WSST Member Submissions

Memorable WSST Conference Speakers

By Karyl Rosenberg, WSST Historian Conference speakers leave indelible memories, whether it’s one’s first conference or part of a career’s worth. Thanks to the newer and longtime members for this issue’s memorable speakers at conferences. If anyone has more memories please share them! Also, I will be writing about memorable field trips in the future, so please share those memories as well. Keep telling those WSST Stories!

1988, Robert Ballard: Discoverer of the RMS Titanic shipwreck

Memories of Doug Johnson, Karyl Rosenberg and John Whitsett This was the first really big WSST conference event I ever attended. I remember a packed room at the La Crosse center where we had all just had a great dinner when we learned that our expected guest would be starting a bit late due to the fact that his slides somehow had not made it from the Twin Cities with him (apparently, he left them by the pay phone in the Twin Cities airport when his flight to La Crosse was called!). Happily they were located and were sent to La Crosse on the next flight. Someone had to go pick them up there, and of course the flight was late. When they arrived, Mr. Ballard calmly got all set up and ready to go with the help of the conference committee and it was totally worth the wait! I had learned of his discoveries from broadcast media, but the images they showed paled in comparison to the originals he shared with us. I truly will never forget this presentation; it gave me the feeling of being present at the creation of remote underwater sensing science. Sources: K. Rosenberg memory, J. Whitsett written communication, 3/21. The story behind how we came to have nationally known speakers like Mr. Ballard at a WSST conference is equally interesting. As Doug Johnson tells it several years earlier, James Randi had been considered due to his media fame in the 1980’s. Randi was a magician who was famous for debunking assorted pseudoscience ideas such as spoon bending, psychic surgery, ancient astronauts, etc. Given WSST’s size and financial situation at the time, it was clear he would have been a higher priced speaker than WSST had ever had before. Nevertheless, considering his current popularity the leadership decided to invite Mr. Randi to give a public presentation at the 1984 conference in Wausau with admission charged both for the conference banquet attendees and the general public. The banquet was $8.00 without the Randi presentation, $10.00 with it. As Doug Johnson recalls, “the hall we were in was packed”. This was successful enough to give the WSST coffers a needed boost. Clearly, nationally famous speakers could be engaged with the proper incentives.

Sources: J. Whitsett, written communication, 3/21, D. Johnson written communication 3/21, WSST Newsletters Vol. 25, #2 and Vol. 25, #3. Approaching the 1988 conference planning, John Whitsett was the chair and this was the first time WSST had been in LaCrosse. It seemed that having a nationally known speaker involved with a popular current discovery would help bring people to a new conference location. Encouraging the Wisconsin Association of Physics Teachers to move their conference to La Crosse in the spring was also helpful with boosting attendance. WSST got help from NSTA and also received a grant from the Cray foundation to support Mr. Ballard’s visit. The information about Ballard’s visit probably helped and registrations surpassed everyone’s hopes (The availability of Eisenhower money didn’t hurt either!). Sources: written communication 3/21 with D. Johnson, J.Whitsett. The appointed time for the presentation came and there was no Mr. Ballard so another speaker was encouraged to keep talking until he was ready and able to present. The wait seemed interminable but at last Mr. Ballard took the podium and proceeded to wow everyone presentincluding Karyl Rosenberg’s then 3rd grade son. After the presentation, when John Whitsett was escorting Mr. Ballard to his room, he mentioned that his young daughter was a fan. Mr. Ballard said he wanted to meet her. Imagine her surprise and delight when he sat down with her and shared his book! After that he joined John and lots of WSST members at the social and had a great time getting to know Wisconsin teachers. As it turned out, Karyl and her 3rd grade son went to the UW-L planetarium show with the WAPT members-you never know where bringing kids to WSST conferences will lead! Sources: written communication, 3/21 with D. Johnson, J. Whitsett, K. Rosenberg personal memories.

2006, Sean Carroll: UW-Madison Geneticist and author

Memories of Kevin Niemi Here is our advertisement for Dr. Sean Carroll, our banquet keynote speaker: “The 2006 Convention Committee is proud to announce our Milton O. Pella Banquet keynote speaker. Geneticist Sean Carroll is a leading figure in the battle to assert the magnificence – as well as the sheer fact of evolution. He has been praised as a groundbreaking researcher and seminal figure in the emerging field known as Evo Devo. His new book, Endless Forms Most Beautiful, has catapulted him, according to US News & World Report, into “the new, user-friendly public face of evolutionary science.” A UW-Madison Geneticist, Carroll accepted our invitation to speak to an admiring group of science teachers. He waived his fee as he has always been supportive of teachers. We had a large audience treated to an enthralling presentation on this new concept of evolutionary development, or evo devo for short. Employing two large screens his visuals alone captivated all in attendance, let alone the remarkable connection of developmental biology and the role of evolu-

tion in making all species what they are today. The banquet started off a bit slow as we had a request by a state politician to address the banquet and in spite of a stated time limit far exceeded her time to talk about issues occurring at the capitol. Then as Sean was preparing to start his presentation the projectors failed to perform as they had during pre-banquet set-up. Always expect problems. After a few minutes of tech-savvy teachers to the rescue, Sean began his engaging presentation about evolution and development and how the two are intertwined. The idea of a developmental toolbox still resonates with me. All was enthusiastically heard and his book signing afterwards went on for an extended time due to the intense interest of the conference attendees. My final thought—those in attendance gave Sean a spontaneous standing ovation, a first in my memory of attending many WSST conference banquets. It was well deserved and much appreciated by Dr. Carroll. Dr. Sean B. Carroll has gone on to write several more best-selling books and has used his position as Vice President for Science Education at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute to produce many outstanding science education resources. Check them out if you are not familiar with them at hhmi.org. Source: written communication 3/21, K.J. Niemi 2019, Kobie Boykins, Engineer at Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Mars Rover Program

Memory of Ian Schwanda Extremely intelligent, but also personable, relatable, and funny; Kobie Boykins wowed me with his impressive keynote speech at the 2019 WSST conference in Madison. This was actually my first time listening to a keynote speaker at WSST, as I was a newer teacher at the time. Throughout his presentation, Kobie had a certain sense of magic in the way he talked. Some possess this ability to address a whole crowd but make each listener feel as if they are the only ones in the room. On that night Kobie certainly made me feel that way. The content was intellectually stimulating, the jokes were hilarious, and when he needed to get serious you could hear the emotion in his voice. I remember thinking at the time, this may have been one of the best speakers I have ever seen. I will never forget the night that Kobie Boykins gave us a backstage pass to what creating, launching, and using a Mars Rover was really like. Thank you, Kobie! Source: oral and written communication, I. Schwanda, 3/21.

Rethinking the Discussion on “Learning Loss”

By Kevin Anderson When students were asked to discuss “learning loss” for a recent article, one student talked about school during COVID, saying, “I lost time I could have been enjoying my childhood.” I thought that was a profound statement on where students are at right now. While it is likely that some typical school learning outcomes did not happen to the same extent, I would like to reframe how we look at the learning that did happen and learning goals in general moving forward. I argue that the primary focus of schooling should not be to push students toward artificial learning benchmarks at the expense of “enjoying their childhood.” We need a focus on helping students first develop a love for learning. We need a focus on what they can do, not on whether there is an insignificant change in a test scorebased trajectory. Using a packaged program that raises their score 5 points on a standardized test is not worth it if it destroys a child’s engagement in school. And, we have lost that truth when the primary focus is on “learning loss.” Schooling at its best allows for students to find their identity and their passions. And, it helps them see that they are loved. That should be a major lesson of COVID-19 that we use to move forward. Therefore, we need to focus on meaningful learning opportunities for all students, not a deficit- and remediation-minded emphasis on making up for lost time. Post-COVID student support requires very careful and thoughtful approaches for several reasons: • Standardized test scores in mathematics and literacy have been relatively flat for at least the last decade and achievement gaps are not closing.

Putting more time into these subjects and doing more of the same has not and will not fix that problem. These types of tests provide limited information about the full range of important student learning, though they are a useful barometer, particularly in relation to equity. • Research shows that science learning supports literacy learning, but it has seen an ongoing deprioritization, especially at the elementary level.

Literacy learning consistently receives a larger share of the limited time available. • Like mathematics learning, science should be about giving students opportunities to collaboratively figure out interesting problems and phenomena, not memorize facts. STEM learning broadly should be about empowering students to make a difference in their community, with the ability to see where that’s possible. • We need to move beyond the “What

Works Clearinghouse” of programs, often based on biased studies. As noted above, we’ve seen little overall impact on achievement gaps, but we’ve also realized that they exacerbate the opportunity gap. I taught in a school where students were taken out of engaging elective courses (like

STEM) and placed in front of a com-