Ready, Set, SCIENCE! Putting Research to Work in K-8 Science Classrooms (2008) / Chapter Skim
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7 Learning from Science Investigations
7 Learning from Science Investigations
Pages 127-148
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From page 127... ...
Yet there is compelling evidence that when classrooms function to support real scientific practice, students' understanding of science can flourish. Supporting student learning in regard to scientific investigations requires delib erate and consistent instructional efforts.
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From page 128... ...
And if students fail to see the prob lem as meaningful, there is little chance that they will engage in the range of pro ductive scientific practices that result in science learning. Scientifically meaningful problems are framed by core concepts, such as biodiversity, the atomic-molecular theory of matter, and evolutionary theory, and they typically focus on the smaller concepts within those core ideas.
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From page 129... ...
First, it fails to give students a clear idea of why a particular investigative strategy is being used for that particular problem. It also emphasizes and promotes the false dichotomy between scientific content and process, leaving students with the misconception that scientific practice is algorithmic or procedural.
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From page 130... ...
Recently researchers have developed very promising results from building and testing science curriculum units that, from the outset, engage students with problems they will investigate over the course of several weeks or months. These units sequence lessons to gradually build students' knowledge and skill over time so that they arrive at each phase in an investigation prepared to engage in the nec essary work.
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From page 131... ...
Four Phases of Learning In the fourth phase (six classes) , student Phase 1 General Staging Activities teams prepare reports, present findings, Determine what students know, provide background and analyze key points of agreement knowledge, build student motivation (10 classes)
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From page 132... ...
Teachers and researchers have found ways to structure and script aspects of scientific investigations so that, over time, students gradually acquire scientific modes of thinking and interacting, drawing on these to learn science. They have also found promising ways to teach students fundamental practices for developing scientific explanations, as well as ways to integrate these practices into students' ongoing work.
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From page 133... ...
. As described earlier, part of the Struggle for Survival unit includes a twoweek project in which students investigate a database holding information about the finch population on the Galapagos Islands.
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From page 134... ...
This is the chart that shows that in the wet season in 1977 there were 20 portulaca seeds, in the dry season in 1977 there were none, and then it increased in the wet season of 1978 and went back up to 380 seeds." Evan: "After I finish reading, I'm going to quickly explain a little bit about the chart we made. What we did next was, we circled all of the finches in both groups: the overweight group and the underweight group that survived.
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From page 135... ...
As they continue to examine the data and build their scientific skills, they are well prepared to con tinue to learn from the investigation. Scripting Student Roles Another way that teachers can structure and focus students' thinking while they engage in scientific investigations is to define and assign particular roles for stu dents to play during portions of the investigation.
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From page 136... ...
Argumentation among students is rarely a sanctioned activity and is often experi enced as acrimonious. To help students learn appropriate ways of interacting during science inves tigations, educators have developed methods for helping them acquire new social roles and collectively building norms for interaction in ways that emulate the interactions of scientists.
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From page 137... ...
They their experiments. The size of the objects was held used a software program called Modeling with Dots, constant in these simulations to help students focus which introduced the students to a "dots-and-boxes" on density as the variable.
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From page 138... ...
a rotating basis, one of three audience roles: check Following this period of exploration, predicting, ing predictions and theories, checking summaries of and theorizing, the students were introduced to the results, and assessing the relationship among predic dots-and-boxes model of mass, volume, and density. tions, theories, and results.
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From page 139... ...
" Jody: "Wait, but didn't we sort of decide that our experience is a good way of helping At the beginning of the unit, the students relied us make predictions, but it doesn't explain heavily on the question chart in performing their why something happens? " [Christina waves audience roles.
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From page 140... ...
I mean how would right." wood trap air underneath it? It's not like Mr.
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From page 141... ...
With the support of a teacher who listens to their ideas and peers who understand how to play meaningful roles in scientific discussion, the students successfully work on clarifying, supporting, and refining their ideas. Scripting roles and framing science in an explanatory framework are but two of many ways in which creative teachers can intentionally and explicitly teach and support students to enact and make meaning of scientific investigations.
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From page 142... ...
Children, like scientists, must learn to examine the history of their own thinking and revise it if necessary, in light of subsequent investigations. To examine how effective teachers can teach students to reflect on their changing knowledge in this way, we visit the classroom of Sister Mary Gertrude Hennessey, a science teacher for grades 1-6 in a small, rural elementary school.
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From page 143... ...
exchange or (b) look for ways of promoting • Continue to employ physical representations conceptual change in the mind of the learner of their thinking • Begin to employ analogies and metaphors, discuss their explicit use, and differentiate physical models from conceptual models • Articulate and defend ideas about "what learning should be like" Learning from Science Investigations 143
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From page 144... ...
ing about her own scientific thinking; she is being metacognitive. Brianna: "No!
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From page 145... ...
Balanced forces are needed to produce constant velocity. The book on the table has a velocity of zero; that means it has a steady pace of zero.
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From page 146... ...
These abilities are not all or nothing; rather, they exist on a contin uum of engagement and elaboration: Brianna is a beginner to the process, whereas Jill demonstrates a high level of engagement in thinking about scientific thinking. How, one might ask, did Sr.
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From page 147... ...
Engaging students with deep domain-specific core that expose students to unexpected dis concepts crepancies or posing challenging problems PEDAGOGICAL PRACTICES that students may not immediately solve are ways of prompting students to stop • Helping students understand, test, and revise ideas and think, stepping outside their normal • Establishing a classroom community that negotiates conceptual framework in order to under meaning and builds knowledge stand what is happening. Regular time for reflection, note tak• Increasing students' responsibility for directing important aspects of their own inquiry ing, or public chart making to track ideas as they change over time is another critical STUDENT ROLES component of metacognition.
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From page 148... ...
Effective investigations should be organized, structured activities that guide students in using scientific methods to work on meaningful problems. Investigations that support student learning require teachers who understand how scientific problems evolve, and teachers themselves will need to have first hand experiences akin to those they create for their students.
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