Creating a Community of Scientists - Susan Buettgen

Teacher

Sue Buettgen, known by the students as “SueB”, is a 6th grade science teacher at Oak Grove Middle School. Sue has an extensive science background, including work at the Bell Museum, Children’s Museum, Science Museum, and Lowry Nature Center. Sue taught at Clara Barton Open School in Minneapolis for 15 years and is proud to now be with the Oak Grove team.

Her training in Responsive Classroom has created a classroom environment where students work together to accomplish learning tasks. Students in Sue’s room are inclusive, supportive of each other and focused.

Instructional Strategy

Sixth graders enter Sue’s room with excitement. They are greeted as “scientists” which immediately engages them in their role for the day. In this specific lesson, she facilitates students’ scientific understanding of measurement in the metric system.

In her instructional design, Sue puts her philosophy of learning first: “The hard part isn’t learning science; it’s the relationships and how you work together. Students need to feel welcome, safe and happy to be successful scientists.” 

As a facilitator of science learning, Sue works the room gathering data on student understanding of the learning targets for the day. Students use the tools of scientists: beakers, graduated cylinders, test tubes and a place to record scientific thinking. Group members all have a role to play while working in their Rainbow Lab, named after the color spectrum of Roy G. Biv. The buzz in the room is positive, supportive, respectful and eager as students talk about scientific measurement. As students wrap up their learning, conversations can be heard about metric measurement of liquid, the colors created through mixing and the results of “missing liquid” when mixing in test tubes.

See What It’s Like

While the photos do not do justice to the true collaboration of the 6th grade scientists, what was obvious in this sneak peek into SueB’s science classroom was the true community of learners, who see themselves as true scientists.