ChangED
ChangED is an educator based podcast for Pennsylvania teachers to learn more about the PA STEELS Standards and science in general. It is hosted by Andrew Kuhn and Patrice Semicek.
ChangED
Teaching Science That Sticks
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Penn State professor Dr. Scott McDonald joins ChangED to reveal how Pennsylvania's STEELS standards are flipping science education on its head! Forget silent classrooms with teachers droning on—Scott's vision has students buzzing with scientific conversations while teachers take a backseat as guides.
"I'd love to see kids talking a lot more in class to each other about science ideas," says Scott, who trains tomorrow's science teachers. The content hasn't changed, but the delivery? Completely transformed!
We explore why veteran teachers might struggle with this shift (old habits die hard!), how the three dimensions of STEELS standards create a framework for success, and why treating science as an isolated subject is a massive missed opportunity.
Join us for this mind-expanding conversation at the crossroads of pedagogy and cognitive science. Your science class will never look the same again!
To learn more about Scott's podcast "Science In Between" at this link: https://scienceinbetween.fireside.fm/
Want to send us a show idea or just say hi? Email us at: thechangedpodcast@gmail.com!
Welcome back to Change Ed. Now it doesn't sound right. Well, I got three backseat drivers that are helping me out with the intro.
Speaker 2It sounds like you're in a cave or something.
Speaker 3You just got like a foot away.
Speaker 2Can't you get a little closer to the mic and talk like a normal person? La, la, la la.
Speaker 1Hi, see how's she turning it on. She's like, hey, yeah.
Speaker 4Why am I nicer to everyone else? Because I see you guys.
Speaker 1She's gritting her teeth. Watch around with you. She's talking like this.
Speaker 4Okay, we're done here.
Speaker 1Welcome back to Change Ed. Changed Change Ed, the number one podcast, which will be verified by our guest in all of Pennsylvania for all things educational, especially in between science. I'm your host, andrew Kuhn, educational consultant. Nope, education consultant for Montgomery County, intermediate Unit number 23.
Speaker 4And here with me, patrice Semitek also the Montgomery County Intermediate Unit 23.
Speaker 3And Tony Marabito, CLIU 21. We're adding numbers.
Speaker 4Oh, I'm an EC Okay.
Speaker 1Well, we are an education, so we have lots of acronyms. I appreciate you all using your acronyms. We have here with us the one, the only, dr Scott McDonald from Penn State. Do you want to be identified that way? Sure, in between science, where do you want to be?
Speaker 2I'd like to be identified. However you'd like to identify oh boy, I'm here to leave. Well, I wouldn't tell you I'm really happy to have uncle scott here yeah, share with us gather around the microphone kids yeah, uncle scott's gonna tell you a story never mind, he's not my uncle I cancel, cancel.
Speaker 1We're very excited to be here at pete and c 2025 what does pete and c mean? It means pennsylvania educational technology expo and conference conference. Yeah, you have to say conference twice when you say the whole thing conference, conference no says no.
Speaker 1Okay, donnie has spoken and sc Scott is a part of the conference in the capacity that we're here in the lodge, but we're also over in the hotel. In the hotel, they have summits that are going on throughout the day one in the morning, one in the afternoon and Scott is the keynote for the Steeles Summit. Correct, and as far as I understand, this is your first day really talking about Steeles, interacting with it.
Speaker 2This is all new to you Today.
Speaker 1Yes.
Speaker 2Yeah, On my way in this morning I looked it up on the internet and just found out that there's this thing that's called the steel standards. I don't know what it stands for, but I hear science is in there. Yeah.
Speaker 4Somewhere yeah.
Speaker 1And so your research brought you to like a takeaway. Do we want to know who?
Speaker 4he is first he's just this rando given a keynote, I said he was Uncle Scott, I feel like that was established.
Speaker 1Oh that Right, that's my actual title. You know what, Scott? It'd be great if you would share. Tell the Change-In Nation who you are.
Speaker 3I'm going to talk to Patrice.
Speaker 2Everybody does, are you two?
Speaker 2minutes in Nope we're over here now I don't education faculty at Penn State University, which basically means I teach people how to teach science, mostly secondary students, so they're going to be certified grades seven through 12 in all areas of science. And then I also do research on science teaching. So I research a pedagogy called ambitious science teaching, which has been around for a while, and I've been doing work with those folks for a long time and basically I study how teachers learn how to teach kids science, and then I also study how kids can use data visualizations and simulations and other technology tools to learn science, specifically geoscience, wow yeah.
Speaker 4Look at that Way cooler than what we do. Yes, we just take what you find and tell everybody about it.
Speaker 3I'm a fan of ambitious science teaching because I use the website all the time for teachers as a model. There's some great videos on there as far as what it's supposed to look like in the classroom and what it can look like in the classroom. It has been a great resource for everything that we do at IU21.
Speaker 2They just rebuilt the website I think it was last year, so it really has improved a lot. There's a lot of good stuff.
Speaker 1How do you view ambitious science teaching? Do you see it as a resource or kind of the? You know the scientific Bible Like? This is what we should all be looking to.
Speaker 2I mean, I guess, well, I tend not to like static answers to things, so I don't think it's a permanent Bible-like document.
Speaker 2I mean, even now there have been some folks that have published stuff building on that. So there's critical and cultural, ambitious science teaching oh okay, that are out there that people are working on. But I guess the way I think about it is well, if we think about the steel standards, which I just learned about this morning, there's three parts to it, and one of the parts is in each standard is a science and engineering practice, and so that's a thing that kids should be doing in classrooms when they're doing science, so they shouldn't be just sitting and listening, they should be doing stuff, and so those science and engineering practices are what they should be doing. And then ambitious science teaching is sort of a way to describe what teachers should be doing so that they have a classroom that kids are doing what they should be doing. So that's sort of the way I think about it. It's just a way of describing teaching practice that will hopefully lead to the kind of stuff we want to see in science classroom.
Speaker 3With this new shift to the steel standards in Pennsylvania and everything that comes with it, what are you most excited about to see in the classroom and to see come out of all of your work?
Speaker 2That's sort of what I'm talking about today in the keynote but I think that's a good question. No, no, I'll talk about it because you know nobody's going to listen to this podcast before. Well, maybe I can stop the sentence there but no, it's no.
Speaker 4People listen for Tony and I Do. They ignore the Andrew parts.
Speaker 2No, I think I think you guys are more successful podcasts than my in-between science. So I mean, the thing I'm most excited about is I hope that teachers see this as an opportunity to change the way they teach, because I think the content like what they call the disciplinary core ideas like the content didn't really change. I mean, if anything, it got a little more sort of organized under big ideas and less a bunch of little details. The impact on what people are actually expected to know, like what kids are supposed to know, didn't really change. It got a little better organized. It got a little more grouped into big ideas. But so the big change really is like what should classrooms look like? I'd love to see kids talking a lot more in class to each other about science ideas, like that's really for me, what the big shift should be is away from the teacher talking to the kids and instead the kids talking to each other and the teacher being there to help.
Speaker 4So how are you helping teachers navigate away from, especially in the secondary world, where it's been more of a stand and deliver? Here's a procedure you have to follow. How are you helping teachers move away from that? Because it could be a little uncomfortable if they're not used to it.
Speaker 2Yeah, it's a really good question. I don't know if I have a great answer for it, actually, because I do think one of the challenges is like to your point we're really asking them to sort of become different people in a way, and that's really hard because we're asking them to not only change the way they teach but in some sense retrospectively look back at the way they have taught and maybe not feel as great about it as they did. I don't think that's necessary. I think we're all learning and we're all growing and we, if we can see ourselves that way and say, look, that may not have been the way I wanted to teach, now that I know differently, but at that point I was doing a good job in the framework of what I knew, right, but that's a hard shift.
Speaker 2The more years you've been teaching, the harder the shift, it is For sure. So I mean a lot of it is recognizing. It's going to be a slow process and recognizing a lot of it is going to be having conversations with people where they get to think about what they value, what they care about, what they're trying to accomplish and hopefully that leads them to saying, yeah, maybe this is, maybe I'm ready for a new thing, a new way of doing things.
Speaker 4One of the things that we got from you through the parse work and just in conversations with you was the book how Minds Change, and it really shifted how Andrew and I work.
Speaker 1Well, Andrew doesn't really work, but it shifted how we do things, how I show up to work. It changed how I show up. I think you might've listened to it, yeah.
Speaker 2Sounds that, sounds right that tracks Uncle Scott knows me.
Speaker 4But do you find having something like that in terms of it's really just a mindset shift? Yeah, when it comes to especially already in service teachers as opposed to pre-service teachers but we teach the way we were taught mostly, so it's still undoing a lot there. But do you find that understanding more about's been important to my thinking too? About, I mean?
Speaker 2the core piece of that. What he basically says is look, you can't change somebody's mind by arguing them into it. You have to let them change their own mind by helping them think through what they believe, and I think that has helped me frame that shift a little differently.
Speaker 4In the same summer we read David and Goliath by Malcolm Gladwell. All of his books are really great, but those two paired together were eye-opening and very informative in how we do most of our work, right, yeah, absolutely To the point where we're reading at the same time and they started to almost blend together.
Speaker 1right Was this story from here? You know we had to try and keep it straight. So it was a good supplement as well, like it really supported that mindset Because originally the work felt Herculean in the task right Like we had to.
Speaker 4The mindset shift for teachers felt very big. But the more we're doing it and the more we're having conversations with people, they're actually pretty open to shifting what they're doing because it hasn't been working as well as they had wanted it to in the past.
Speaker 1And we really seeing these shifts and knowing these shifts are. I think a lot of them are subtle but significant. We tried to embrace that as well with our practice. Knowing how minds change that just exposure to things over time and continuing having conversations not trying to convince but expose was really the goal.
Speaker 2Yeah, I mean, I think that it's a long game. I mean, when we design professional learning, we tend to think like, okay, I've got three days and I'm like accomplish X by the end of three days and the truth is you're probably not going to. What you're going to do is start a conversation.
Speaker 1Yeah, there's a rumble at the coffee line. There's a rumble at the coffee line.
Speaker 4Yeah, I think so. It's really bad. It's really bad True petency. It's really bad. It's really bad, quickly yeah.
Speaker 2Well, we're going to keep going.
Speaker 4Okay, I hope they're okay. We're going to muddle through. Well, we don't care, there's lots of people here, there's a lot of people.
Speaker 1If it's, you don, is a way to strong survive yeah, I would have thought, poster you should add that to your keynote today yeah, I'm so glad to be at the hotel, where they're way more civilized forgot that question when we think about three-dimensional learning within the three dimensions in our work.
Speaker 1I'm generalizing, but we find that teachers can kind of understand disciplinary core ideas and they get the idea of the science engineering practices right hands-on. Let's, they're doing the science. Yeah, what do you see the value of the cross-cutting concepts in this? Again, for us it seems to be like this is the core part of, like this is the big shift is shifting into creating thinkers, that they have this skillset.
Speaker 2Yeah, I mean, I guess I think about the cross-cutting concepts as sort of like tools, right? So you have like cognitive tools. So you have practices you have, which are the things that you're doing, and then you've got the disciplinary core ideas, which are the things that you're working on when you're doing those things. And then you have the cross-cutting concepts, which are a set of tools that are useful across lots of areas of science that you can draw on when you're trying to do the work. So if you're trying to build a model, you can use cause and effect, which is a cross-cutting concept, to say well, what's happening here, what's the cause, what's an effect? You can use scale as a way of thinking about am I thinking at multiple scales at the same time?
Speaker 2So I think the teacher can call those out, because they're I mean, this is one of the challenges is any science environment where you're learning, multiple practices and multiple tools are being used simultaneously. So it's not a question of that, it's more of a question of which one are you going to focus and attend to. So today we're really going to focus on cause and effect. So when you guys are building your model, I really want you to be able to make specific references to one thing causing another thing in your model, right, and that doesn't mean that other things won't be there, but calling it out so that kids start to identify that this is a tool that they're already using, yeah, that they just don't have a name for. But now you can start saying, hey, anytime you're trying to do this thing. Here are some tools that you can pull out of your tool belt and look at it and say is this going to be helpful here? And if not, put it away.
Speaker 1But sometimes those things are useful, so we've also been working a lot on curiosity as a gateway to phenomenon, allowing permission to be curious, which I think leads naturally into the three dimensions, where, if I don't understand it or I want to know more about it, I can dive into it and, like you said, I have the tools to do that, I have practices to do that. That seems to be a big shift as well, and one of the things we hear most is the concern of time. I don't have time to do all of these. I'm wondering and I appreciate your perspective on this is that kind of almost a hybrid of the two of like? I know I've got to get through all of these standards? And now I have to add this on the idea of adding on versus shifting the practice Is that something that you're seeing and, if so, what's the competition?
Speaker 2I think that's the only way to make it happen. I mean you can't, yeah. Again, the coverage thing is frustrating to me because it's just like well, what does coverage mean? That means you said those words in front of the kids on a day and so now you can check it off your list and we know that doesn't help them actually learn it. So what does coverage mean, when I've seen this kind of pedagogy happening across a whole year, where it's not just like little bits and pieces? What you see is that the kids and especially when you see it over multiple years, the kids get used to this and in the beginning it's hard because they're learning how to do it and they don't really understand. What are we doing here?
Speaker 2Like I'm just asking these questions Like this is science class and I'm just writing my notebook my ideas, like that sounds dumb, like tell me the right answer so I can put that in the notebook, right? And so at first it's rough and it's slow, but as they build that capacity it speeds up and the thing that you find or at least I've seen happen is kids are much better at building on their own ideas that they've had in the past because they really understand them. So when you're doing a unit about one thing that has to do with energy, and now they have an idea of what potential kinetic energy really mean well, maybe when you're doing a unit on hurricanes and you're talking about how hurricanes form and use, you know, sea surface temperature to drive the energy of a hurricane, now they can start to understand that, oh, that's just kinetic and potential energy in a different form yeah and they actually understand it.
Speaker 2yeah, but if you're just teaching them a bunch of words here and a bunch of words there, they don't know there's any relationship between them. There's just a thing I know.
Speaker 1Pulling on all the stops here. Pete and Steve for Uncle Scott, we're sharing the whole thing.
Speaker 4Do you want to talk for a little bit about? You have your own podcast.
Speaker 2And you do that with, he won't be a guest. You can come, thank you.
Speaker 3I don't feel single at all. It'll be on without him, it's fine, I'm intentionally single.
Speaker 4You're like, I'm glad you're picking up what I'm putting down so do you want to tell us in your podcast what kinds of things are you guys talking more of this kind of stuff, basically we basically we talk about science teaching.
Speaker 2We also have a technology flavor to it, because Ali is really that's my background to some degree, but he's really still interested in that, particularly like in AI. Now he's really pushing into AI a lot, so we sort of alternate who's picking the topic. So when I'm picking, it's usually about science teaching, but sometimes it's about technology. When he's picking, it's usually about science teaching, but sometimes it's about technology. When he's picking, it's sometimes about technology and sometimes about science teaching.
Speaker 1But yeah, basically it's all those things. That's awesome. Yeah, well, and you had said, as we were starting this podcast, you have like 239 episodes, so there's a backlist, there's a lot of things that you can dive into and go deeper and find a lot of information.
Speaker 2There's 176 hours of content. You know you can just binge all that. Yeah, yeah, make it your life. I'm looking specifically at you. I think this is a thing maybe you should consider. Yeah.
Speaker 3Before you get a lot of ideas.
Speaker 2You should learn something yeah.
Speaker 1Yeah, let's move on.
Speaker 3Yeah, I have a question for Scott, but I can. But I can't stop thinking about this new shift of teaching, yeah, and the connection that it has with what demetrius was talking about yesterday and his cte experience. So it's not just getting this rote memorization of vocab words, because my teacher said this today in class and I had to write it down and take notes on it. Yeah, but now I'm learning about these vocab words, but I'm applying it, I'm doing something with it.
Speaker 4There's meaning behind it, right, like I'm not just learning vocabulary words for vocabulary words and I think that's where the powerful piece of the steel standards come in is that if we were to cross pollinate into other subject areas, the impact in ELA will be shifted because of the background knowledge that's now accessible, because they've experienced something in attached meaning to words, so they're going to be able to do better on their comprehension assistance. I think what we do, especially in elementary world, where we usually live, is we do a disservice to everybody by making science 30 minutes once a week if they get to it, because everything would be shifted. The math can be applied, the ELA can be applied and you can leverage all this ELA time to read about some of the things that you're doing in science and math as well.
Speaker 3So he was talking about plumbing and gravity, but also the geometry that comes with plumbing. So by pulling all of these different ideas together and actually understanding and being able to explain or make models, the learning is so much more impactful.
Speaker 4Well, but the application. We don't science as adults. We apply the science understanding to all the things that we're doing. So I think too, in terms of making the connections in your brain, the more you do the stuff and apply the stuff, the longer it's going to stick with you. So that's why I think the CTC idea of moving towards more practical application which is what steals is pushing us towards anyway is going to transform the way that kids interact and are learners forever, hopefully okay, I like that.
Speaker 1We're all looking at me I think, that's good.
Speaker 4Well, I feel like he's got good stuff to say, so you want to jump in and ruin it all right.
Speaker 2Yeah, that's fair. This is not when the guest agrees with the co-host. Does it depend on which co-host? If I had agreed with you, would that be okay? No, I'm the host.
Speaker 4Oh, he's not a co-host, he got the co-host. He never added the co-host for him.
Speaker 3It was voted on by the listeners. He added the co for him. He was voted on by the listeners. He's got the highest microphone.
Speaker 4He's got the most expensive headphones he had the boom microphone because he needed to be a part no. No one voted. His mom voted.
Speaker 3I'm still involved.
Speaker 4She still voted for us.
Speaker 1She had to go buy burner phones, so it was a different IP address every time. That's very smart.
Speaker 2Yeah, did you help her out with that? Yeah?
Speaker 4Bought all the burner phones and sent all the messages yes, and said love mom.
Speaker 1Mom, can you give them back when you're done so I can return them? I don't actually want to buy them, oh my God. Well, scott, we really appreciate your time and you coming on, especially before your keynoting for Thousands of adoring fans. Yeah.
Speaker 2Maybe just hundreds, yeah, maybe just dozens you know, Either way, either way.
Speaker 1We appreciate you coming on and giving us the time and really your insights. We encourage our listeners to give a look and give a listen to Science In Between, because I think there's a lot of valuable information there, as we've heard and experienced from Uncle Scott. So thank you for coming on.
Speaker 2Thank you. Maybe I should have a new podcast. It's just called Uncle Scott. Yeah.
Speaker 4I feel like he'd be well-listened to At the fire. Yeah, uncle.
Speaker 1Scott around Coffee station. Uncle Scott's scolding Andrew.
Speaker 2Everyone will hear that I mean a lot of people would tune in for that. Probably Anybody's scolding Andrew, katri's scolding Andrew.
Speaker 1That could be what the guest does, Each guest that comes on. I just get a verbal lashing.
Speaker 3As a reminder, interact with us on Spotify through the message feature and feel free to ask Uncle Scott any questions. Yeah, not about.
Speaker 2Andrew, not about Andrew, all about Andrew. Yeah, I don't have any answers for you about Andrew.
Speaker 1Mistakes were made.
Speaker 4Yeah Well, are we going to give him the second to last thought, or are we just?
Speaker 1Oh, yeah, yeah, we would like to give you, but. Andrew does oh.
Speaker 2As host. He has a special thing here that he's going to.
Speaker 4Well, he likes to say second, it's a special thing, but it's a special thing for everyone, they're all set up for something insane too.
Speaker 1This is a friends and family discount that we're giving you. I see the second to last final thought on our conversation.
Speaker 2Okay, Because he has to have it so I can say whatever I want, whatever you want, yeah, it'll be edited, but sure that's a lot of pressure to think about. So I would say I think we have a real opportunity here to because the standards are structured in a way that we can really change the way we think about science teaching and really do it. And maybe I'm being Pollyanna here and I'm wrong, but I think this is the closest thing we've had in my time as a science educator to really having clear guidance from the state to say you need to not just change what you teach, but how you teach. And I really hope we take advantage of that and see real change, because where I've seen it in schools, it does amazing things for kids and for teachers. Teachers have a whole new experience of teaching. They really love it again and feel connected, yeah. So I really really hope you do that. I'm just going to ruin it.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 4Andrew, I was going to say you could just leave it, but that doesn't feel right.
Speaker 1No, that doesn't feel right. Scott, I want to say that, as we've gone through this journey, you've been one of the people that have been very informative to us in this process and helped stretch our thinking, and I think it's important for our listeners to hear that, to understand the weight that we put into the things that you say in the conversation we have. It's developed over time for us, but also this podcast is a representation of things that we're learning and that we're experiencing, so I just think that's important to be said, that the I don't know. I started trying to remember Godfather, the Grandfather. No, that's wrong.
Speaker 2I'm going the wrong way. Who's the Godfather? Move from uncle to grandfather just now.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, it's a fluid situation, I think.
Speaker 3Godfather is probably the better fit there.
Speaker 4So Scott's the Godfather now?
Speaker 1No, I don't know, is it?
Speaker 4Brett Moulding was the godfather. There's a lot of godfathers.
Speaker 1You're part two. I'm going to start that over right. Can we use a different analogy, Feel free?
Speaker 2Yeah, it seems like you don't really understand how families work so maybe let's take a step back.
Speaker 3I didn't do well in science. I'm a guy with 12 kids.
Speaker 1Yeah, you have served in very much and, honestly, the entire PARSE team has done a great job of empowering IUs to better understand the shifts. And even when I started, when I went to my very first PARSE session, before getting there I thought, oh, here we go, new standards. I feel like it's very much a general mindset of like here we go again, right, like we have to learn. Okay, I'll move over here and I'll use these words. And it quickly became very apparent and was the impetus for really this journey that I personally have gone on, that through that experience, I'm like, yes, standards are driving the conversation, but that's not what we're actually talking about. Is this pedagogical shift. So thank you for your leadership and the fact that your podcast has been around for five years has really stood the test of time and there's a lot for us to talk about, for us to learn. So I think we're going to wrap it up, because the lights got turned off.
Speaker 2It's a clear signal that the podcast is over.
Speaker 4It's like the metaphorical hook.
Speaker 1So thank you, thank you very much. We look forward to further conversations with Uncle Scott With.
Speaker 2Uncle Scott, with Uncle Scott, around the fire, around the fire.