Primary Science - Making It Work

Chris Ollerenshaw, Ron Ritchie

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781853464393
• eBook ISBN: 9781134092499
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

First Published in 1997. This innovative series is an ideal means of supporting professional practice in the post-Dearing era, when a new focus on the quality of teaching and learning is possible. The series promotes reflective teaching and active forms of pupil learning. The books explore the implications of these commitments for curriculum and curriculum-related issues. The changes in this second edition of the book reflect the different context of science education and the needs of teachers in the late-1990s: new material is included on National Curriculum links, assessment, planning and professional development

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

1. The beginning

This book is intended to be a practical working guide to the teaching of science. We hope it will be of use to both the established primary class-teacher and the student. It is an account of a particular approach to teaching which combines workable classroom practice with current understanding of the way children learn. The underlying view is learning centred and holistic. This approach has already received extensive trialling and is being increasingly adopted in primary schools. The outcomes to date have been highly encouraging. We are also confident we can provide realistic advice and reassurance for teachers who did not specialise in science during training and who may be worried about their own lack of experience in Science National Curriculum territory.

Let us begin on the big easel:

The world is in revolution. Technology is rampant. Whole economies are dependent on science and its applications. The human organism is reaching inwards, as well as outwards, towards the very determinants of Life itself. Centres of power lie within high-security areas, accessed by permit. The public catches only glimpses, through barbed wire, of vague superbeings moving like shadows through blinding light.

The above paragraph parodies a 1950s’ science-fiction scenario for the future … yet already, all of it has a parallel in the real world.

It has been apparent for some considerable time now that aspects of the future of the world lies in the hands of scientists and technologists as much as in those of politicians. It is not surprising, therefore, that in due course, the traditional credo of education gave way to new thinking. The Science National Curriculum was introduced in 1989 (DES, 1989) to ensure all pupils, from the ages of 5 to 16, were provided with opportunities to learn science. And the question arose – who was there to teach it in primary schools? Who indeed? How can a non-specialist teach science in the detail demanded?

Fortunately, the teaching of primary science, although it does obviously include content, is equally about establishing attitudes and working practices which will first catch and then nurture the germinal concepts of children. Most primary teachers will by now have been comforted by the knowledge that they are not expected to condense complex theory into child language. If any remain who haven’t, we will say right away, that primary science should not be a watered-down version of secondary science. The kind of science teaching advocated in this book aims at giving children a clear understanding of basic concepts. We say ‘giving’ in the interests of a crisp style. ‘Enabling the children to acquire’ expresses our philosophy better, but is less gripping. This longer phrase also suffers from an intrinsic vagueness of the kind which besets discovery learning and which invites method-abuse. What we offer is anything but vague. Children taught as we suggest tend to become more specific, more alert, meticulous, laterally thinking and persevering. At all events, the clearer understanding of basic science concepts and the process skills which gradually emerge with it, will provide, we believe, the necessary hooks on which later, more theoretical, learning can be hung. The overall aim is to enfranchise the public at large. The parody at the beginning of the chapter was not just an illustration of the speed of change, it was a sad allegory of the position in which many people find themselves – debarred from lucrative and interesting pursuits and careers, unable even to make rational decisions about scientific issues within a democratic society, basically through lack of expertise. They have no permits. Too many view science as outsiders. If more people can be enabled to handle science at secondary level or beyond, with less difficulty than before and to have an informed voice in the new society, then developments in primary science teaching will have been well worth the effort. We are attempting to create a more science-literate community. It is time everyone had a pass.

And now to the matter at hand.

2. What is science?

Science is an exploration of the cosmos to discover or explain what, why, when, where and how things happened, are happening or are likely to happen within it. We are back to the big easel and a lot of it is out of reach. Scientists have to put forward theories and develop ‘models’ to help explain phenomena and to communicate their ideas to others. Their theories do not amount to an unchanging body of knowledge. At any given moment all one can say is that they form a currently accepted view of phenomena that helps us all to understand better what we find in the universe and on our own planet. It is also possible for scientists to hold differing theories about the same evidence. Science advances by the testing of theories and predictions to gain new evidence. This, in turn, may confirm hypotheses for the moment or refute them, or it may reveal new phenomena.

Science is therefore concerned with two things:

1. Investigative processes.

2. Current scientific theories.

Science in the National Curriculum (DfE, 1995) stresses the equal importance of these two aspects of science. 1. Investigative Processes, is represented in Programmes of Study (POS) called Experimental and Investigative Science (Sc. 1). 2. Current Scientific Theories, is represented in Sc. 2, 3 and 4 together. These cover: Life Processes and Living Things; Materials and their Properties; Physical Processes.

3. What do scientists do?

In their search for understanding scientists do many things, including observing, checking, recording, thinking, reading, comparing their own ideas with those of other scientists, asking questions, testing hypotheses, carrying out investigations and collecting evidence. The work of science demands that the individuals involved develop a respect for evidence – good science is not about good guesswork, it is about the imaginative cross-referencing of clues, the elimination of irrelevancies and the use of evidence to explain events. Again, scientists have good reasons for what they do: they do not work in the dark when they investigate. Sometimes new insights or ‘discoveries’ are made but they are rarely accidental. Most often, discoveries arise from investigations which have been carefully structured. Science in the primary school can mirror these processes and activities. Children can explore and learn through observing, explaining, predicting, reading, talking, testing ideas, questioning, and planning further investigations. As with scientists, children will develop a systematic way of working and respect for evidence.

4. Constructivism and a constructivist approach to teaching science

What is constructivism?

Constructivism is a perception of the way learning takes place. It views individuals as active constructors of understanding. It suggests that people make their own interpretations of the information received through their senses. The resultant ideas and concepts may or may not be similar to those of other individuals. People carry portmanteaux of self-made working concepts through their lives and use them to interpret daily experiences. Information which does not fit these concepts is likely to be rejected or to go unnoticed. Only when the issue is forced, perhaps by ensuing misfortune, will a concept be reevaluated and modified. Such modification is traditionally termed ‘learning by experience’ or, if something unpleasant results, ‘learning the hard way’. Constructivism makes the point that the abandoning of the redundant concept, or the modification of it in the light of the new experience, is still a creative reaction which only the owner of the concept can effect.

Scott (1987) summarises Driver and Bell (1985) as follows:

A constructivist view of learning

1. Learning outcomes depend not only on the learning environment but also on the prior knowledge, attitudes and goals of the learner.

What is already in the learner’s mind matters.

2. Learning involves the construction of knowledge through experience with the physical environment and through social interaction.

Individuals construct their own meaning.

3. Constructing links with prior knowledge is an active process involving the generation, checking and restructuring of ideas and hypotheses.

The construction of meaning is a continuous and active process.

4. Learning science is not simply a matter of adding to and extending existing concepts, but may involve their radical re-organisation.

Learning may involve conceptual change.

5. Meanings, once constructed, can be accepted or rejected.

The construction of meaning does not always lead to belief.

6. Learning is not passive. Individuals are purposive beings who set their own goals and control their own learning.

Learners have the final responsibility for their learning.

7. Students frequently bring similar ideas, about natural phenomena, to the classroom. This is hardly surprising when one considers the extent of their shared experiences – school life, hobbies, clubs, television, magazines, music etc.

Some constructed meanings are shared.

The classroom is a highly controlled environment in which life’s experiences can be simulated in different ways according to need – which is a good thing because we need to ensure children will want to reorganise or replace their redundant concepts without misfortune or unpleasantness as the spur. One thing is certain – that every child will arrive with a bag of concepts and ideas which will, to a large extent, affect subsequent learning. As teachers we have to bring child and experience together and then, with the aid of our professional expertise, ensure interaction between the two which will result in redundant concepts being modified or replaced in the light of the experience. We can manipulate the experiences to confront chosen concept areas but in every case the child’s existing ideas and understanding are the clay and the child the sculptor. The teacher is the enabler, the catalyst, the mirror, the challenger.

Much work on a constructivist approach to children’s learning in science has been undertaken. It was initially focused on secondary schools (The Children’s Learning in Science Project: CLIS, 1984–91) and has since been developed to illuminate frameworks for planning and developing work in the primary school (Science Processes and Concept Exploration Project, SPACE, 1990–93). Our own variant, taken from the INSET materials produced as a result of a project on assessment in science, sponsored by Avon LEA via the National Primary Centre (NPC), in which we were involved, is as follows:

A TEACHING APPROACH BASED ON A CONSTRUCTIVIST VIEW OF LEARNING

ORIENTATION

Arousing children’s interest and curiosity

ELICITATION/STRUCTURING

Helping children to find out and clarify what they think

INTERVENTION/RESTRUCTURING

Encouraging children to test their ideas: to extend, develop or replace them

REVIEW

Helping children to recognise the significance of what they have found out

APPLICATION

Helping children to relate what they have learned to their everyday lives

(Ollerenshaw et al., 1991)

Anyone coming to this model of teaching for the first time has to recognise these essential characteristics:

1. The process begins with what children already know, understand and can do. This means work for the teacher as much of it has to be excavated.

2. Children become the constructors of their own knowledge with the guidance of the teacher. The onus for decision making passes to the child. The teacher does not necessarily provide ‘right’ answers nor suggest directly how appropriate solutions might be found.

3. Child-to-child communication, especially in speech, is a necessary ingredient. Child-language is acceptable throughout. Universal (scientific) terms are introduced at the end of events if it is appropriate to do so.

4. The focal point of the whole learning environment is each separate, individual, child – albeit in group contexts.

5. Teaching is a process of enabling. It comprises ceaseless assessment of all children, individually, and appropriate actioned responses. These responses, apart from provisioning and recording, are for the most part in the form of verbal questions to help children clarify their thinking, to elicit where children’s understanding has reached or to challenge children to think and act more carefully.

It is important to make a distinction between the constructivist approach and ‘discovery’ learning. Discovery learning is based on the premise that if children are presented with the right materials and asked open-ended questions they will learn by discovering for themselves the concepts which lie in wait. The constructivist approach does not eschew discovery, rather it recognises its value as one of a wide range of learning situations. Constructivists (by whom we mean those basing their teaching on a constructivist view of learning) are not limited to one method of application. Practitioners are free to use different teaching devices, or strategies, provided they are governed by the model of learning and the requirements described earlier as ‘characteristics’.

The advantages of the constructivist approach to science in the primary classroom include the bringing together of what we know to be the value of investigative work with what we know of the way knowledge and understanding develop so that learning becomes a natural and logical process akin to established scientific procedures. As the process component itself is structured and disciplined through work in the classroom, children soon pick up the associated skills and are thereby enabled to pursue their own initiatives. Wha...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Case Studies
• Preface to the Second Edition
• Preface to the First Edition
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Orientation
• 3 Elicitation
• 4 Restructuring and Review
• 5 Children’s Recording
• 6 Assessment and Record-keeping
• 7 Planning
• 8 Professional Development
• Bibliography
• Index