Objectives

Rationale for Constructivism and the Inquiry Approach

How IS science done?? Certainly one can safely say that most, if not all, scientific fact that we have on hand today came about due to the fact that someone saw a specific phenomena and they wanted to know WHY. They inquired—they wanted to figure out the details and workings of whatever they were interested in. That is what science really is about—it is inquiring, hypothesizing, testing, concluding, re-testing and always re-inquiring—not just plain, boring facts in a textbook.

Constructivism is the line of thought that all science concepts should be taught through an open-ended inquiry approach. Teacher direction in the learning process becomes less and less as the students become more adept at discovering scientific principles on their own. The scientific process becomes a focal point as students learn to think by analyzing, criticizing, evaluating and drawing conclusions. Students learn the tools of science by designing their own controlled experiments, by correctly using measuring instruments, by drawing graphs and tables, and even by applying statistical analyses. There is a great need for teacher/student interactions and communication and the activities generally take more time to complete than classical types of learning. There are of course drawbacks. Some scientific concepts are just too difficult to teach using an inquiry approach. Student background knowledge may just not be sufficient to be able to apply any inquiry, or the concept may just be too confusing to begin with. (Often an inquiry approach raises even more questions than just the original idea, causing more confusion, with the original question never being answered). The teacher must perform a balancing act, determining which concepts could be well explained and learned through a constructivist activity, and which should be left well enough alone. Also, open-ended learning takes a lot more time than classical learning—concepts left toward the end of the year tend to get lost in the shuffle. The teacher must make an assessment as to the quality of the learning as opposed to the quantity of what s/he wants to try to cram into the students’ brains.

Rationale for the Use of Field Methods and Research

Using field methods and research in a science curriculum is not just another means of getting open-ended activities into (and out!) of the classroom. It gives the students an opportunity to see into the lives of what research scientists do every day and to see how science really IS done. Many students have the misconception that scientists are madmen in a white lab coat bending maniacally over smoking flasks and beakers—or that they are great big nerds with great big pocket protectors. To give students an appreciation for the work of scientists and to make them life-long learners in the process is an awesome task, yet a fulfilling and fun opportunity.

Adapting field research methods to fit the curriculum is not all that difficult. They do not have to become the focus of the all the activities. A couple of field techniques taught well can go a long way. Allow the students to get the idea of the need for doing anything in the field in a controlled, precise and accurate way while making detailed observations is the key. For example, just laying down a transect line is not a random act. Allow the students to think through why the line is necessary, what information could it provide, where it must be laid and why, how it can be reproduced again at a later date and what information is going to be taken from it and how. Allow them to think through the scientific process, teach them how to do it well and the activity will become much more meaningful and of value to them.

Field methods also get the students out of the classroom and into the best science lab of all. Too often they head into the mountains or to the ocean with their families not really realizing the awesome complexity or the riveting beauty right before their very eyes. This can be accomplished by teaching the students to learn to make detailed and valuable observations into field journals. They can also be taught the responsibility of taking specimens through good collection, preservation and documentation techniques, removing only what they need and disturbing the remaining area as little as possible by leaving it the way they found it.

The process of doing research is also a valuable tool in learning how science is done. Unfortunately, too often students have been put through the ordeal of the "science fair" causing their appreciation for the scientific process to become lackluster. Perhaps this is because the process itself was taught without any connection to the student, who had the need to see it as a rewarding experience—not just one to get a good grade through a myriad of impending deadlines. If a teacher can communicate the need to inquire, hypothesize, test, measure, analyze and conclude through the use of a student’s own original idea, and the rewards of that process, perhaps the student will gain an appreciation for creativity, thinking, ownership, responsibility and for becoming a lifelong learner.

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Overview

Rationale

- How I organize the Semester