At the end of my first year of teaching I was surprised by one of my students in the best way ever. This surprise made me reflect on my own assumptions and also the importance of getting to know my students and their interests.
I’ve been doing a lot of reflecting on my early days of teaching lately and I stumbled on some pictures from a science fair held the spring of my first year of teaching. I was a 5th grade teacher in a suburban school district. It was late spring and our science fair was in the gym. Participation was optional for all grades except 5th where it was required. I had done a lot of communicating and cajoling to get all my students to participate.
Now, this was at the time when science fairs tended to be very focused on controlled experiments- and this science fair was very much in line with this. Students brought in projects- they were displayed in the gym for students and families to view- and then there was a judging and interview process. There would then be an award ceremony after school.
I remember that one of my students, Matthew, who received support from our special-education team brought in a project. (School was hard for Matthew. Reading, and writing, and math did not come easy- he would get frustrated and down on himself.) He came right up to me in the morning- so excited- and asked me, “Mr. Robbins, did you see my science project?” He rarely initiated conversations so I knew immediately that this was a big deal. I told him I’d check it out when the class was at music.
During my morning planning time I walked through the gym to see what was up. I saw Matthew’s project and was immediately impressed. He had built an intricate cityscape using LEGO. Not a pre-purchased kit…but his own design. There were moving parts with labels and very creative reuses of LEGO parts for a variety of purposes. As I examined the level of detail I quickly realized that this LEGO masterpiece was not going to “score” well on the controlled experiment rubric being used to assess projects. I rushed back to my room and created a new scoring tool specifically for Matthew’s project along with a couple of interview questions to ask our 5th grade designer. Then I found the person supervising the team who would be judging. I eventually got them to begrudgingly agree to use the new rubric for this one particular project and also somehow talked them into being able to part with a precious First Place ribbon for this new unsanctioned category of project.
I rarely saw Matthew smile that 5th grade year…but he was beaming at the end of that science fair day. He was so proud of what he had done. I remember being so excited for him to experience such a public and positive success in school. But I also felt ashamed of myself. Ashamed that I had only now uncovered this passion and interest that Matthew had for building and designing- and it was almost the end of the school year. What could I have done differently to support Matthew during the year if I’d taken the time to really know him and to uncover some things about his interests? We had a science kit called Models & Design…and I could have used that unit to highlight Matthew’s expertise. But I didn’t.
As I’m writing this I’m reflecting on the courses I taught this spring. I teach an education course where we think about how to best support all of our students with dignity and belonging- we have a strong focus on interest and identity. I think I’ll share this story next year in class and relate the time when I uncovered information about a key student’s interest and identity…but it was too late for me to leverage it. We will consider ways that we can uncover our learners’ interests, skills, and identities outside of school and plan for how to use that critical information in our instructional designs.
What are some ways that you identify your students’ interests? How do you use that information in your teaching?
If you are interested you can visit some of the STEM Teaching Tools below to learn more about interest and identity:
Science for All 
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