A Thematic Integration of Physical and Earth Science for Elementary Education Students

Transcription

1 A Thematic Integration of Physical and Earth Science for Elementary Education Students Unifying the Breadth of Science Topics Around Common Themes in a Class for Prospective Teachers Stanley L. Haan and James Jadrich We have designed an activity-based science course for elementary education students. The course uses a thematic approach that naturally integrates chemistry, physics, and earth science with activities and themes relevant for elementary school science. Students like the course because it presents science at a level appropriate to their needs while also serving as a model for the students' future teaching. J n science methods courses, instructors inform prospective elementary teachers of the importance of teaching science in a hands-on, activity-oriented manner in which children become actively engaged in thinking and communicating their ideas and discoveries. In many cases, instructors tell the prospective teachers that they cannot simply transfer scientific knowledge to their students' brains. Rather, they must help their students construct their own understanding. Instructors go on to relate to the future teachers that they must teach science process skills and cultivate proper attitudes and mental habits in their students. They also teach that science should be presented as an integrated whole, not as a collection of independent ideas, and that science should make relevant connections to the children's everyday world and to societal issues (See American Association for the Advancement of Science 1993; Louks- Horsley 1990; National Research Council 1996). But how often do these same college students experience an effective modeling of this type of instruction in their science content courses? If not very often, then an important step toward improving the preparation of elementary school science teachers is for the natural science departments in colleges and universities to accept part of the responsibility for preparing future teachers by providing such experiences. Science departments should not be limited to teaching the content of the disciplines; their role should also include cultivating the skills and attitudes that are needed to teach elementary science effectively. We believe it is critically important for content and methods courses to complement and reinforce each other. In this article we summarize some of our recent efforts in this area. BACKGROUND Having departments outside of the school of education involved in teacher education is not a new idea. For example, the idea figured prominently in the educational philosophy presented by Conant (1963). Phillips (1983) also presented an innovative sequence of courses in the various science disciplines for elementary education students. More recently, an Advisory Com- Stanley L. Haan is a professor of physics and James Jadrich is an associate professor of science education and physics, department of physics, Calvin College, 3201 Burton SE, Grand Rapids, MI 49546; haan@calvin. edu, jjadrich@calvin. edu. March/April 1999 JCST 331

2 mittee to the National Science Foundation (NSF 1996) recommended the importance of having "educational opportunities appropriate for prospective and current K faculty." Mc- Dermott, the primary author of Physics By Inquiry (1996), a collection of laboratory-based modules in physics and physical science, also discussed the benefits of having special physics courses for elementary school teachers (1990). In addition, the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) recently developed a hands-on program for teaching future teachers (AAPT 1996), and some colleges have been introducing special content courses for prospective elementary school teachers, some of which integrate the science disciplines (Gunter et al. 1997). Nonetheless, science content courses are not often designed specifically for elementary school teachers, particularly for the nonscience specialists. Whether it is best to have certain courses only for prospective teachers remains an open issue. A fundamental tension that exists whenever science departments offer foundational or introductory courses is the issue of breadth versus depth. While there is a growing consensus that the traditional curriculum that tends to be heavy on facts and light on activities does little to foster real learning, most departments seem reticent to offer courses that do not appear sufficiently rigorous. One response to this concern has been the "less is more" or "less is better" approach in which the breadth of coverage is dramatically reduced so that students understand a few things in depth and improve their scientific skills. Although such an approach has considerable value, we submit that when topic coverage is limited, students may learn some of the bits of science well but they may not develop an integrated picture of science. Also, elementary school teachers may not feel 332 JCST March/April 1999 confident teaching science areas they have not studied themselves. DEVELOPMENT OF COURSE We designed an elementary education science course that chooses breadth over depth, covering a wide range of topics in physics, chemistry, and earth science. We chose not to adapt topics from traditional physics, chemistry, and earth science courses because those courses are designed to survey the content foundational to their respective professional disciplines. While such survey courses catalogue the foundations of a discipline well, we do not believe they meet the pedagogical needs of future elementary school teachers. Instead, we chose topics that would be relevant to everyday experience and foundational for teaching physical and earth science at the elementary level. We unified the diverse topics covered by organizing the course around common themes. The thematic approach not only ties relevant content together in appropriate ways, but it also naturally provides a spiraled coverage of material. Most key concepts in the course are visited several times, with each successive visitation in a different context and at a deeper conceptual level. Overall, we emphasize these basic concepts, themes, and understandings while avoiding an encyclopedic presentation of terms and facts. Finally, and most importantly, the course is activity based, not information based. We keep the concepts in the course as concrete as possible, grounding them in the in-class experiences. Thus, the course models effective teaching for the students while it provides an efficient platform for learning. Although the conceptual level of the course is intended for the nonscience specialist, the course is designed for anyone wishing to teach physical or earth science at the elementary level. Even students with outstanding science backgrounds have reported the course to be very worthwhile. Course materials consist of a notebook that combines guided hands-on In the authors' activity-based science course for elementary education majors, students prepare to present "share sheets" on plate tectonics at Michigan's Calvin College.

3 activities with subsequent content readings related to the activities. There is no other textbook for the course, although students have access to numerous supplementary resources in the classroom, and they are often given reading or research assignments on the Internet. The course is divided into five units built around the following five major themes found in science: I. Scientific Models The process of building scientific models cannot be separated from the concepts of science, or else rote memorization (as opposed to learning and integrated understanding) will result. A student aware of the process of model building and the appropriate uses of models will obtain a deeper understanding of scientific concepts and will better appreciate that science is an activity as well as a body of established theories and facts. In addition, the theme of scientific models provides a jumping off point for many of the specific concepts to be covered in the course. Topics include magnets, current electricity, convection, plate tectonics, and climate and weather. II. The Particulate Nature of Matter We study one model in detail: that all matter is composed of indestructible atoms. We chose this theme because it serves well as a microscopic model to explain a great variety of everyday experiences, yet it is poorly understood by most students. The model is also valuable in helping students to understand the concept of conservation laws. Topics studied include states of matter, physical and chemical changes, conservation of mass, density, particle motion, temperature, and pressure. Throughout this unit the characteristics of water are considered carefully, often with applications in meteorology. III. Energy We chose this theme because it is probably the broadest and most often used concept in all of science. Also, energy has been found to be an intuitive notion for most elementary students despite its abstract nature. In our activities we seek to develop students' intuition concerning energy. We emphasize energy conservation and the relationship between "macroscopic" energy and internal or thermal energy. IV. Energy and Interactions We chose this theme so students can apply the concepts of energy and energy transfer to interactions between objects and systems. Topics include sound, light and color, electricity, heat conduction, and forces. V Interactions and Change We chose this concluding theme to investigate how even large-scale systems change over time through energy transfer and interactions. Particular emphasis is given here to earth science and to shortterm and long-term changes of the earth. Topics include erosion, the rock cycle, and pollution. The activities format ensures that the course accurately models the preferred pedagogies used in elementary science classrooms, fosters construction of scientific concepts by the student, and exploits the various learning styles inherent in college students. The spiral nature of the course can be illustrated by examining the topic of electricity. Current electricity is first introduced in Unit I (Scientific Mod Students float bubbles on CO 2 in an activit yrelated to density in Professors Haan and Jadrich's class at Calvin College. Each unit is built around a series of student activities and content els). Students are given the task of readings plus suggested problems, lighting a bulb and then evaluating questions, and extensions for student four different models for electricity. assignments. The student activities are at (The four models derive from those the heart of the course, and we expect suggested by Osborne and Freyberg that most of the science learning will (1985) from an exhaustive list of current electricity models put forth by take place as the students participate in these exercises. The activities include children.) hands-on inquiries and investigations, Working in small groups, students small- and large-group discussions, peer attempt to disprove or affirm each of demonstrations, and short research the four models by connecting batteries projects. and bulbs in ways of their choos- March/April 1999 JCST 333

4 ing. A large-group discussion follows as the groups submit their results and argue for which model they consider the most efficacious. Additional testing is usually required before all the groups concur on a single model, and the instructorsupplied worksheets provide practice in using the "correct" model for current electricity before a new topic in Unit I is begun. - Electricity is encountered again in Unit III (Energy) when students must describe a battery and bulb circuit in terms of an Energy Chain as part of a lab practical in energy forms and transformations. (See SCIS for a description of Energy Chains.) Finally, students work extensively with circuits from an energy perspective in Unit IV (Energy and Interactions) while doing activities that rely on concepts related to energy sources and voltages. Many of the activities in the course are designed to challenge common misconceptions. Students are frequently asked to make predictions or to analyze their results to ensure that 334 JCST March/April 1999 the students are thinking while doing the activities and not merely "following recipes." Students work in groups of two or four, depending on the activity, but each student keeps his or her own record sheet. Content overviews are interspersed throughout the units as summaries and Combining science and education learning, prospective elementary teachers study convection of hot and cold colored water. extensions to the activities, but they are not intended to be the focus of student attention until after the activities have been attempted. To do otherwise would not only short-circuit learning, but it would also serve as a very poor model for teaching at the elementary school level. The content overviews are useful for making real-world, out-ofclassroom connections and for discussions that go beyond the scope of the activities. For example, after students have studied and understood the particle model, they can read about the limitations of the model and nuclear processes. The end-of-unit questions serve the same purpose as the content overviews, and they are also useful for assessment. The course text is kept in loose-leaf notebooks for easy removal and reinsertion of sheets, which facilitates instructor evaluation of completed work. The notebook format of the text also allows the instructor to provide relevant supplementary material or content readings at appropriate times that can be incorporated into the notebook. As part of the course, each student must keep a journal that the instructor can review each day before class. This can be easily accomplished if journal entries are submitted via . In the journal the students summarize class activities, present the primary concepts in their own words, and ask questions about applications or things they did not understand. The journals stimulate reflection, enhance learning by making students put their thoughts into words, and allow for effective communication with the professor. Each class begins with the professor returning the journal entries to the students and leading an all-class discussion of the concepts of the previous class period. We have found that our knowledge of what the students have written in their journals has allowed us to adjust the discussion appropriately. We have found that either daily journals or weekly journals are effective; in the case of weekly journals one-third of the class has a Monday due date, one-third a Wednesday due date, and one-third a Friday due date. Students prefer the weekly journals. We continue our institution's 20year plus elementary education science course tradition of meeting for two hours, three times per week, with class size limited to 24 students. Typically, the first 30 minutes are used for discussion or professor presentations. The remainder of the time is used for activities. This course was first designed in 1993, and has been taught every year since. It has been modified slightly since its inception to be consistent

5 with the new National Science Education Standards (National Research Council 1996). Student reaction to the course has been very positive. A summary of evaluations from the last two semesters is given in Table 1. The outcomes of the course include increased student confidence in their ability to do and understand science, an enhanced understanding of the most fundamental and unifying concepts in physical and earth science, an effective model for hands-on teaching, and an arsenal of activities and teaching ideas that can be used in or adapted for the elementary school classroom. Students emerge from the course not only with a greater understanding of science, but with a greater enthusiasm for teaching science and a notebook full of ideas for activities that they are already familiar with. Many of our students have already reported adapting and utilizing these activities during their student teaching experiences and within their own classrooms. We are in the process of quantitatively evaluating the effectiveness of the course by surveying former students who are now teaching. A statistically relevant comparison can not be made until more of our students begin their professional careers, but early indications show that the course has had a greater impact on their science teaching than any other science content or science methods course they have taken. We conclude by quoting from an unsolicited message received from a student who recently completed the course: And thank you oh so much for the wonderful experience you gave me with science. I understand it so much more now, and your science classes were the first time I ever recall TRULY enjoying science in my life. And I am excited to teach it some day soon. Because I had fun, I know it is possible for me to make it fun for the children. I have known for a long time that I want to teach Table 1 Summary of Student evaluations for academic year. 1. Amount learned, compared with comparable credit courses: Very little Avg A lot 8% 38% 54% 2. Did this course influence your self-confidence with regard to understanding science? Destroyed my No effect Gave me much confidence greater confidence 3% 3% 51% 44% 3. Did this course influence your self-confidence with regard to doing science activities? Destroyed my No effect Gave me confidence greater confidence 3% 45% 53% 4. How did this course influence your attitude toward science as a discipline? Made me No effect Made me dislike science appreciate science more more 10% 46% 44% 5. How did this course influence your attitude toward teaching science? Made me No effect Made me dread teaching eager to teach science science 5% 54% 41% 6. Do you think this course influenced whether or not you will use activities in your own science teaching? Influenced me not No effect Definitely influenced to use activities me to use activities 26% 74% 7. Would you recommend this course to your elementary-education friends? Never Absolutely 18% 82% more hands-on, and you gave me the materials to do it with.u Acknowledgment The authors acknowledge the support of Calvin College and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute for the development of this course. References Advisory Committee to the National Science Foundation Shaping the Future: New Expectations for Undergraduate Education in Science, Mathematics, Engineering, and Technology. Arlington, VA: National Science Foundation. American Association for the Advancement of Science Benchmarks for Scientific Literacy: Project New York, NY: Oxford University Press. American Association of Physics Teachers Powerful Ideas in Physical Science. 2nd ed. College Park, MD: American Association for the Advancement of Science. Conant, James B The Education ofamerican Teachers. New York, NY: McGraw Hill. Gunter, M. E., S. D. Gammon, R. J. Kearney, B. E. Waller, and D. J. Oliver Development and implementation of an integrated science course for elementary education majors. Journal of Chemical Education 74(2): 183. Louks-Horsley, S., et al Elementary School Science for the 90s. Andover, Massachusetts: The Network, Inc. McDermott, L. C A perspective on teacher preparation in physics and other sciences: The need for special science courses for teachers. American Journal of Physics 58(8): 734. McDermott, L. C Physics by Inquiry. New York, NY: Wiley. National Research Council National Science Education Standards. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press. Osborne, R., and P. Freyberg Learning in Science: The Implications of Children's Science. Aukland, New Zealand: Heinemann. Phillips, D. B A Comprehensive Science Education Program for Preparing Elementary School Teachers. Journal of College Science Teaching 13(3): 156. SCIS (Science Curriculum Improvement Study). Energy Sources: Level 5. Hudson, NH: Delta Education, Inc. March/April 1999 JCST 335