The Art of Teaching Science

Inquiry and Innovation in Middle School and High School

Jack Hassard, Michael Dias

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN:
  9781135889999
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

The Art of Teaching Science emphasizes a humanistic, experiential, and constructivist approach to teaching and learning, and integrates a wide variety of pedagogical tools. Becoming a science teacher is a creative process, and this innovative textbook encourages students to construct ideas about science teaching through their interactions with peers, mentors, and instructors, and through hands-on, minds-on activities designed to foster a collaborative, thoughtful learning environment.

This second edition retains key features such as inquiry-based activities and case studies throughout, while simultaneously adding new material on the impact of standardized testing on inquiry-based science, and explicit links to science teaching standards. Also included are expanded resources like a comprehensive website, a streamlined format and updated content, making the experiential tools in the book even more useful for both pre- and in-service science teachers.

Special Features:

• Each chapter is organized into two sections: one that focuses on content and theme; and one that contains a variety of strategies for extending chapter concepts outside the classroom
• Case studies open each chapter to highlight real-world scenarios and to connect theory to teaching practice
• Contains 33 Inquiry Activities that provide opportunities to explore the dimensions of science teaching and increase professional expertise
• Problems and Extensions, On the Web Resources and Readings guide students to further critical investigation of important concepts and topics.

An extensive companion website includes even more student and instructor resources, such as interviews with practicing science teachers, articles from the literature, chapter PowerPoint slides, syllabus helpers, additional case studies, activities, and more.

Visit http://www.routledge.com/textbooks/9780415965286 to access this additional material.

PART 1
THE ART OF TEACHING SCIENCE

CHAPTER 1
THE ART OF TEACHING SCIENCE: A RECONNAISSANCE

“The most important discovery made by scientists was science itself,” said Jacob Bronowski, a mathematician, philosopher of science, and teacher. Science has helped us understand important and interesting things about the natural world. What about science teaching? Have science educators made a comparable discovery about science teaching? We think so. Perhaps the inquiry approach to learning itself is one key discovery. Another could be the discovery that students don’t learn science through direct instruction, rather they construct their own knowledge from formal and informal experiences on their own. Many science educators would claim that the most influential development for science teaching is the theory of social-constructivism, which explains how students learn. As a theory of learning, constructivism plays a major role in our approach to science teacher education, and may be the foundation upon which your teacher education program is based. Another important insight, as the title of the book implies, is that science teaching is an art form, allowing teachers to express their unique gifts.

There are many important “discoveries” that have been made by science educators. If you are interested in thinking about the world of science education, and fascinating ideas about learning, curriculum, and teaching developed by science teachers and researchers, then this book is for you. Welcome!

We’ll start our exploration of the art of teaching science with a reconnaissance of the field. You’ll look ahead by examining and comparing some of your ideas about science teaching with those of other science teachers. Before you know it, you’ll be teaching and participating in science lessons prepared by you and taught to your peers. We will investigate some conceptions about the nature and philosophy of science, and relate this to science teaching. Then we’ll return to the opening case study, and compare the traditional science teaching approach with a more humanistic one. We’ll then introduce you to some students via brief vignettes designed to capture the humanistic dimensions of the students you’ll teach—their values, capacities, interests, and needs as individuals.

Let’s begin by considering a case. Near the beginning of future chapters, we’ll include a case for you to read, in the form of a story with some questions to consider. We see these as a way to help you make a transition to the new ideas that will follow.

CASE TO CONSIDER: A FIRST YEAR TEACHER’S DILEMMA

Northside High School is a mathematics and science magnet school (grades 9–12) in a large urban community. The science department is comprised of 15 teachers, three of whom are first year teachers. The faculty in the science department has been very committed to a conceptual approach to science teaching. Jean Thomas, the science department head, at the opening science department meeting reaffirmed this by saying that instruction should be based on the assumption that “our science courses should emphasize the basic concepts and theories of science, especially as outlined in the National Science Education Standards.” She went on to point out that students should be taught the basic concepts of the field, and that the laboratory experiments should reinforce the concepts, thereby helping students develop an understanding of science. One of the first year teachers (Joan Erikson), in a private conversation with the other two first year teachers, disagrees with this philosophy. She claims that some kids simply don’t think the way the scientific community thinks, and shouldn’t be penalized because of it. She says that other approaches should be considered in formulating the underlying philosophy of instruction. One of her ideas is that science instruction should be more application oriented; that science instruction should be more personal and show students how science relates to their own lives. She wants to discuss these ideas with the department head. One of the other beginning teachers suggests that she bring it up at the next department meeting in a week.

Problem: At the next meeting the department head reacts negatively to these ideas, and says that the kids she teaches need to learn the basic concepts (of a science course) and not spend time on what she called fluff activities. If you were the first year teacher, how would you clarify your point? What would you do in this situation? What could you do to help others understand your view? Is the first year teacher’s view of science teaching a valid one? What is your view of science teaching?

How to Read This Chapter

This chapter is a reconnaissance of the profession of science teaching, and a place to begin the learning-to-teach process. You might view it as an overview of both science teaching and this book. All of the chapters have been divided into two parts. The first part deals with the key concepts of the chapter. We’ve integrated several Inquiry Activities in this part of the book. The second part of the chapter is called the Science Teacher Gazette, and includes special features such as links to science education literature pieces, problems and extensions, resources, and weblinks. Integrated with the Science Teacher Gazette is a Companion Website where you will find readings, teacher interviews, weblinks, and other resources. You might get the most out of this chapter by skimming the main sections, and then coming back to deliberately read though the chapter. The Inquiry Activities are designed to help you explore some of your prior conceptions of science teaching (Inquiry Activity 1.1) and to engage you in an initial teaching experience (Inquiry Activity 1.2); others will lead you to investigate the ideas that experienced teachers hold about teaching, and students’ perspectives about science. The Inquiry Activities should help you build upon your prior knowledge and help you construct your ideas about teaching.

SECTION I: A RECONNAISSANCE

Invitations to Inquiry

• What are your current views about science teaching? How do these compare with the views of experienced science teachers?
• In what ways might science teaching be an art? Do you think that there is artistry to teaching?
• What are some major conceptual ideas about science teaching?
• Why do you want to be a science teacher?
• What is science, and what are some of the important characteristics of science?
• Is inquiry teaching a valid method in secondary science classrooms? What fosters scientific inquiry?
• Do scientists and students represent two cultures? If so, how can these cultures be bridged?
• Who are the students we teach? What are they like?
• What characterizes an effective science teacher?

The Artistry of Teaching

It is our view that teaching is professional artistry. The Art of Teaching Science has been designed to provide encounters in various contexts focused on learning about teaching through reflection and discussion. We’ve included in the book a number of pedagogical tools that we hope will help you build upon and further develop your professional artistry. They include inquiry and experimentation activities, reflection through writing and discussion, as well as experiences with science curriculum and pedagogy. Hopefully these tools will assist you in making explicit your personal theories about teaching science.¹ You’ll find case studies, inquiry activities, interviews with professional teachers, readings from the literature, problems and extensions, and experiences on the Web.

Professional artistry is inherently related to human imagination and creativity and one’s willingness to experiment and play. Jacob Bronowski uses these four concepts to draw similarities between art and science. According to Bronowski, “science uses images, and experiments with imaginary situations, exactly as art does.”² For the teacher, Bronowski offers this pedagogical suggestion:

Many people believe that reasoning, and therefore science, is a different activity from imagining. But this is a fallacy, and you must root it out of your mind. The child that discovers, sometime before the age of ten, that he can make images and move them around in his head has entered a gateway to imagination and to reason. Reasoning is constructed with movable images just as certainly as poetry is. You may have been told, you may still have the feeling that E = mc² is not an imaginative statement. If so, you are mistaken.³

Developing professional artistry suggests that teachers need to construct knowledge about teaching and learning rather than adopting the knowledge claims of others. The “inquiry activities” in The Art of Teaching Science are designed to support your construction of knowledge about science teaching. These learning activities are not about scientific inquiry, but they will serve an equally empirical inquiry into becoming a science teacher. These inquiry activities are a bit related to the inquiry-methods that you will use in your science teaching, for both involve learners collaborating as they explore phenomena and develop knowledge. Just as we take an experiential approach to science teaching, we try to lead your learning-to-teach process with the school-based challenges of teaching and the practical knowledge that is derived from the physical, emotional and intellectual work of teaching. As is true with science knowledge, teaching knowledge emerges through both deductive and inductive thinking. You will find that pedagogical knowledge, like science knowledge has an artistic quality, for your expertise in both science and teaching will grow as you test alternatives and tap into your unique talents.

Teachers exhibit their professional artistry in their encounters with students. When you see someone teaching you witness their imagination and creativity unfolding in the classroom with their students. If you return a few days later you see again the process at work, but this time within a different context and activity. The teacher’s courage to be creative in his or her encounters with students is important in understanding professional artistry. Rollo May notes that a creative act is an encounter.⁴ As such, teachers’ professional artistry is exhibited as a creative act in the classroom. According to May (1975), creative courage is the most important kind of courage in that it results in new patterns upon which a society or a profession is built. He says “In our day, technology and engineering, diplomacy, business, and certainly teaching, all of these professions and scores of others are in the midst of radical changes and require courageous persons to appreciate and direct this change. The need for creative courage is in direct proportion to the degree of change the profession is undergoing.”⁵

There is one other dimension of professional artistry, and that is the teacher’s humanistic concern with the growth of his or her students. Tom Brown, one of the teachers interviewed for the Art of Teaching Science and a professor of science education at Kennesaw State University, believes caring is one of the most important aspects of teaching. He puts it this way:

This may sound too warm and fuzzy but I honestly believe that my most important role as a teacher is to care for my students as individuals. As we all know, high schools can be very impersonal places and many students have a difficult time finding a way to fit in comfortably. It is our job as educators to reach out to our kids and be empathetic and encouraging.⁶

These two aspects of professional artistry, the experiential learning and the humanistic concern, are fundamental to our perspective as a science teacher. We would add that becoming a teacher is a creative and artis...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Brief Contents
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction
• PART 1:THE ART OF TEACHING SCIENCE
• PART 2:THE GOALS AND CURRICULUM OF SCHOOL SCIENCE
• PART 3: CONNECTING THEORY AND PRACTICE IN SCIENCE TEACHING
• PART 4: STRATEGIES OF SCIENCE TEACHING
• Appendix A: Science Curriculum Developers
• Appendix B: Professional Societies and Organizations
• Appendix C: Science Equipment and Computer Software Suppliers
• Appendix D: Science Teacher Talk Questionnaire
• Notes
• Index