The purpose of WISE is to make learning visible to not only teachers but to students as well so they can “restructure, rethink, compare, critique, and analyze both the new ideas and their established views” (Linn et al., 2002). Linn et al. (2002) note that this involves more than designing science content, it also includes testing the curriculum to make sure it is relevant to the students. Currently, Linn et al. (2002) find that most textbook creators focus on simplifying the vocabulary when they should focus on changing instructions to better develop knowledge integration. By changing instructions, students’ thoughts can be redirected in such a way to make their conceptual knowledge accessible to the teacher. When teachers know what ideas their students have, they can nudge them to develop their critical thinking skills.
To determine the knowledge base students have coming into the unit, this can be done through embedded prompts that reveal students’ prior knowledge and current conceptual understanding which gives teachers a chance to rewrite lessons to fit learning needs. Learning can be directed with carefully constructed instructions. Linn et al. (2002) give an example where a broad question leads to generalizations but being specific can lead to a deeper understanding of the content. When planning instructions, teachers must ask themselves what conceptual knowledge students should take from these instructions and consider the SKI—what knowledge can they add to the discussion. Learning needs can be met through embedded links from WISE that are relevant to student context.
This differs from the Jasper Adventures because WISE customizes lessons for students based on what students add to the lesson whereas Jasper Adventures, while using anchored instruction and using evidence based pedagogy, it is pre-planned and does not change to fit the learning needs of the classroom.
Looking at the WISE lesson involving earth and space plants, I would adjust it to my (G3) students’ backgrounds, which are primarily Mainland Chinese, so I would ask students classify plants (wheat/barley and rice) as either northern or southern plants. Prompts to discover what knowledge they have would be to have them plan a meal for people from all over China or a meal that they feel represents Chinese cuisine.
The learning objective for the unit is to know that different living beings (humans, animals and plants) have different needs to survive. The inquiry question to support this learning objective would be which regions of the country could best grow the staple crops (barley, wheat, rice). From here they would be given real estate ads for farmland to select and bid for, they should choose two to three lots to grow the different crops. The bids can be made through an auction to encourage students to carefully research the land conditions.
I would pair students up because Linn and Hsi (2000) found that students’ discussion is more productive in pairs than it is in larger groups (Linn et al., 2002) and I would do my best to pair a Chinese-native speaker with a non-native speaker so students can use both Chinese and English online resources. Once they’ve been given their plots of land, they would be asked to choose which crops they should grow. They would be given links about the weather and geography along with links to farming guides to help them decide which crops would be best for their land. Then we would replicate the light, temperature and soil conditions through diy greenhouses. They would also be asked to choose which crop would be native to the school area to be grown outside.
I would integrate technology into the unit as a means to record the plants growth through line graphs using excel to record growth, water given and temperature.