Friday, July 17, 2009
Week One Science Methods Thoughts
This week in science methods class a new idea we discussed was the importance of inquiry in the science classroom. In observing science classrooms this summer, I have been frustrated with activities that seem to have no real purpose. While many of these activities offer a break from lecturing for the teacher and a chance to wake up students, they don’t help students grasp the material. While I have always thought of inquiry and teaching the scientific method as crucial to a science classroom, our discussion of inquiry and creating genuine learning experiences will be a huge help for me to ensure I meet these goals. Learning about these frameworks for enhancing learning in science has helped me reconsider my previous ideas of how to effectively teach science in the classroom. While I have always strongly believed that a good science classroom teaches much more than the memorization of facts, this week’s class has provided me with strategies to ensure this plays out in my classroom.
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I agree Catherine! Our summer placements are not always the best examples of effective teaching. I too have been questioning the applications of the activities observed in the classrooms. For example, I find that students do not see the applications of building a dinosaur skeleton because there is no preface or follow up to the activity. This definitely does not increase student's learning because they are unable to directly relate the activity to the material. The inquiry questions are really effective in helping students to critically think about the applications of the material and not necessarily just memorize facts and figures.
ReplyDeleteI will admit that one of my greatest frustrations as someone who prepares future science teachers is the absence of good models of effective practice. In a way, I MUST believe those exist and I WISH we could spend time in their classrooms. Any suggestions or nominations would be welcomed!
ReplyDeleteI agree with you, learning about the frameworks for enhancing learning in science, has also helped me to reconsider my previous ideas of what effective science teaching is in a classroom. I now realize science teaching is so much more than just the content, but HOW it is executed.
ReplyDeleteI feel, especially after upgrading my activity, that a lot of what's behind the inclusion of inquiry in a science activity is the proactivity and involvement of the teacher in prodding the students toward independent research, thought, questioning, and inquiry. Too often will teachers use an activity as a break for themselves rather than an enrichment opportunity for their students, and this complacency is something we must avoid as educators.
ReplyDeleteCatherine,
ReplyDeleteIt's scary to think of the preparation that some of todays teachers are getting before they enter the classroom. I am one such person who had very little experience teaching science and very little preparation before being thrown into a room full of students. I had heard about inquiry labs and it was explained to me as best as could be explained by the person doing the explaining, but after being involved in our classes thus far I feel I understand the concept a lot better and am so much more prepared for this coming school year than I was at the beginning of the last one.
~Tammy
I wholeheartedly agree that activities for the sake of breaking up the day that are empty of science content are entirely frustrating. Once we had this discussion, I was surprised how often I realized doing an activity in school for the sake of just doing an activity without ever really learning what I needed to and then feeling ill prepared come test time. This kind of simple lesson is going to be incredibly helpful when we go to plan what labs to use during student teaching.
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