Situated Language and Learning with Bryan Brown

In this interview Bryan Brown, we discuss the importance of language in education. In particular, we discuss the role of language in teaching and learning, discursive identity, situated language and learning, the importance of representation in education, the role of language on stress, how smartphones and virtual communication platforms (e.g., Zoom) could change learning, and many other topics relevant to CS education and learning.

  • Welcome back to another episode of the

    CSK8 podcast my name is jared o'leary

    in this week's episode i am interviewing

    brian brown in our discussion we

    primarily focus on the importance of

    language in education

    in particular we discuss the roles of

    language in teaching and learning

    as well as some concepts such as

    discursive identity and situated

    language and learning which

    are some things that i have kind of

    mentioned in some of the other podcasts

    we also discussed the importance of

    representation in education

    and some of the research that brian has

    done in that area as well as some of his

    research on the role of language on

    stress

    and how smartphones and virtual

    communication platforms such as zoom

    could actually change

    learning and has already changed

    learning as well as many other topics

    related to education

    and learning as always you can find a

    link to the show notes in the

    description of the app that you're

    listening to this on

    or by simply going to jaredaler.com

    where there is nothing for sale no

    advertisements

    just hundreds of free resources probably

    even thousands

    with all that being said we will now

    start the interview with brian

    introducing himself

    my name is brian brown i am an associate

    professor of science education at

    stanford university

    in the school of education so if you'd

    write a book about your life

    what would the chapter titles be if i

    had to write a book about myself the

    chapter titles i'm not sure about all of

    them but extraordinarily ordinary would

    be one of the

    captions your big ideas because in a lot

    of ways the things that i do

    professionally are about

    representing and understanding the

    things that ordinary people experience

    and in some ways how to succeed as an

    ordinary person

    in extraordinary context so what's

    something that you first believe when

    you

    first began working in education that

    you no longer believe so when i first

    started in education

    one of the things that i've learned was

    that it's less about the student's

    ability and more about

    the teacher's capacity to see students

    talents i was a science teacher and a

    baseball coach and i think that parallel

    of those two things work really well

    together

    you can either believe that your team is

    as talented as the players that you have

    in front of you

    or that they will become as talented as

    you can motivate them to be

    how they'll become as skilled as you can

    magnify their talents

    i think the same thing about teaching

    and learning is we have to really

    understand our students and bring the

    best out of them

    which a lot of times really causes us to

    break our paradigms and commitments to

    the things that we think education

    should be

    i like that i'm curious how you got into

    your research interest so like one of

    the things that i saw

    in your webinar that you gave like now a

    month or so ago

    was your discussion on like the

    intersections of like language and

    identity

    and whatnot and so how did you get into

    that interest and

    did that at all relate to your time in

    science and

    coaching baseball part of what motivated

    my

    interest to really focus on language had

    to do with understanding

    culture i grew up in oakland california

    at a time when

    the teen culture was to play with

    language and

    you could know a person where they're

    from by the way that they greeted each

    other by

    the words that you used and i was

    heightened as i moved across the world

    and saw

    how young people use language to

    communicate who they are

    then as a science teacher i'm teaching

    classes

    and one of my favorite examples is to

    think about

    chromosomes and chromatids and chromatin

    is literally the same name

    to describe the same thing at different

    stages and so

    the density of words it really causes

    you to

    have a sense of frustration but i knew

    something different about language from

    my personal experience and just that

    the way we use language is as a way to

    mark who we are as people

    so how could you possibly use language

    and not feel like a part of that

    particular community and so i started my

    research

    at that intersection to say if language

    communicates content

    but we know that everything that we

    communicate communicates both content

    and identity then we can't pretend like

    having

    someone read a sentence that says inside

    of the nucleus is the nucleolus and the

    nucleolus is responsible for rna

    production which is responsible for

    protein production is the density of

    that sentence you can tell a person hey

    this is not a place where people like

    you which goes back to the

    extraordinarily ordinary thing or

    ordinary people intimidated

    by complex language right and the other

    aspect of that

    is always thought people were stupid if

    you were trying to sound too smart right

    if you're using really really big words

    i was like you must not be a smart

    person because you're trying too hard

    right so

    you take those things together and

    that's how i ended up studying

    language and learning i'm curious what

    goes through your head when reading some

    journal articles where it's a bunch of

    like 50 words that are being placed into

    certain sentences and whatnot it's

    always fun reading

    like seeing people and just go do you

    even understand what you're saying

    because that is such a complicated

    sentence with many potential meanings

    it's hiding in some ways i feel like the

    brilliance of a new idea

    is just how transcendent it is how

    useful it is how it transfers from

    context to context

    and you can't explain it clearly

    and clarity is not the goal then it must

    not be a useful idea and so part of what

    i had to struggle with as an early

    academic is just getting through

    the sentences right there's a noun

    there's a verb there's a subject is not

    that complicated so

    i learned that there's a functionality

    in language and that there's a beauty in

    science language and computer science

    there's a real functionality

    but we have to have some wisdom about

    how language poses problems for teaching

    and learning it's

    super important so i'm wondering if we

    could unpack like one of the words

    or phrases so discursive identity so if

    you were to give like an

    elevator speech about what it is and why

    it's important for educators to

    understand

    how would you describe discursive

    identity so discursive identity is

    essentially the idea that

    we have an identity that we communicate

    through the words we use to the pace

    of our conversation to the tone and

    intonation so if i'm angry

    i'm going to speak to you in a mode that

    lets you know i'm angry

    it has purpose it has intention and so

    if that is the case then the question is

    how does the way that we use language

    mark us as a particular type of person

    and then you do the inverse how do we

    interpret who we believe a person

    is by how they communicate so if a

    person is a really big

    person like six foot eight and you have

    an imagined

    image of what they should sound like so

    if this person is male

    and six foot eight and they speak with a

    high-pitched voice

    it is almost shocking it's it's

    discomforting in some ways because the

    image doesn't match

    so the reality that we live in is we

    make snap judgments about people

    immediately based on the way that they

    communicate so when i grew up i grew up

    in an urban context and

    people in my community we used to end

    with though a lot

    and start with though you know we say

    what time we going to the store though

    right and it was

    a marker of just neighborhood and

    culture right and so you might assume i

    didn't know

    how to speak the point is it just

    reflected my neighborhood

    my contacts the people who i was around

    and it was appropriate

    so the big barrier is that we have an

    imagined

    discursive identity or language identity

    that we put on kids

    that doesn't really match so here's some

    interesting studies for example

    there was a study about physicians that

    people in the south

    did not want their physicians to have

    thick southern accents

    and i could not get my head around it

    like why would you not want a person who

    lives in the south to speak with a

    southern accent

    and it was about stereotypes around

    brilliance

    and southern accents and so the question

    is why wouldn't the

    person who had a thick southern accent

    be brilliant right

    it is assumptions about what we think

    brilliant sounds like so if that's the

    case

    then is the opposite true is it thick

    northern accent

    brilliance so there's a boston accent

    cube brilliance of course not

    we have to really start to question the

    mode of communication reflects our

    perception of people

    and that's super important for for

    science classrooms or teaching in

    general because

    when you go to a classroom you don't

    know the idea and the teachers asking

    you to communicate what you think

    so their perception of who you are and

    how you communicate i think serves as a

    burden and we've been studying that for

    quite some time so that's the long

    version of discursive identity and how

    it matters

    i like it one of the things that i like

    about

    discourse and discourse analysis in

    particular is there are many types of

    discourse that you can look at so like

    one of my professors james paul g

    he talked about small d versus big d

    discourse

    and how like the small d discourse was

    like the things that you say the things

    that you're directly communicating

    through like speech or text and whatnot

    but then the big d discourse is like

    other things so like right now

    i'm wearing a t-shirt that's for a drum

    core that i happen to like i'm also

    wearing a necklace that's a kanji symbol

    so like all these things are

    representing different identities and

    communicating different things

    and even within discourse analysis like

    there's different approaches like

    there's discourse

    psychology there's media discourse

    analysis there's like all these ways of

    looking at like body language

    and like clothing and things that all

    communicate different stuff

    so even just starting and ending

    sentences with the word though like

    that's

    like one thing of doing it but then if

    you also are wearing

    certain types of attire that will match

    starting and ending with though and if

    you are different types of tire that's

    going to

    be like whoa wait that doesn't really

    work they're incongruent with each other

    it's fascinating to look at

    all the different ways that people are

    communicating identities through

    language

    and through just other things outside of

    language see now you're speaking my

    language jim ji

    is the guru of this yeah everything i

    learned came from jim g's work

    brilliance on top of brilliance so one

    of the things we talked about in our

    classes

    is if that's the case if everyone speaks

    in ways that are reflective of american

    culture why do we have accents why would

    we

    in california speak different than

    people from new york or people from

    texas or alabama and john ball has this

    work

    he's retired professor from stanford and

    his work talks about

    variation in the power of it so for

    example i can say hello

    i can say hello i can say hello

    same words different message and i can

    send you multiple variations of the same

    message but i always have the power to

    determine

    how i want to say it and what's the

    message that i want to send

    so people speak with regional accents

    because i love sound like my

    grandparents and my uncles and my

    cousins and friends is

    being from oakland i'm an oakland

    california native if a person says it's

    hella hot outside

    i'm comforted i know you are my kind of

    human being

    intentionally chose to say hella because

    it's a marker of community culture and

    context right and so

    if we understand that this is how

    language works and the linguists know

    this for sure

    then why do we just walk into classrooms

    and play these ridiculous

    language games with kids right we walk

    in the classroom

    they're not supposed to know the one

    thing that we're learning let's say it's

    chemistry

    walk to a chemistry class and the

    teacher asks you a bunch of questions

    about chemistry

    and the one thing you don't know is

    chemistry because that's why you're in

    the chemistry class

    and then the teacher uses lots of

    chemistry words to teach you about

    chemistry

    as if the words are just inherently

    understood and so i think part of

    what is really perplexing about how

    language works in classrooms

    is that we just accept it as a norm

    without creating intentional norms like

    why do you have to raise your hand

    to participate in the conversation in

    the classroom it would be

    absolutely ridiculous to do that at a

    coffee shop with a group of us sitting

    around talking

    no one raises their hand so do you need

    to raise your hand in order to have a

    healthy conversation and if you didn't

    what would be the benefit of a freelance

    conversation where everyone has equal

    power in contributing

    to tight into like a classroom context

    one of the things that

    jim g would talk about in our classes in

    a lot of his writings is

    how certain types of identities and like

    ways of

    engaging in discourse are more socially

    acceptable or less socially acceptable

    in school context

    and so one of the examples that he gave

    is if somebody says

    he be tired as opposed to he is tired so

    those mean two very different things and

    depending on your knowledge of that

    one is quote more correct or less

    correct than another

    he b is i believe what he referred to as

    a negative infinitive which is

    basically a saying he is always tired

    whereas he is tired is

    in this moment this person is tired and

    like in english

    not a lot of people know about negative

    infinitives and so they assume when you

    say he be

    then that is quote incorrect language

    then if you look at other languages

    like spanish there's el es consado or

    el esta consado so like those are the

    two equivalents of like

    the naked infinitive and the just the

    regular uses of it

    so when people come into like computer

    science class or enterprise science

    class

    and they're using these like ways of

    communicating and whatnot if you're not

    fitting in within that specific

    discourse it's assumed that it's wrong

    but it's just like it's correct in a

    different context in a different setting

    and it's just another way of

    communicating but a lot of teachers will

    kind of get into this like mindset where

    they feel like they need to correct

    things and they just don't understand

    that it's just another way of

    communicating

    and what if i don't care right what if

    saying it that way makes me feel

    comfortable

    if i'm writing and i'm writing that way

    then i understand it's a formal

    engagement so maybe i need to say it

    that way because it's a formal writing

    activity

    but unless you explicitly state it that

    this communication was

    intended to sound like academic speech

    then

    what are the rules that should say that

    i should speak in any particular way

    particularly ones that reflect cultural

    and personal heritage and so a lot of

    times

    kids just reject normal so-called

    academic language because why

    i don't want to sound like that

    professor teacher

    i don't want to sound like you the real

    question is

    how does learning work and then how do

    we use classroom conversations to

    promote learning

    you know and i think that's where this

    is most important i feel like my early

    research

    just dealt with language identity

    relationships how we communicate who we

    are

    how the message and the content are

    paired together and how

    it shapes opportunities to classrooms

    where it really matters

    is when it gets in the way of teaching

    and learning and if teachers have no

    awareness of their own bias yep then

    they're in no position to really promote

    excellence in learning because they're

    perceiving kids as being incapable

    when all they're doing is being

    resistant and those are hugely different

    things

    totally agree so speaking of learning

    i'm wondering if you could also

    talk a little bit about what is situated

    language and learning

    i want to start with a macro level idea

    i'm actually working on a revision to a

    manuscript and they were like situated

    learning

    what does that mean and it needs to fit

    this broader idea of social constructive

    is learning right so the idea is that

    no one learns in a vacuum we learn

    together and we're pairing our ideas

    with the ideas of the academic space

    and as a group as we talk about it

    together as we come to make

    meaning together is where we're good

    clarity now

    i learned what i absolutely need to

    learn and the things i know

    most are the things i talk most about so

    you want to talk to

    kids about cell phone functionality

    around

    software devices you know about tick

    tock and you'll get a dissertation

    in great detail depth because they know

    those things that is what they talk

    about

    so the argument is in the same way we

    say

    you know carpenters become phenomenal at

    measurement by building chairs and doors

    it is the process of building the door

    that teaches measurement why wouldn't we

    teach in a way that requires

    students to master content in the

    process of doing things so let's take

    computer science for

    an example the question is what will we

    have a student do

    that will require them to master some

    components of learning

    the c language right and what would they

    do often

    and do very well because the things you

    do most often are the things you do most

    well

    that will produce and maximize these

    opportunities for learning and so that's

    where the language comes into play

    first is that we need to create

    opportunities for students to do

    something

    that requires them to learn the language

    second they need to use the language

    often and be able to use it wrong

    because the best way to master a

    language is to use it

    incorrectly and be corrected because

    using it over and over

    creates mastery and then third if

    they're doing it in a way

    where the product is something that they

    use or see on a daily basis

    then that's where they really become

    masters because they'll do it over and

    over again so i imagine a classroom

    where we have kids

    building websites and let's say the

    website is

    designed to do school announcements but

    your job is to do it every day

    school amounts announcements on a

    website you're going to build this

    website

    and if they have to do it for each day

    of the school year they will become

    phenomenal

    at building the page right the necessity

    of the language comes to the task

    so as educators we need to think what

    are the situations that we can use to

    really maximize students

    languages and i have good news kids are

    great at learning language there's

    almost no way you can mess it up

    if you do it often and do it well the

    challenge is

    you have to stop talking as a teacher

    and enable them to do all the talking

    yeah i like it and this is where like

    the people who are exploring

    project-based learning the importance of

    situating it within a real world context

    or problem that's why this is so

    important because then kids have that

    need to know and that buying into it and

    can apply it in their every day

    well here's the hard part though here's

    the warning that the most difficult

    aspect is i need to figure out

    what motivates my kids what are the

    things that they're doing

    regularly because that's where the

    teaching and learning happens and so

    the problem is as educators we learn

    who's in the room first and it starts

    with figuring out who these kids are

    and then that'll give us an opportunity

    to teach things

    yeah it reminds me there was one teacher

    who was talking about this kid who was

    really shy and was like oh yeah he never

    really speaks and it's like well have

    you asked him about pokemon he'll talk

    to you about it like the entire lunch

    break just talking about

    the different strategies used in playing

    et cetera et cetera

    what about any surprises that you've had

    in

    your research specifically like around

    the intersections of like race language

    and culture

    in relation to learning i will say we

    in the past few years we did work on

    identity matching

    so we did a series of studies with

    digital books where you can

    basically ipad or any tablet where you

    can touch

    the text you can double tap it a video

    pops up or you can manipulate the maps

    within the text

    and one of the emerging factors we study

    what would happen if you provided

    students with options

    in the same way that they start a video

    again and they can decide who's their

    avatar when we start the unit give them

    images and videos to drop into place

    which of these images do you like

    and these are the same images so it's

    just an image of someone explaining the

    water cycle

    but we toggled it by race and gender so

    they can pick people from different

    races and different genders

    we did that and one of the things that

    was most striking was the gender effect

    we really found that women are not only

    largely represented

    in the text or curriculum spaces but

    they had a greater affinity

    to want to see themselves teach

    themselves in this context

    and so it was a striking kind of

    response about

    who's teaching and how what we're

    teaching has the secondary effect

    and our lab group we like to think of

    the reverse psychology

    of what's happening so for example if

    you see an image

    and the image says women don't do well

    in computer science well the stereotype

    threat research would tell us that if

    you give a person a task

    it's simply saying you don't belong is a

    psychological distractor

    the analogy i use often is it's like

    trying to parallel parker car

    with the music really really loud like

    you can do it you can succeed through

    the

    battle but you have to turn the music

    down to be able to really focus and an

    additional distractor

    so in our lab the thought is if that is

    the case then the alternative then must

    be true

    so if i'm always telling you hey people

    like you succeed in this context

    i don't even tell you explicitly but the

    images that you see are of people like

    you doing the very

    thing that the world is telling you

    cannot do then i've turned the music

    down for you already it's much easier

    for you to focus

    on the academic components when you know

    the belonging component is already there

    and so

    that was not an anticipated finding of

    our initial work into kind of the role

    of digital technology and teaching and

    learning but it was also very profound

    to say

    that the affirmation just both explicit

    and subtle that we can embed in our

    learning technologies

    really means something for different

    populations and it doesn't hit everybody

    the same way

    and for our female students it was

    really a striking response

    yeah this is interesting so i work at a

    non-profit that works

    nationwide and we specifically focus on

    elementary teachers and students and

    one of the things related to that that i

    really like is that because we're

    training teachers and

    around 80 of elementary teachers are

    female

    we're teaching them how to do computer

    science and then they become the role

    models in the classroom that says look

    i can do this you can do this thing but

    going off the same demographics

    one of the issues that we have though is

    elementary teachers about 80

    are also white so we're still having the

    issue of perpetuating white people going

    into computer science and kind of

    maintaining that form of dominance and

    whatnot so be nice if we were able to

    flip

    some of those stats in some areas we're

    literally writing the paper to say

    that the curriculum doesn't have to be

    monocultural it can be

    extremely dynamic and diverse and so

    society

    structures a way where those will most

    likely to be married

    happen to be white women those most

    likely to stay in teaching jobs

    are people who are married those who are

    likely to be teachers are

    women in general so for people of color

    to get into elementary

    education there's all these huge

    infrastructure societal issues that we'd

    have to change

    you could change the curriculum today so

    as a white woman

    and you roll out curriculum it can look

    like anything it can represent every

    culture

    so part of i think what would really

    benefit people seeing themselves

    as being a part of let's say computer

    science communities is just having the

    curriculum

    represent the diversity that we want to

    see and not in the token way

    meaning because a lot of curriculum

    developers do this they just put an

    image

    and it's like got people from every race

    and culture there

    that is not cultural diversity i'm

    saying

    teaching about things that the students

    who

    are in the classroom might see on an

    everyday basis teaching in

    context building models that really

    enable them to see

    how people like themselves can succeed

    and so one of the things that really is

    understudied

    is how a diverse curriculum can help

    bridge this gap

    so one of the other research interests

    that i noticed

    of yours is you were looking at the

    relationships between

    language and stress and with the amount

    of stress that like a lot of people are

    going on right now because of like the

    chaos in the world with lycoved and

    whatnot

    i'm curious what did you find in those

    relationships between

    language and stress what have you

    learned from that research so part of

    what we were

    doing is following up on a sequence of

    studies about language and learning

    and so the first tier of studies was

    just to suggest that

    if you talk with really really

    complicated language people don't learn

    well and that was pretty straightforward

    so then the second question

    does it do something to the people

    effectively does it stress the students

    out

    and so in trying to design a study irb

    is not excited

    institutional research board who gives

    us approval for research they're not

    excited about

    doing anything that might potentially

    stress out a child so it's not

    easy for us to do so of the mechanisms

    we have possible

    one of the things you can do is to give

    the child some kind of intervention

    in our case all we're doing is teaching

    two ways really really complicated

    language

    and simple language to see how it

    affected the kids so i could either do a

    cortisol test

    which is to get a little bit of saliva

    and test the stress measures

    stress releases that particular cortical

    enzyme

    but it's expensive and you try getting

    that study approved for

    public school it's just not going to

    work right so we use these things called

    proxy measures and so proxy measures

    are measures that are associated with

    stress but are not measuring stress what

    they're actually measuring is

    reduced mental capacity so here's one

    it's called the

    stroop test and you've probably seen

    this before so the stroke test

    is there's a word and the word will be

    the word red

    so there's two versions of it it's

    either written in red and that's called

    congruent

    where the color matches the word so

    red is written in red and so if you see

    that you push the r button

    the second is an incongruent that's when

    the letters don't match the color

    so the word red might written in blue so

    what you need to do

    is ignore what the words say and

    recognize the color

    so red written in blue you click the b

    button and so

    what that does is measure your capacity

    to engage in dual

    thinking to separate one idea from the

    other which is a more difficult

    cognitive task

    so we decided to try that as a stress

    measure that's called a stroop test

    the second is a flanker test same

    principle there's a

    series of arrows maybe about 30 arrows

    and what you need to do is look at the

    center most arrow

    and identify that center most arrow and

    then click the mouse

    that the direction that the arrow is

    pointed so

    two items congruent meaning all the

    other arrows are pointed the same way as

    the center arrows

    pretty easy to do then in congruent

    which is a more difficult task

    which is all the arrows are pointed the

    opposite direction so you need to ignore

    all those other arrows

    and focus on the center-most arrow so to

    study whether or not complex language

    stress students out what we did is use

    these proxy measures which actually

    measured mental capacity

    and the analogy i like to use again i

    was saying blaring loud music you're

    going to parallel park

    you can do it but having more focus

    helps

    right so we gave them the complex

    language version and the simple language

    version and then we asked them

    the stroop and the flanker test and all

    the conditions

    the students who were taught with simple

    language were able to make those

    recognitions faster so meaning this

    their brain was free it was more free to

    be able to recognize this complex

    cognitive task in both the flanker and

    the stroop test

    and we found statistically significant

    differences in the

    interaction now it was most profound

    when the task became most difficult in

    these incongruent items

    so when the tasks became most difficult

    those who were taught with simple

    language

    were quicker in their capacity to

    recognize this complexity so what does

    that mean for teaching and learning

    something that we already knew already

    right anytime someone is blabbering at

    me with really really

    complex science language it is hard for

    me to hear the idea

    because i'm struggling to fight through

    the words right right

    so it produces limited cognitive

    capacity i can't think as clearly i

    can't think as quickly

    so what that suggests for us is that

    what we need to do is make sure the idea

    is first

    and that people understand the idea and

    then we give them

    opportunity to practice using the

    language and so we

    in our lab group we've kind of come

    across two basic phenomena teaching with

    simple language helps people understand

    ideas

    and teaching with simple language

    reduces any stress

    that students might have at least it

    frees up cognitive capacity that's what

    we can say

    generally yeah teaching within that

    context and

    situating it so that you have the

    concept

    experienced before you apply the label

    to it that is something that it like

    she heavily discusses in a lot of his

    writings and whatnot

    if anyone who's listening is a gamer g

    has a lot of writing

    specifically about video games and

    education and it is very on point as

    somebody who like plays a lot of video

    games

    it just makes a lot of sense so if

    you're curious and you're listening this

    and you want to learn more about

    situated language learning

    look at some of g's writings it'll

    likely make a lot more sense

    and i'm serious when i say a lot of my

    early work is

    reading g's work and extending it to the

    context of science teaching in urban

    classrooms i learned a lot

    from all of his research and have tried

    to leverage it to extend it and so

    his work on gaming is absolutely

    brilliant around

    everything from representation how

    situating the need to learn a task

    before you can move on there's a lot of

    brilliance in what video game companies

    are doing

    yeah i was very fortunate that he just

    happened to be teaching a class at asu

    and i was able to

    take it from him it was well worth it so

    we're talking about like discourse and

    the way that people communicate when not

    how has this kind of impacted your own

    pedagogy or practices in the classroom

    for me i want to reduce the layers of

    frustration and complication around

    language initially so

    creating new language norms so in my

    classroom i want to i always try to make

    it very clear that you have the right to

    talk at any point in time that i am not

    the person who determined who speaks and

    in fact the more i speak

    the less you learn so i need you to ask

    questions to speak

    we're in a living room together having a

    conversation speak up

    i value your wrong answers because they

    will bring you to a right answer and

    they'll help me understand where i need

    to be and so part of

    the thing that we focus on is really

    shifting the norms around language

    practices

    so that we're explicit about classroom

    norms the second

    is to teach with what we call

    disaggregate fashion which is

    we teach the idea first making sure that

    there's clarity around the idea

    and then teach the language but then

    allow students to practice using

    those words and even in graduate courses

    i may

    come across a learning theory or

    something that we're learning about make

    sure that they're clear

    about it and then we spend 30 minutes

    analyzing the video

    how does this idea explain this concept

    and what they're not clear about as

    students is all i'm really trying to do

    is give them multiple opportunities

    within a classroom

    to apply this new term this new idea

    in the explanation and analysis of some

    phenomena so you get

    some skill i actually using the idea and

    the language associated

    pedagogically it's a pretty

    straightforward thing let's be really

    explicit about what language norms are

    and let's challenge them let's break the

    paradigm

    of teachers talking teacher dominating

    the classroom second

    be explicit about the language learning

    dilemma that

    children and students face we need to be

    clear to them that we are testing you

    how well you know the language

    and then we've gotta disaggregate start

    with simple language and give students

    lots and lots of opportunities to

    use the academic language in class

    context do you have

    a process by which you go from simple to

    more complex or do you maintain

    speaking about complex issues in simple

    language i'm a

    firm believer in teacher professionalism

    and teachers are

    professionals and so part of what we

    need to do is just give them the tool

    and allow them to design that as they

    see fit and so

    i'm sure for some subject matters it

    works better to do it in particular

    order

    even some academic disciplines where the

    simpler language

    is hard to come by right because

    everything is new

    so it's about principle first and then

    allowing teachers to

    adapt to their particular need how has

    your understandings of language and

    learning

    impacted like curriculum or experience

    design i'm actually

    not that far advanced in curriculum

    development so we are now moving towards

    curriculum development

    the work we do in science education has

    been so siloed i realize

    as a field people don't read science

    education research even within education

    and so there's some feigned expertise

    around what happens

    that drives practice in ways that are

    pretty frightening and so

    i think it's important to get the work

    out to a broader audience and so

    we're just now working on curriculum

    projects to actually

    put this in action at a larger scale are

    you at a point where you can give us

    like a preview of what it might look

    like

    hypothetically yeah so for sure so part

    of what we're doing

    is trying to think about what are the

    resources that would really maximize

    student

    engagement and students opportunity to

    use discourse right so one of the things

    is

    we're curious about smartphone enhanced

    teaching so

    people might not have four laptops at

    their house

    but my experience is that people pass on

    cell phones and so when i get a new cell

    phone

    the child gets the the cell phone that's

    left and there's more likely to be four

    or five

    smartphones around and give it a couple

    years and i'm curious to see

    how many kids show up in classrooms with

    smartphones so to me

    a smartphone is a clicker a smartphone

    is a microscope

    it is a simulation device it is a short

    answer

    device as well so part of what we're

    doing is using what we've learned about

    this aggregate

    instruction and what we learned about

    identity matching

    and so i can do lessons where online

    in person or at a distance i can ask the

    kids

    in a lesson does marinating food

    actually work

    give me your answer and tell me why and

    so instead of one answer now i've got 35

    answers

    i can teach about osmosis show them the

    simulation watch this video explain it

    all right now that we watch this video

    how does the the holes

    in the sides of the meat play a role

    right and then later we can talk call it

    a semi-permanent membrane but now

    i can have 35 people answering at the

    same time and if explanation produces

    understanding

    then what we're doing is embedding

    opportunities to communicate

    what if we then do what i'm asking

    people to do is towards the end of the

    lesson

    i'm asking to use their science word so

    if we learned about marinating we can

    say all right now what if we go to the

    grocery store

    why do they spray the vegetables at the

    grocery store if the plants are already

    dead

    tell me the goal and in your explanation

    use the words like hypotonic solution

    hypertonic solution

    semi-permeable membrane random kinetic

    motion

    and if they are using these words and

    explaining it in context

    then i'm arguing they'll learn better

    they'll retain that information

    in a more meaningful way and so we're

    using smartphones

    as learning devices and as a teaching

    bridge to actually help teachers engage

    in rich discourse practices

    that's not to replace conversation but

    what we can do real time is have

    many many people contribute in ways that

    we couldn't do before so

    that's where we're headed as a lab group

    is to try to find some interactive

    online

    curriculum that really is rooted in

    culturally relevant instruction and is

    really focused on this aggregate

    language focus instruction as well

    i think that's a really good point

    because like on one hand you could do

    like think pair

    share but even if you're in pairs one

    person is still talking while the other

    person is listening so not everybody's

    able to respond

    in the same way and it's not a

    replacement so i can say

    everyone submit your answer now i have

    answers on the board

    all of them meaning that they've been

    submitted on the phone and so i have

    them on the screen so i can show them

    make them anonymous share your answer

    with your partner and by making everyone

    contribute a singular answer then as

    they share

    there's a lot of research about peer

    instruction out of eric mazzier's lab at

    harvard that would suggest that in these

    conversations they're more likely

    to move towards an understanding this is

    before i've even started

    offering the so-called right answer is

    we produce rich conversations

    that can maximize learning and so i

    think we have

    under theorized the role of cell phones

    as learning devices

    partly because we see them as divisive

    right they keep us from communicating

    and keep us from talking

    and so they actually are awesome

    learning devices and so we're trying to

    press the envelope on what's possible

    there

    i wonder if that'll change when covet is

    a thing of the past so let's say

    hypothetically like a year from now

    now that they've used like we're

    communicating on zoom so

    heavily using these devices to

    communicate and collaborate with people

    if

    it'll become just more of a norm to use

    these in the classroom

    yeah we were in a live group discussion

    suggesting that

    a lot of the future will change because

    of zoom so

    parent engagement parents are much more

    aware of the norms and challenges of

    classroom instruction and so

    engaging a parent through zoom i mean

    might be something completely different

    like

    i'm in california but snow days have to

    be a thing of the past

    the new generation may never experience

    a snow day because you can just have

    zoom days to replace the snow days and

    then

    people being able to get connected with

    broader communities and so

    the limits of your community can be

    expanded significantly i just found out

    just recently that they have

    bioengineering groups that are trying to

    compete with maker spaces and so instead

    of doing engineering work you can do

    bioengineering work

    in one way to build that community

    without having to fly a hundred people

    to the one

    lab that's in las vegas is getting

    people online to share a shared interest

    and so

    we have um a new tool that i think

    creativity

    will win out at the end of the day and

    allow us to really press

    forward and being creative about what's

    possible and i hadn't even thought of

    like the virtual side of snow days

    because like being in phoenix my whole

    life

    that doesn't exist we have days where

    the ac goes out

    for the school and they're like well we

    got to close this cooldown

    i was just there's got to be some kind

    of heat index days where you all should

    stay home

    in arizona you know but we'll see yeah

    there certainly are days where it's like

    okay everybody has to stay inside recess

    is in your classroom

    play quiet ball or whatever absolutely

    so thinking about like reflecting on

    your own research what do you

    wish more people understood about it i

    don't know that there's a

    different level of understanding i feel

    like the audiences have been really

    isolated i

    also believe i do really simple research

    i mean the premise is that

    if you communicate in simpler words

    people understand better

    they don't get so stressed out and they

    learn i mean that's really not

    the most complicated idea ever i feel

    like

    i have not focused on communicating to

    teaching communities and so the work

    that we're doing

    has really practical implications it is

    intended for teachers

    but we've been immersed in the world of

    science education researchers

    if i could shift it would be to have a

    greater focus on engaging directly with

    teachers and teacher communities

    so i imagine with your role previously i

    was like a baseball coach you've

    read or at least read people who've

    talked about like k anders erickson's

    discussions on like deliberate practice

    and like how to develop

    like skills and expertise in like sports

    and whatnot

    i'm wondering how have you kind of

    applied your understandings of practice

    into your own abilities as an educator

    or a researcher

    well that's a great question one thing

    that's is most striking

    is that progress is invisible right so

    we used to talk about it's just the

    sitting on the bucket and so

    when you sit on the bucket you do soft

    toss you just toss the ball to kids and

    let them hit it right

    sometimes you just need to sit there and

    toss 300 balls

    you won't see the young person getting

    better because you can't

    you see the results weeks and months and

    years later but you have to sit there

    and toss the ball

    i mean the bottom line is is enabling

    opportunity

    is where growth happens and so in the

    same way in learning

    in classroom situations it is giving the

    kids opportunities to explain and

    struggle

    is where learning happens but it's

    invisible one of the assignments i give

    to my teacher at students

    every day is videotape learning

    happening and inevitably

    it's a catch-22 is they need to see

    actual learning happen so what would it

    look like and they struggle with it

    every year

    and i do it on purpose to get at the

    heart of how would i know when a person

    is learning and

    the only way to really get that evidence

    is some formative assessments to give

    opportunities for the students to

    explain

    and it's got to be iterative so you can

    see them shifting

    his explanations and so the parallels

    are pretty rich in that context is

    we need to be more student-centered give

    the students more opportunities

    and reduce their anxiety because a kid

    who can't struggle and practice and get

    it wrong

    is the kid who's not going to grow right

    and so similarly a person who

    is uncomfortable offering an incorrect

    answer is going to have a hard time

    growing we have to be comfortable

    in our discomfort yeah my ringtone for

    my cell phone is

    a recording of the fifth grade band i

    used to teach

    playing hot cross buns the first time

    through and so i recorded that and then

    for our final concert i'd play it for

    the parents right before we then play

    hot cross buns and be like

    i'm sure you remember having your

    clarinet it's like squeaking and

    squawking

    but like look at how much growth has

    happened over those months and it's

    something that is so gradual you don't

    notice it

    i love it no one ever says that terrible

    music is the precursor

    for the maestros right we see the end

    product but we didn't hear the horrible

    music that preceded it and that's

    it translates to every endeavor right is

    that at some level the first stage is

    for us to struggle through the process

    are using an analogy that

    riding bikes requires us to have some

    support

    to do it independently and fall fairly

    regularly and then you're cruising right

    you're

    off on your own and you're efficient and

    you never have to look back

    and those who are successful are the

    people who can navigate that in between

    process who can go through stage one and

    two to get to that final stage but as a

    teacher

    i have to grow comfortable but all my

    kids

    are in those first few stages right and

    i need to be so encouraging that i can

    get them

    there because showing up is really the

    only requirement yeah i wonder if

    that'll be one of the biggest

    things that parents in particular will

    understand just how patient teachers

    have to be and are with the kids that

    they work with absolutely there's no way

    the respect for teaching won't change i

    would argue too

    and i've been thinking about this

    recently there's a quote from lee

    shulman

    that says the most calamitous insult to

    teachers is this idea

    that those who cannot do teach and the

    ridiculous nature of that is that

    you can't teach what you don't know yeah

    and you can't teach it well if you don't

    know it intimately and if you don't know

    how to teach it in the context of the

    kids lives and so

    part of what people are learning now is

    that our profaned expertise what we

    thought

    teaching was is absolutely not what we

    thought it was

    and as people are at home struggling to

    figure out

    why their children are having a hard

    time it shows just how valuable

    teaching is and how difficult teaching

    is and i hope there's a heightened

    awareness that is met with policy and

    support for teachers

    as we move forward because we're never

    going to get this time back and this

    year

    of trying to adjust to distance learning

    is going to produce some positive things

    but i think it's going to require us to

    really be

    much better as educators broadly yeah

    and to be able to communicate

    outside of just the field and with other

    teachers but to be able to communicate

    to those struggles and whatnot with

    parents so that way they can better

    understand it i was at a conference it

    was a panel session

    and one of the people on the panel was

    like a hedge fund manager or something

    it was very random but it was a panel

    for educators and at one point this

    person said something along the lines

    like

    i don't want people to come out of

    school to become

    science teachers i want them to become

    actual scientists and like

    people like raise their hand and like

    question that like excuse me

    so it was really interesting seeing the

    response

    and that person definitely backed down

    after that they realized they made a

    mistake

    where do the scientists come from it is

    amazing that we forget the resources

    that produce the excellence

    there's a false crisis in america as

    well i feel like we look at

    the so-called crisis in education out of

    a few broken lenses and the first

    is that we didn't have a way of

    measuring our international success

    until 1995 with the third international

    math and science study and so before

    that we just believed we were

    tops in the world we just didn't have

    any evidence right so when the evidence

    showed it up we found out well maybe

    we're not the best

    but what we're clear about is as we

    produce a highly literate citizenship

    as we graduate students in high volumes

    as people go to colleges and

    universities in the us they're

    full of talented students who are doing

    world-class science and the science that

    we're doing in the us

    is so good the people from all over the

    world come to the united states to do

    research because our

    research at the university level and

    teaching at the university level

    is the best in the world well how did it

    get that way

    is it because the international students

    are here and i would argue we're

    refusing to recognize the contribution

    of excellent

    science educators right here in the us

    who are producing world-class scholars

    now the issue

    is that the volume of who those people

    are right if we do an

    l-shaped curve we need a larger

    population

    includes people from all backgrounds to

    be in that group of excellent

    but i think we're missing what's

    actually happening right now

    in the u.s schools and universities

    across the country

    yeah that's a good point i also see the

    same thing with just education in

    general so there are a lot of people

    from around the world coming here

    reading the research citing the research

    but there's not necessarily a lot of

    application of that research

    in classroom context for a variety of

    reasons like politicians not

    understanding it and whatnot

    one of the things with like the

    unpacking scholarship episodes that i do

    for this podcast like alternating each

    week between an episode and when i like

    take scholarship unpack it what does

    this mean in the classroom

    one of the reasons why i do that is

    because i see that disconnect and i want

    to try and bridge that gap

    so that way practitioners can like learn

    from scholars and whatnot

    there's a systemic problem is people in

    my position at a research one

    institution

    your assessment is about scholarship

    recognition among scholars and so part

    of what we're paid to do

    is to engage in research that

    researchers read and it's not that we're

    not

    paid to do teacher-based research it's

    just that during those initial stages as

    a younger scholar

    there there's greater weight paid to

    research that goes to researchers and so

    part of what needs to happen

    is greater valuing of work that goes

    directly to teachers

    yeah definitely agree i'm curious how do

    you personally try and

    take care of yourself to stave off

    burnout because there's a high

    burnout rate in education i think it's

    like

    the majority of teachers who are going

    to quit will do it in the first like

    three to five years

    well i get that i've never had a greater

    motivation in the wake up in the morning

    to know

    i've got 35 kids waiting on me for 7 30

    start or 8 o'clock start and i need to

    be ready by 7 30 and then the next hour

    there's another set of kids

    and then there's another prep so

    completely different lesson plan for

    this third set of kids that motivation

    has never left me

    it's always been about preparing for

    kids and impacting kids and communities

    and so

    as now a college professor that

    motivation still exists

    it's easy to get motivated and prepared

    for people

    the research part i think the thing that

    has kept me focused is that it continues

    to move

    so if i started doing research on

    language and identity and its impact on

    science

    can't do that research anymore because

    we've been there we've done those

    studies and so the next question is what

    does this mean so now as we move to

    technology

    there's a new level of interest and so

    that part has been an enabling factor

    to keep me motivated and focused because

    one of the benefits of

    this job is intellectual work so the

    ideas have to be new so it's always

    moving you know which is at least

    entertaining i can say that much

    what do you wish there was more research

    on that could inform your own practices

    not that there's more research i want

    different types of evidence

    if people use the exact same method you

    cannot give me new information

    and so i want to know what works but i

    need you to do it

    in classrooms with people who actually

    are teaching children

    i need you to to try it in multiple

    contexts and so if you try something in

    an

    urban context i want to see if it works

    in a rural context as well

    i want to see what works in medicine

    we would not be flashing back to

    referred or marie curie all the time

    right

    we're still talking about john dewey our

    historical foundations are phenomenal

    but it's the new idea that's

    transcendent it is the new practice

    that will change schools and part of

    what i think

    education research to me needs is to

    shift away from its

    standard research foundations i'm a fan

    of basic research but education research

    is not basic research

    because there's children on the other

    end there's schools on the other end so

    we can't be wrong

    and we can't theorize where the theory

    leads to

    untested practice which i think has been

    a problem in education research for far

    too long people are building

    entire schools on ideas that have not

    been vetted

    yeah i like that in high school we had

    to read emerson

    and for the start of one of his books

    like the first two sentences

    is like our age is retrospective it

    builds on the sepulchres of our fathers

    and then it just like goes on to talk

    about how we keep focusing on the past

    rather than building our new futures and

    looking forward and whatnot so that

    definitely resonates with me

    where might people go to connect with

    you and the organizations that you work

    with well i have a website so

    visit scienceinthecity.stand

    we are piloting a new resource there so

    there's some resources there

    feel free to communicate me on twitter

    at doc underscore b

    brown i'm there on twitter and having

    lively and entertaining conversations

    at the stanford university school of

    education website my information is

    there

    i welcome conversations and i just want

    to thank you jared for having me today

    i've enjoyed the

    conversation and look forward to hearing

    more of your podcast

    and with that that concludes this week's

    episode of the csk8 podcast i hope you

    enjoyed listening to this interview

    i know we talked about some topics that

    i like to nerd out about but hopefully

    you found them relevant to you and the

    classes that you work with

    i hope you're all having a wonderful

    week and are staying safe and as a bonus

    to this episode i'm going to actually

    conclude this podcast with the recording

    i mentioned

    of 5th graders playing hot crossbones

    for the first time through

    if you listen really carefully one of

    the clarinetists actually stops midway

    through the performance and says

    i can't it's pretty cute and brings a

    smile to my face every time i hear it

    [Music]

Guest Bio

Bryan Brown.jpg

Bryan A. Brown is an associate professor of science education and former Associate Dean at the Stanford University. He holds a BS from Hampton University, a Master’s degree in Educational Psychology from the University of California, and a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology from the UC Santa Barbara. His works focuses on the role of language in science teaching and learning. Dr. Brown studies how race, technology, language and culture impact science teaching in urban schools.


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