Science teaching and thinking skills

[JimC]

Many aspects of science teaching, unfortunately, can be done in ways which are both boring, and also nowhere nearly rigorous enough, and challenging for students. In recent years, I have been making an effort to challenge my students with tasks that require a variety of thinking skills. My principal now wants me to help instigate some changes in approach, so I wrote this:

High order student tasks in science
Possible features of high order tasks for students
• Will usually occur after a certain amount of scaffolding on a topic has occurred, whether from explicit teaching or structured reading
• Will often start with raw data, for example second-hand data from an experiment, although (depending on time constraints), it could involve data from student’s own experiments
• Will involve students in manipulating and presenting that data in a variety of ways (such as tables, graphs, diagrams)
• May involve the application of mathematical or statistical skills in analysing the data
• Should definitely involve a search for patterns, drawing inferences and making generalisations.
• Preferably, the patterns that they find are ones that are a useful starting point to a deeper section of the topic at some stage in the future. Explicit and structured teaching still remains a vital part of any science course; it is important to see extended student tasks and such explicit teaching being mutually supporting.
• Will need to be structured very carefully to lead students in fruitful directions, without being too rigid. It is important that at least some aspects of the task be open ended. For example, often towards the end, an invitation to discuss whether the original experiment had flaws in its methods, or to suggest options for further experiments or data gathering.
• Allied to the last point, opportunities to reflect on and learn about aspects of scientific method have great value, since they are transferrable skills. In many ways, the essence of a high order task is the degree to which it enables students to develop their own personal kitbag of skills, and a sense of which skills are appropriate to which problems.
• Another form of open ended inquiry is to get students to list 2 or 3 aspects of the current task which make them curious, and give them the opportunity to do some research (eg. on Wikipedia) on at least one of them.
• It may be useful to develop the task in a way which requires students to report to the class on some aspects of their conclusions. (Time constraints often mean that this is an aspect that I leave out, valuable though it no doubt is...)
• Another valuable high order task, related to the previous suggestions, involves students designing and carrying out their own experimental investigations. This needs a very careful balance between complete student freedom to design (which has many practical, logistical, safety and time constrains), and being overly prescriptive. It also needs a certain amount of scaffolding on the principles and aims of experimental design before the students begin their task.
My personal preference is to structure such tasks in a similar way to VCE SACs; in other words, to keep them as classroom-based activities in the main. Often, they may take more than one session. Students doing some internet based research in between, and bringing their material to the final session is a reasonable compromise.
Such tasks have the potential to become important assessment items, so thought needs to be given to criteria and grading methods as they are constructed. In addition, the level of the task, and the language used, must allow students easy access to the task, without stopping students from going beyond their normal level of achievement

I also have a very detailed example of such a task, that involves students analysing a lot of raw data about the physical and chemical properties of many elements for the other science teachers to see.

The other thing I like doing is explosions in the science lab, to keep students on their toes!

[FBM]

And to think I get paid for writing drivel like this:

Sample Eighteen: Near the End of Class

Lecture-based class

Professor: I would like to finish discussing this in today’s class. However, we don’t have a lot of time left, so let’s not waste any time. If you have any questions, please save them for the next class. Now, let’s continue.

(Later) We’re almost out of time for today. Let’s try to cover the rest of this before we run out of time.

(Last few minutes of class) OK, we’ve covered all the material we can for today. Before we leave, I’d like to make sure you got all the main points. Think about what we learned today. Who can remember the first thing we talked about? I’d like someone to summarize it for us. 성민? What do you remember about it?

Student: (Summarizes)

Professor: That’s pretty good, but I think you forgot something. Who can tell me what he forgot?

Student: (Adds to summary)

Professor: Yes, that’s much better. Thank you. Keep that in mind when you review your notes. Now, what was the next thing? Who remembers? 경희?

Student: (Summarizes)

Professor: Good! That’s the main idea. If you know the main idea, you can study your textbook and the handouts for all the details. What about the last thing we talked about? Who can summarize that for us? 강원?

Student: (Summarizes)

Professor: Right. Good job. Did everyone hear that? Good. We’ve only got a minute or two left. Before you go, I should give you some homework. I’m going to pass out some assignments. Everybody take one. I’d like you to finish this before the next class. Take a look at it quickly and make sure you understand it. It’s related to what we’ve been studying this week.

[Trolldor]

Many aspects of science teaching, unfortunately, can be done in ways which are both boring, and also nowhere nearly rigorous enough, and challenging for students. In recent years, I have been making an effort to challenge my students with tasks that require a variety of thinking skills. My principal now wants me to help instigate some changes in approach, so I wrote this:

High order student tasks in science
Possible features of high order tasks for students
• Will usually occur after a certain amount of scaffolding on a topic has occurred, whether from explicit teaching or structured reading
• Will often start with raw data, for example second-hand data from an experiment, although (depending on time constraints), it could involve data from student’s own experiments
• Will involve students in manipulating and presenting that data in a variety of ways (such as tables, graphs, diagrams)
• May involve the application of mathematical or statistical skills in analysing the data
• Should definitely involve a search for patterns, drawing inferences and making generalisations.
• Preferably, the patterns that they find are ones that are a useful starting point to a deeper section of the topic at some stage in the future. Explicit and structured teaching still remains a vital part of any science course; it is important to see extended student tasks and such explicit teaching being mutually supporting.
• Will need to be structured very carefully to lead students in fruitful directions, without being too rigid. It is important that at least some aspects of the task be open ended. For example, often towards the end, an invitation to discuss whether the original experiment had flaws in its methods, or to suggest options for further experiments or data gathering.
• Allied to the last point, opportunities to reflect on and learn about aspects of scientific method have great value, since they are transferrable skills. In many ways, the essence of a high order task is the degree to which it enables students to develop their own personal kitbag of skills, and a sense of which skills are appropriate to which problems.
• Another form of open ended inquiry is to get students to list 2 or 3 aspects of the current task which make them curious, and give them the opportunity to do some research (eg. on Wikipedia) on at least one of them.
• It may be useful to develop the task in a way which requires students to report to the class on some aspects of their conclusions. (Time constraints often mean that this is an aspect that I leave out, valuable though it no doubt is...)
• Another valuable high order task, related to the previous suggestions, involves students designing and carrying out their own experimental investigations. This needs a very careful balance between complete student freedom to design (which has many practical, logistical, safety and time constrains), and being overly prescriptive. It also needs a certain amount of scaffolding on the principles and aims of experimental design before the students begin their task.
My personal preference is to structure such tasks in a similar way to VCE SACs; in other words, to keep them as classroom-based activities in the main. Often, they may take more than one session. Students doing some internet based research in between, and bringing their material to the final session is a reasonable compromise.
Such tasks have the potential to become important assessment items, so thought needs to be given to criteria and grading methods as they are constructed. In addition, the level of the task, and the language used, must allow students easy access to the task, without stopping students from going beyond their normal level of achievement

I also have a very detailed example of such a task, that involves students analysing a lot of raw data about the physical and chemical properties of many elements for the other science teachers to see.

The other thing I like doing is explosions in the science lab, to keep students on their toes!

Most of this can be adapted, hrum hrum hrum.

[Feck]

The other thing I like doing is explosions in the science lab, to keep students on their toes.........

I loved Redox reactions We lit a bucket of thermite on the school lawn My teachers made chemistry fun