Tag Archives: science

Video 5 and video 8

I chose to watch video 5 and video 8 as they were dealing with technology use in upper intermediate classrooms and I am currently teaching grade 7. In video 5, the first teacher interviewed was very positive about technology use in the classroom. She stated that she uses it in her classroom almost everyday as it challenges the students, compensates for language barriers for her ESL students and it levels the playing field since her students are all tech savvy. The students interviewed were very excited to share the video about hurricanes they were creating. The professor in the video 8 was also very passionate about technology use and helping teacher candidates learn how integrate it into their practice and make sure that it is enhancing student learning. It appears that both of these teachers understand the benefits of using technology and how to integrate it to deepen student understanding.

However, the rest of the teachers interviewed were not so excited, or positive about technology use in the classroom. One retired teacher and one new teacher (video 5) both stated that technology is frustrating as there is not enough time to use it, not enough training, they are not equipped to problem solve issues, and they don’t feel comfortable using it. I think both of these teacher highlighted one of the main reasons as to why technology is not integrated into some classrooms (What I found interesting is that the new teacher was not integrating technology it into her classroom) These teachers do not feel like they receive enough professional development time to comfortably introduce technology into the classroom. How do we overcome this? Even when professional development does happen, the new teacher stated that she doesn’t have time to reflect upon this new knowledge and then she quickly forgets it before she has a chance to try it out with her students. Unfortunately, some teachers do not see the value in technology use and therefore, refuse to integrate it into their daily lessons. I think the best way to overcome this is to start with the teacher education programs. I think these programs should be integrating technology into all of the courses offered. Each year, new teachers will be graduating ready and excited to use technology in their new classrooms. Most of the teacher candidates in video 8 spoke positively about technology use in the classroom stating that it creates more engaged learning, helps visual learners see the process, and helps ESL and struggling learners.

Many teachers are very excited to integrate technology into their classrooms, but others still see it as a hindrance. How can we change this? What can we do to better support these teachers? Should we focus on the teachers who are interested in hopes that this will “snowball” and get others excited once they see positive examples of technology use? Is it fair that some students are able to explore some of their conceptual misconceptions with technology and others are not?

Constructivism’s Answer to Children’s Misconceptions in Science

(Disclaimer: It’s been a long time since I’ve taught Science and an even longer time since I’ve taught Math so I found this activity challenging because I don’t really have anything to comment on that is relevant to my personal practice. I tried to read the course article about Children’s Conceptions of Heat and Temperature because I remember teaching a unit in Grade 7 related to that but the UBC link is broken and I couldn’t find the article online that didn’t cost money to read. I read an article that referenced Erickson’s work however, Children’s Ideas About Hot and Cold (Appleton, 1984). The last Science I’ve taught has been to Grades 1-3 students and I really wanted to read Children’s Understandings of Science: Goldilocks and the Three Bears Revisited (McClelland & Krockover, 1996) which studied first grade students and their understanding of heat, and compare these ideas, but again there was no access available).

From McClelland & Krockover’s abstract and introduction, however, I have found that many of the peculiarities of children’s understandings are echoed in the video and the other readings. McClelland & Krockover (1996) found that students adopted misconceptions of scientific conceptions based on their exposure to literature, in this case the fairytale of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. This is consistent with the findings of others in this week’s readings that children are prone to make contradictory statements about the nature of scientific phenomenon when that phenomenon is presented in a different way, for example temperature descriptions and changes described qualitatively rather than quantitatively (Appleton, 1984).

Researchers also found that children often rely on sensory input even when it has been proven to be unreliable, as when a cold hand registers cool water as quite hot despite the actual temperature but they may choose to “live with the contradiction” rather than challenge their personally held conception (Appleton, 1984). This reminded me of Vygotsky’s ZPD and of Piaget’s understanding of the symbiotic dance of learner-teacher in a child’s schema-construction rather than the “tabula rasa” Shapiro (1988) references which had been the guiding pedagogy of 1960s-80s. McClelland & Krockover (1996) supported Piaget and Vygotsky’s worldview’s when they found that the first graders were able to change their conceptions when presented with activities that put the contradiction to their previous beliefs. This is similar to what Heather was able to do in the video when she reassessed what she believed to be the shape of the Earth’s orbit and what Mark (Shapiro, 1988) was able to do when he connected previous lessons to the reflection of light from objects into our eyes, revising his prior hypothesis recorded before the unit began.

All the researchers I read made a strong case for the use of constructivist and constructionist practices in the Science classroom. Shapiro (1988) did this when she pointed out the value placed on both hands-on and self-directed “experiments” by her research subjects; Appleton (1984) did this when he commented on the value of using relevant, accessible situations rather than abstract examples or those that were beyond the children’s experience; and McClelland & Krockover (1996) directly identified the present view “that learning is the result of the interaction between what children are taught or what they experience, and their current ideas or conceptions (Driver, 1981)” (p.33) and targeted constructivist concepts of prior knowledge and social interaction as active meaning-makers in children’s understanding of scientific concepts. All of this points to the necessity, in my opinion, of rethinking the amount of information teachers are expected to “cover” in each science unit. A better alternative is a streamlined curriculum focusing on the topics that most children hold misconceptions in for each strand of scientific thought so that teachers can actively and deliberately tailor learning in a pattern of (1) misconception-identification, (2) contradiction-exposure, and (3) independent-and-guided exploration in order to construct more accurate understandings.

References

Appleton, K. (1984). Children’s Ideas About Hot and Cold. Learning About Science Project (Primary). Working Paper No. 127. Retrieved from: https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED252407.pdf

McClelland, A.K. & Krockover, G.H. (1996) Children’s understandings of science: Goldilocks and the Three Bears revisited. J Elem Sci Edu (8)32. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03173747 Retrieved from: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF03173747?LI=true

Shapiro, B (1988). What children bring to light: Towards Understanding What the Primary School Science Learner Is Trying to Do Retrieved from: https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED309081.pdf

Conceptual Challenges: Cloud Formation and Precipitation

In the video, Heather has a misinformed understanding of the moon’s phases and the seasons. However, her teacher was not aware of these misconceptions before she introduced the unit of study. During her lessons, Heather was trying to merge her existing knowledge with the new information the teacher was introducing. The teacher needed to understand her students’ background knowledge before she began the new unit of study. Only through her understanding of her students’ prior knowledge, will she be able to help scaffold her students’ learning.

As we can see in this video, there are many misconceptions around scientific understandings. This may be because new scientific discoveries have been made that contradict existing theories or that the learner only understood part of the concept and tried to fill in the gaps. Many scientific theories are abstract and therefore, difficult for students to visually see the process. The use of models in science can help with the visualization process. Teachers also need to understand students’ prior knowledge and misconceptions on any given topic before they begin to teach it. This will help guide the teaching process and activities based on what the students already know, what they think they understand, but really don’t, and what they are interested in learning. If students are not interested in a topic, it will be more difficult for them to learn. If they do not see the relevance of the concept to their daily life, they will not take an interest in learning more about it.

When I was teaching primary grades, one of the topics that my students always had a difficult time understanding was cloud formation and precipitation. I often wondered if the difficulty arose because the students couldn’t actually see the process or touch it. The best we could do was create diagrams or models to help with this. However, some of the students still had a difficult time explaining the process. Often times, they would appear to understand, but as time would pass their understanding would diminish. In the Thompson and Logue article, the students ranged in age from six to twelve years old. Most of the students were able to describe how clouds were formed, but had strong misconceptions about precipitation. According to the authors in both articles, scientific misconceptions come from a variety of sources, including misunderstanding information from parents or teachers, as well as from sources, such as mass-media that provide inaccurate information. Misconceptions are often difficult to change and these can impact the learning process. According to the article, Children’s Ideas and the Learning of Science, people who attend the same lecture or read the same book will not necessarily understand it in the same way. Individuals internalize the experience and construct their own meanings. The authors argue that student beliefs are reviewed or revised when a more persuasive or a better theory is introduced, but sometimes “even if students are confronted with what appear to be contradictions to the teacher, they will not necessarily recognize them” (Driver, et. al., 1985, p. 3). Thompson and Logue believe that teachers need to figure out their students misconceptions so that students do not continue to build their knowledge upon these misunderstandings. The issue is not where these misconceptions come from, but rather how we identify them and overcome them in the classroom when teaching our students.

The best way for students to understand many of the scientific concepts being taught is in a constructivist learning environment that encourages students to take risks and explore through hands-on experiments. The teacher acts as a facilitator or guide and supports the students throughout the learning process. It would not be an effective teaching style for a teacher to simply tell the students that their existing understanding or beliefs about a given topic are incorrect, but rather he or she needs to provide students with exploratory lessons that “show” the students. Technology is a great tool to help support the science lessons and curriculum in the classroom. Some of the simple ways that it can be used is to watch (up to date) videos or have students create their own videos on a given (or chosen topic). There are some great interactive whiteboard applications that allow students to draw and record their learning and thinking. This gives the teacher another way to identify any misconceptions that may exist.

Driver, R., Guesne, E., & Tiberghien, A. (1985). Children’s ideas and the learning of science. Children’s ideas in science, 1-9.

Thompson, F., & Logue, S. (2006). An Exploration of Common Student Misconceptions in Science. ERIC, 553-559. Retrieved January 8, 2018, from https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ854310.