds, clear plastic cups, and paper towels.

In one corner of the room, students observe and write notes in their Plant Field Guides. "Whoa!" Jesse exclaims. "Look at my bean seeds! This one sprouted! I can see a root poking out! Look!" Jesse opens his field guide and writes, "Day 3: I see one root. It looks like this." He draws an arrow and sketches a picture of his plastic cup and beans.

Rulers, spray bottles and early reader books about plants are provided at the table. Kari feels the rolled paper towel in her plastic cup. It is dry. She takes a water bottle and sprays the paper towel. "Look at this one," she says. "I wonder how long the root is." She takes a ruler and asks Mrs. Wilkinson to help her measure the root. "That's almost one-half inch," Mrs. Wilkinson says. In her field guide Kari writes, "Day 3: Now three beans are growing. One has a big root that's a half inch."

Alejandro is curious about what is happening inside the seeds. He grabs a book and takes it to the Reading Corner. He flips through the pages and sees several diagrams of seeds and plants in growth. "Hey look at this," he says. "Did you know that your seed is wearing a coat?" "WHAT?" Kari asks. "The outside part of your seed is called a seed coat. It protects the seed." Alejandro opens his field guide and copies the seed diagram, taking care to spell the parts correctly. He asks Mrs. Wilkinson how to pronounce cotyledon. Then Alejandro draws a picture of his sprouting beans and labels them using the diagram from the book as a guide. He writes, "Day 3: I learned some new words about my seeds — seed coat and cotyledon. Look at the picture to see."

A second small group is outside observing the sunflower garden with the assistant teacher. Tarik measures the tallest sunflower. "It's already two feet tall!" he cries, scrambling to record his observations in his field guide. Candace sees tiny white flies on the underside of the leaves. She also finds a few holes in leaves. "Are the flies eating the leaves?" she asks. "We need to find out how to get rid of these!" Candace opens her field guide and draws a picture of several sunflowers with flies on their leaves. Then she draws a close-up picture of a fly and writes a large letter "X" over it.

"Maybe those are aphids," Tarik offers. "I think ladybugs eat those. Maybe we could add a bunch of ladybugs to our garden and see what happens."

After the time allocated for observation is complete, Mrs. Wilkinson calls all of the groups together. "What do plants need to grow?" she asks. Several students offer ideas. Tarik informs everyone that he thinks whiteflies are eating some of the leaves on the sunflowers. "I wonder if the bugs can kill the plants. What could we do to find out?"

4			Which of the following instructional strategies best describes the science project assignment in this scenario?
			A)	independent study
			B)	discovery learning
			C)	constructivism
			D)	direct instruction
5			The kind of project described in the scenario demands a lot from teachers in the areas of preparation, delivery, and closure. Which of the following teacher behaviors of a good project leader does Mrs. Wilkinson display in the classroom?
			A)	provides useful resources and materials
			B)	monitors student activity
			C)	utilizes questions that promote discovery
			D)	All of the above.
6			Which of the following best describes a general purpose of Mrs. Wilkinson's plant unit?
			A)	promote higher-order thinking
			B)	promote factual recall
			C)	improve short-term memory
			D)	promote a caring community