Science Learning, Science Teaching

Jerry Wellington, Gren Ireson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781317225966
• Edition: 4
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Now fully updated in its fourth edition, Science Learning, Science Teaching offers an accessible, practical guide to creative classroom teaching and a comprehensive introduction to contemporary issues in science education. Aiming to encourage and assist professionals with the process of reflection in the science classroom, the new edition re-examines the latest advances in the field and changes to the curriculum, and explores the use of mobile technology and coding, and its impact on ICT in science education.

With extra tasks integrated throughout the book and a brand new chapter, 'Working scientifically', to help develop learners' investigative skills, key topics include:

• The art and craft of science teaching.

• The science curriculum and science in the curriculum.

• Planning and managing learning.

• Inclusive science education.

• Laboratory safety in science learning and teaching.

• Language and numeracy in science teaching and learning.

• Computers and computing in science education.

• Citizenship and sustainability in science education.

Including points for reflection and useful information about further reading and recommended websites, Science Learning, Science Teaching is an essential source of support, guidance and inspiration for all students, teachers, mentors and those involved in science education wishing to reflect upon, improve and enrich their practice.

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Theme B
Approaches ot science learning and scienxw teaching

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Chapter 4
Learning in science

Jon Scaife

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This chapter looks at how people learn. It examines theories (mainly so-called ‘constructivist’ ideas) about children’s learning and their mental development. It links these to practical teaching strategies so that teaching can be targeted at known learning needs. Learning-informed teaching strategies discussed below include assessing for learning, designing constructive challenges to pupils’ current ideas, harnessing curiosity through predictions, questioning for understanding, targeting thinking skills and teaching for cognitive development.

Student 1: I enjoy science.

Student 2: I hate it!

Student teacher: Tell me why.

Student 2: It’s so hard … I got put in top group but I don’t know how ’cos it’s dead confusing – I don’t understand anything we do.

Student 3: I don’t understand it – but I still get it right.

This exchange took place during a recorded interview with some girls aged 14 and 15. The interview was carried out by a student teacher as part of a project about students’ attitudes to school science. What do you make of it? Two things struck me when I watched the recording: student 2 says she hates science, finds it hard and confusing and doesn’t understand it, yet is in the highest attaining group. Odd! And student 3, who had earlier declared that she liked science because, ‘I don’t like doing practicals’ (that really is what she said!) admits that she too doesn’t understand science but manages to get it right. Odder still!

These students hadn’t been selected for the interview, they had volunteered to stay behind at lunchtime to take part in the project. They seemed to be speaking spontaneously and honestly about their experiences in their science lessons. Perhaps there’s something to be learned from listening to their views. What are they telling us? First, it’s clear that they have views about their own knowledge and understanding: two students don’t think they understand the subject adequately. Second, they have views about what counts as success in science: success means ‘getting it right’. Third, their experience is that getting it right doesn’t involve understanding.

If getting it right in science doesn’t involve understanding, what does it involve? A clue emerged later in the interview when the students were talking about the topic of Materials. Student 3 said: ‘It’s something we didn’t do a lot of … we had Mr X … we did about two lessons on it and that was it – and everything he told us we already knew anyway.’ I think that last phrase is very significant. The student seems to be identifying what the teacher has told them as what counts, in terms of ‘getting it right’. This, rather than what she understands, is what matters. And, ironically, he had already told them it!

The teacher could learn a great deal from listening to those students.

Introduction

This chapter is about how people learn, and about how teaching can make use of understandings about how people learn. For instance, imagine you were going to take over the teaching of the students in the interview. What do you think of what they’ve they been learning? What haven’t they been learning? What have they come to learn about learning itself?

The trouble with learning is that it isn’t a ‘thing’. It’s hard to pin down, elusive to observe and even to think about – and perhaps that is why teaching often has a higher profile than learning in education. To illustrate, picture a science class you’ve been in fairly recently. Think of the teaching: what was taught, how well was it taught, was it taught scientifically appropriately? Now think of the learning and check the same three questions, substituting ‘learned’ for ‘taught’. Hard? Virtually impossible unless you’re a mind-reader because there’s absolutely no guarantee that what was taught is what was learned. In fact there’s a lot of research evidence that suggests the two are often distant relatives.

In this chapter the main aims are to summarise some of the longer-standing and useful perspectives and also some recent ideas about learning (some people call these ‘theories’) and to look at teaching in the light of these ideas. In the course of this it will be useful to settle on some working definitions for words like learning, knowledge, understanding and so on, because they are overworked in everyday language and confusions easily arise. Science teachers are used to this problem, with words like animal, chemical, power and so on, which have everyday use but which need more precise definitions to be used scientifically (see Chapter 11). A glossary is included at the end of the chapter.

Why theories?

For quite a while ‘theory’ has been an unpopular word to use when talking about education (Adey 1995). In one respect this is odd, because every conscious human act is guided by background knowledge and by expectations – in other words by mini theories. We live by being guided by our theories – if we didn’t do this we would face every moment like a new-born baby. On the other hand there is a long history of those who deal with theories seeing themselves as superior to those who deal with action. In turn, practitioners sometimes see theorisers as elitist and untrustworthy. But there are two good reasons for science teachers not to shun the T-word. The first is that science itself is crammed full of theories. Without theory there would be stone-age engineering but no science. Science is a massive achievement in human theorising. It is an amazingly productive synthesis of thinking and doing. Science is ‘living’ evidence that theories and practice aren’t opposites, they are jigsaw pieces that more or less fit together. The second reason for science teachers to be comfortable with theory in education is that they have written quite a lot of it themselves. As we will see, there are several ‘big names’ who have been both science teachers or scientists and also thinkers about learning.

Why though are some teachers sceptical, even hostile towards educational research? Perhaps this is because too little ‘official’ research is carried out by teachers themselves. The trouble with teaching is that contrary to some public opinion, it takes a lot of time. After planning, teaching, assessing, caring for pupils and doing everything else the job entails, most teachers have neither the time nor the energy to do any in-depth researching into the effects of their work, the nature of their job, the curriculum or anything else. Surveys, comparisons and evaluations are very difficult for teachers to carry out at the same time as holding down a full timetable. The problem with this, as Spinoza pointed out over 300 years ago, is that those who ignore history are condemned forever to repeat it! If teaching is to develop and change in a changing world, there must be a place for reflection and research.

Some educators and researchers in education have come to the conclusion that, as a foundation for their activities, they must develop some theoretical ideas as to how children build up their picture of the world they experience. They believe that unless they have a model of the student’s concepts and conceptual operations, there is no effective way of teaching.

(Glasersfeld 1991: 21)

What can theories offer to teachers?

The first thing is that if a theory is any good it should at least add something beyond common sense. It might do so by extending, reinforcing or even conflicting with common sense...