Teaching Science to the Elementary Grades

So here is my study guide for my science class. Basically an entire semester's worth of notes! If it is interesting to you, have at it, if not, close it now. :)

Teaching Science to Elementary Students

Observation vs. Inference
Observation is what we see touch, smell, know
Inference is our spin on what we see, how we make sense of what we see.

The Nature of Science
*Scientific ideas are subject to change
*Science is a blend of logic and imagination
*To do what scientists do
*The world is understandable and it’s patterns can be discovered
*Science cannot provide complete answers to all questions
*Science demands evidence
*Science is a complex social activity

There are 3 essential characteristics of science, also known as the 3 H’s
Head: knowledge
Hands: Skills
Heart: attitudes

Hands:
Basic skills start in pre-k, continue throughout;
Observation
Classification
Communication
Measurement
Estimation
Prediction
Inference

Integrated skills; start in 3rd-4th grade;
Identifying variables
Controlling variables
Defining operationally
Forming hypotheses
Experimenting
Graphing
Interpreting data
Modeling
Investigating

Head:
Knowledge
Facts, principles, theories, variables, concepts

Fact à Concept (making sense of the data)

Heart:
Attitudes
Emotional attitudes; curiosity, perseverance, positive approach, open-mindedness, cooperation
Intellectual attitudes; skepticism, desire for reliable sources of information, avoidance of broad generalizations, tolerance for other opinions

PASS Process standards are what students can do (skills),PASS content standards are what students need to know (knowledge)

Preconceptions: children’s ideas from pro experienced
Misconceptions: alternative understanding about phenomena that learners have formed, scientifically incorrect interpretations
*It takes a long time to change misconceptions, as a teacher it is your job to change student misconceptions*

Constructivism is a theory of learning that assumes that real knowledge cannot exist outside the minds of thinking persons, humans construct or build meaning into their ideas and experiences as a result of an effort to understand or to make sense of them.

Piaget’s theory:
Disequilibrium: is what happens when we learn new info and it throws us out of balance, confusion, we don’t know where to fit this info in our mental structures
Equilibrium: balance in understanding
Assimilation is one way in which the mind may adapt to the learning challenge and restore equilibrium, can be combined with or added to existing mental structures.
Accommodation: The mind must adapt by changing or adding to its mental structures, creating new mental structures when the new information doesn’t fit into existing knowledge.

Inquiry means the use of the processes of science, scientific knowledge, and attitudes to reason and to think critically. Inquiry assists in constructing an understanding of scientific concepts, learning how to learn, becoming an independent and lifelong learner, and further developing the habits of mind associated with science.


Familiar methods for teaching science:
IVP: Inform-Verify-Practice (AKA ‘cookbook’ labs)
Inform: lecture first, purpose is to tell “this is what should happen”, informing about the concept
Verify: verify what you were told, do the activity or experiment, to reinforce what was already told to you.
Practice: Homework, questions that reinforce the concept.
Does this work?
Not really, students can’t apply the knowledge to everyday situations outside of the set-up activity. Just memorization, minimally effective for science and process skills

Discovery Learning:
“Hands-on:, kids play and discover
But kids aren’t learning what they necessarily should
Very student-centered, teacher isn’t involved
Discovery is necessary, but not sufficient. It is better when teachers introduce ideas and concepts, vocabulary, etc. and help guide student observations.

Both of these methods have advantages and disadvantages. Many consider The Learning Cycle to be the “middle ground” between the two.

The Science Learning Cycle
5 E’s; Engage, Explore, Explain, Expand, Evaluate

Engage:
Purpose:
Stimulate interest, motivation, curiosity, guide students towards concept without telling
Teacher’s role (TROLE)- pose questions, stimulate interactions
Student’s role (SROLE)- respond to question/problem, begin focusing on idea/concept of the lesson

Disequilibrium; expose misconceptions
Heart- Interest, motivation, curiosity

Explore:
Purpose:
Helps students understand concept and why their misconceptions are wrong, inquiry and engaged learning, student centered.
TROLE- guiding students, give hints & cues to keep investigation going towards concepts, keep students engaged, not to tell the answers
SROLE- complete the investigation by using process skills

Accommodation: working towards getting students out of disequilibrium
Hands- actively doing something, skills

*This phase is the most difficult to plan; cant’s be too hard or too easy

Explain:
Purpose:
Form the concept and construct meaning by using experience from ‘explore’, look at data, less student centered than ‘explore’
TROLE- questions to help students construct concept, be more explicit, introduce vocabulary
SROLE- respond to teacher guidance, examine date to try and explain what is happening

Accommodation: Making sense of what happened, getting everyone on the same page
Head- constructing knowledge

Expand:
Purpose:
Apply new concept to a different situation, experience or activity. Build complexity, relate concept to real-life
TROLE- observing, providing feedback, questions, guiding
SROLE- applying concepts to activity, working together with peers, using new vocabulary

Assimilation: taking the info you have and reinforcing the concept
Head/Hands: activity based, applying what they’ve already learned

Evaluate:
Purpose:
Find out what students know and can do related to concept and skill, it happens throughout the entire cycle
TROLE- interact with students, focus on what students can do/know, plan the next step
SROLE- responding to the teacher, demonstrating what they can do/know, attitudes

Not just one phase of Piaget’s
All H’s are involved

Learning Cycle
One central concept is focused on throughout the entire cycle (Ex: evaporation, circuits, density)
Order of phases (and actually doing them) is extremely important
Need to get beyond just “hands-on”
Compared to other methods, the cycle has shown large advantages in the 3 H’s


What is Inquiry?
It is what scientists do
Actively engaged learning
“Hands-on”
Student-centered

One word to describe reform efforts of science education- Inquiry
There is a lot of ambiguity among some about what it is and what it looks like in a classroom.
Our “definition: (for this class)
Students using science process skills to construct an understanding of science content.

Science processes lead to ----à understanding of science content

Value of student questions in inquiry (students seeking to satisfy curiosity)

There are 5 essential characteristics of Inquiry
1. Learner engages in scientifically oriented questions
2. Learner gives priority to evidence in responding to questions
3. Learner formulate explanations from evidence
4. Learner connects explanations to scientific knowledge
5. Learner communicates and justifies explanations

Myths about Science Inquiry
Only works with the ‘gifted’ kids
It is chaotic and uncontrollable
It’s just ‘playtime’
Hands on= Inquiry
Inquiry is asking students a lot of questions
Inquiry is a ‘fad’ in education
Inquiry is only for elementary students
Inquiry focuses only on the processes of science

Doing science Inquiry

3 main parts to science investigation
Question/problem
Processes (procedure) to answer the question
Data collection/analyzing to make conclusions

Take away one or more of these parts and let students do it instead to create an inquiry lesson.

There are 3 levels of Inquiry
(Teacher) Directed Inquiry (AKA structured)
Teacher poses question and gives students the procedure, but “forces” students to make sense of the data, teacher doesn’t tell them what is happening. (this takes away the last step from teacher-centered)
Good to start the school year with this type

Guided Inquiry
Teacher poses questions but students create procedures and data/conclusions
Allows students to be creative problem solvers.

Open Inquiry
Students are responsible for all 3 sections; question, process, data/conclusions
Lots of student freedom
Lots of teacher observation and interaction
*The teacher may still give the topic in this method*

Why don’t more teachers use Inquiry? What are the challenges?
Time, efficiency, see it as “play”, teacher has to know the content in order to teach it, more time & work involved to prepare lessons, students are used to ‘cookbook’ type lessons and will resist change.

Benefits of Inquiry
Improve Science learning of (among others):
1. English Language Learners (ELL)
2. Special Education
3. Students in poverty
4. Underrepresented or underserved groups

Depth of science understanding
Improvement in other academic areas (writing, math, reading, etc)
Superior test results (the more it is done, the better the achievement)
Addresses learning styles (Kinestetic, auditory, visual, etc)

Creating Inquiry Lessons
Give more ‘support’ earlier in the year
Find ‘cookbook’ labs and start taking away pieces
Scramble the procedures (or leave steps blank so students have to fill them in)
Take out pre-made data tables and charts
Let students observe something- this usually leads to questions
Sort student questions (‘Expert-needed’, ‘Needs modifying’, ‘ready for investigation’)
Realize that is takes TIME (for students and teachers), it won’t be perfect the first time you do it.

Suchman’s Inquiry Method

Uses discrepant events. Discrepancies are difference from what we normally except to happen. It uses inquiry to help children construct theories for the discrepancies they observe.
Phases of Suchman’s Method:
1. Present the discrepant event
2. Students ask yes/no questions to verify the event and collect information
3. Students discuss ideas and do library research or further investigations to gather additional information to help them form explanations or theories.
4. The teacher reconvenes the class and leads a discussion to help students give and test their explanations or theories.

Demonstrations
Don’t give too much information up front
Questions students throughout the demonstration
Encourage active observation (journal, diagram, illustrations, etc)
Involve students whenever possible
Have a specific purpose and plan carefully
Be able to do it multiple times if needed, keep it easily visible
Quality over quantity
Play to the audience, be ‘on stage’

P.O.E. Method
Predict
Observe
Explain

Historical Recreation
Show examples of science demonstrations from history; maybe those that take too much time and can’t be done in class

Assessment
Why do we do it?
To see what the kids have learned
To direct our teaching
Grades are required

To some, it is the most difficult and frustrating part of teaching.

Criterion Referenced Tests (CRT’s)
How can these tests help our teaching? Is it bad to ‘teach to the test’?

Authentic Assessment in science
Directly examining students performance
Generally in science, the assessment mirrors what scientists would actually do.

Types of Assessment
Pre-assessment
Evaluation before learning experience, to find out what students already know. Don’t need to teach something that they already know.
Can take place in ‘Engage” and “Explore”
Formative Assessment
Evaluation during experience (embedded) are they getting it? Do you need to stop and cover something more thoroughly? Should you go on?
Good in Explore & Explain
Summative or Post assessment
Evaluation after experience. Did they learn what they were supposed to? Was the lesson effective?
Good at end of explain and Evaluate

Pictorial Assessments-
Uses pictures to represent familiar objects and events. Could be from the teacher, or student drawn (draw diagrams).

Reflective questioning-
Students use knowledge in a new way in writing.

Hand-on (performance) assessment-
Students manipulate materials to demonstrate understanding of content and of skills

Teacher records/checklists-
Observations of what students do/know/feel (more informal)

Systematic observations-
Students give input on how/what they are learning (portfolios, student selected work that shows progress/growth)

Rubrics-
Evaluation based on set criteria (student input possible)

Traditional-
Tests, quizzes, homework questions

Questioning in Science

The most important component of the classroom
Good questioning techniques can:
Uncover student misconceptions/preconceptions
Help teacher and student focus on what is important
Provide for powerful class discussions
Develop student’s 3 H’s


Questioning is the most common method elementary teachers use in the classroom

An average classroom can have between 30-130 questions asked by the teacher per hour.

On average, low-level questions comprise up to 70% of these questions, with very little ‘wait time’ (most activity-based classrooms use fewer low-level questions).
Females, minorities, and low-achieving students answer questions less frequently than males, Caucasians, and high-achieving students.

Techniques and suggestions
Wait tine 1 is the time you wait after you ask the question to call on a student, wait time 2 is the time you wait after a student responds before you respond back to them. Wait time 2 may be more important, encourage thinking about peers comments)
If you wait 3 seconds for wait time 1, the responses from students are 400-800% longer, the # of students volunteering increases, student confidence level increases, discipline problems decrease, low achievers contribute more.
Establish facts first with low-level questions and then proceed to higher level questions, building background knowledge, a base to build off of.
Bloom’s Taxonomy, use all levels of questions.

Convergent vs. Divergent

Convergent- encourages focus on one idea (one answer is best, one right answer)
Divergent- encourage a wide range or answers, not one correct or best answer, open ended.

Best is to start broad (divergent) during Explore, go to convergent during Explain, and back to divergent at Expand.

Use convergent as students are introduced to a concept, as the concept is developed introduce more divergent questions (applying knowledge in changing scenarios)

Encouraging and Responding to Student ?’s
Be a model of a questioner (reflective on events/observations)
Provide chances for students to observe something
Listen to student ?’s
Don’t answer all student ?’s (Don’t give them all the answers, make them find some out for themselves)

How Has Science Been Taught?

Early 1900’s- Direct instruction, text book based
Written by a single author (usually a scientist)
Read about the concepts/facts via one authority (textbook)
Covered a large amount of material at a surface level (science as a reading program)
Teacher only relayed knowledge of ‘experts’
‘Back to the Basics” (3R’s) is nothing new
Competition with other countries beginning

The ‘Event’ in 1957
Russians launched Sputnik on Oct 4th 1957, and put a dog in space Nov. 3rd. US launched satellite ‘Explorer I’ in Jan 1958.
American fear led to concerted effort to improve math and science education (more $ was given to education, and NASA was created in 1958)
Goal- prepare future engineers and scientists (Improve competitiveness)

Impact of Sputnik on Educational Programs
1960’s “Alphabet Soup” of elementary science programs appear
ESS (Elementary Science Study
SCIS (Science Curriculum Improvement Study)
SAPA (Science- A Process Approach)
FOSS (Full Option Science System)
More ‘hands-on’ for students (more science processes)
Push for teachers to no longer relay knowledge from experts, to instead become ‘guides’
Science taught by itself (pure subject)
Focus on making scientists and engineers

Did the ‘Alphabet Soup’ work?
Research on inquiry based, hands-on approach vs. traditional, direct instructions
Significant gains in the 3 H’s by using the newer programs such as SCIS, SAPA, ESS, FOSS.
Some of the new programs could focus too much on processes and not enough on content. (which is more important, processes or content? Has been a long standing question)
What do schools do now? Back to textbook based instruction


Kit program- ‘hands-on’ activities, opposite of textbook programs, critics want to know where the reading is, so they provide trade books vs. textbooks.

Alphabet soup programs based on learning cycle

“Hands-on” doesn’t mean reading shouldn’t be involved.

Increase motivation to read by doing ‘hands-on’ in combination with reading (authentic)
*Read during ‘explain’ phase of learning cycle to find answer (increases motivation and interest)
*Teach reading strategies while students are reading to understand science concepts

Reading skills and Science skills overlap





Instructional (going over procedure, instructions, teacher-directed) time recommended in labs:
Elementary: 80%
Middle: 60%
High school: 40%

General recommendations

Stress procedures from beginning of year
What to do if/when
Reinforce before most/all science activities
Clear safety expectations
Be a model for students

Inquiry DOESN’T mean students can do whatever they want. Learning cycle is always Inquiry, but Inquiry isn’t always Learning cycle (demonstrations, etc).

PLAN for safety
Weigh the hazard vs. educational value
If hazards outweigh value, provide more safety nets, do demo instead, or nix the activity

Legal Responsibilities
Anticipate and address foreseeable hazards beforehand (in locos parentis). What could go wrong in this activity?
If you foresee problems beyond your control (class size, emergency equipment, etc) notify someone in writing to CYA so you can document that you had no control over it but did what you could.
The Law expects Reasonable and Prudent Judgment; doing what similarly trained persons would do in your position.

Negligence
Conduct that falls below a standard
Failure to exercise due care (duty to protect your students)

Due Care
1. Instruction- is it age and/or developmentally appropriate
2.Supervision- are you observing your students at all times
3. Maintenance- keeping equipment up to date

Safety Contracts
Doesn’t do much for you legally, but it does allow students to know/see expectations. Students need to keep a copy so they have access to rules at all times, make sure rules/expectations are reasonable for age/grade