Embedded Files
We've reached the end of the semester in EDUC 334, but now, on the last day of class, disaster strikes! In a bizarre twist, a series of locks have clanged shut, trapping you in the lab! To get out, you'll have to review key ideas from our work this semester, find the clues, crack the codes, and open the locks to escape.
Unfortunately, Mulder has gone into full-on zombie mode, listening to some obscure band that no one has ever heard of, so he won't be able to help you. (How typical, Mulder!)
Oh, and did I mention the sewer lice? If you don't break out in 45 minutes, they'll start creeping up through the sink drains...and that's just as bad as you are imagining. Better partner up with a few classmates, and get to work. This page has all sorts of information--and clues--to help you break out. Good luck!
Throughout this semester, we've been thinking about the relationship between faith and science. Our culture would like us to believe that faith and science are at war--that we have to choose between these as two options.
But is that really the case?
How has God revealed Himself to us? Article 2 of the Belgic Confession teaches us this...
(You can read the entirety of the Belgic Confession online, if you're interested. It really is a beautiful summary of a Reformed perspective on the Christian faith.)
When we are thinking about the relationship between faith and science, this might be a helpful place to begin the conversation. If we believe that God reveals the truth to us, and that He is consistent within Himself, God won't contradict Himself. If we perceive a conflict between what is revealed to us in creation, and what is revealed to us in Scripture, that conflict is due to our flawed ability to interpret and understand, tainted as we are by sin.
All truth is God's truth. We can marvel at the truth revealed to us in the Bible. We can also marvel at the truth revealed to us in creation. Doing science is a human approach to come to understand the nature of the creation, and it can actually be a beautiful way to live out our faith life, to worship the Creator even as we learn more about the wonders of the world He has made!
One of the key ideas in this course was understanding the Nature of Science. We noted that "Science" comprises three interrelated domains:
Science is a body of knowledge. This is the idea that science is a content area, and as such, it is made up of certain scientific ideas, such as theories, laws, mental models, hypotheses, and the like.
Science is a set of skills. This is the idea that there are various scientific methods used to encounter the scientific ideas--the idea that science is something you do. These skills include observing, measuring, classifying, inferring, predicting, experimenting, analyzing data, and many more.
Science is a way of knowing. This is the idea that science is a particular attitude, a way to approach our work. This attitude is made up of various dispositions, such as curiosity, willingness to explore, open-mindedness, skepticism, and intellectual honesty.
Ideally, all three of these parts will be part of an exemplary science class! Students will encounter the content (1) by practicing the methods (2) in a classroom that exhibits the attitude (3).
Inquiry is a fundamental teaching methodology for elementary and middle school science. Inquiry-infused approaches are rooted in constructivist philosophy of education, growing out of work by researchers such as John Dewey and Jerome Bruner. Inquiry-infused science teaching incorporates questions--asking a magic question often drives the lesson.
There are different levels of inquiry, and teachers can select the approach that is the best fit for the content they are teaching, the developmental level of the group of students, the classroom culture, and the teacher's level of comfort.
You can think of the different aspects of designing an inquiry-infused lesson similar to the sliders on an audio mixing board. By adjusting the levels toward more teacher-led or more student-driven, you can customize an inquiry learning experience to be the best fit for both students and teacher alike.
Take the Milk Lab we did in this course as an example. In part one of the Milk Lab, it was highly teacher-directed, so you would be able to see a particular phenomenon. After observing the interaction of milk, food coloring, and dish detergent, you had questions! In part two, your questions drove almost everything about the things you did to investigate this phenomenon by creating a series of "fair tests."
Think about how you might set these "sliders" in a guided discovery type activity. The context and materials are provided by the teacher, so that slider is way to the left, toward the teacher-directed side. In guided discovery, the question is supplied by the teacher, so that slider is also way to the left, toward the teacher-directed side.
But once the teacher sets the context and asks the question--giving the guidance students need--the students have a lot more voice in the learning process. And so for the ways and means of investigating the question, the slider is all the way over to the right, toward the student-driven side. Likewise, the answer to the questions will be determined by the methods the students use, so that slider is also all the way over to the right.
By adjusting the levels of teacher- and student-direction, the teacher can ensure that the learning environment is safe and manageable. As students become more comfortable and familiar with the norms for how to conduct their own investigations, the teacher can give more and more responsibility to the students for determining the best way forward in an inquiry-infused lesson.
Planning for inquiry-infused science learning can be a challenge, but we learned about an approach for organizing the content of a lesson in a pedagogically-sound way. This approach, developed by Rodger Bybee and his colleagues in the Biological Science Curriculum Study in 1987, was originally named The Learning Cycle, but today, most people just call it the "5 E's."
Image from bscs.org
Image via Wikipedia
Image via NSTA
Many organizations are available to support science teachers in both their teaching of science content as well as their planning of curriculum.
The National Science Teachers Association is the premier professional organization for science teachers at all grade levels. Their journals, including Science and Children (for elementary teachers) and ScienceScope (for middle school teachers) are packed with ideas for both content and pedagogy.
The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) were developed by a consortium of educational leaders. These standards were released in 2013 as the culmination of several years of work. They are considered the current best approach for organizing K-12 science curriculum in the U.S.
Previous bodies of standards were developed by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the National Research Council (NRC). Both of these bodies of standards also included an emphasis on learning science through inquiry, but one of the big differences in the NGSS is an emphasis on the application of science ideas through engineering and technology.
Google Sites
Report abuse