Post on 22-Jan-2017
Show first two minutes of video: https://www.learner.org/resources/series26.htm
l
Where does this gap in science education stem from?
A Framework for K-12 Science
Education: Practices,
Crosscutting Concepts, and
Core Ideas
High Stakes Testing• “Science standardized testing prevents
students from learning material thoroughly and instead encourages test taking skills and memorization.”
• Out of sixty-five students I surveyed about their goals in taking regents physics, forty-five responded with goals strictly about grades.
• “Learning in our schools has become a matter of meeting static, arbitrary and superficial ‘standards’ rather than engaging in the dynamic, endlessly creative process of discovery that children come into the world eager to embark on” (Samtani).
• ELL students• Stereotype threat• Epistemological bias
• Balance content and inquiry• Team Learning• Other options for assessment: tests to only
certain students each year, stealth assessments, portfolios
Reconstructing High Stakes Testing
Teacher and Textbook: Dispensers of Knowledge
• “How am I supposed to do it if you don’t tell me? Hey Phil (across the room), go build a rocket but I’m not going to tell you how” (Steinberg 61).
• Transition toward more student-directed classrooms earlier in education.
• Textbook as a supplemental source and differentiate sources for the different needs of students
Teacher Expectations• There are also noticeable trends between a student’s “first
language, ethnicity, and migration status” and their success in school.
• Predisposition toward creating less challenging classrooms
• Classroom management in denser classrooms creates stricter classrooms
Setting a Higher Bar for our Students
• Project-Based Science: extended authentic investigations, driving questions, collaborative work, learning technologies, artifacts
Teacher Understanding of Inquiry
• 78% believed they “were either proficient or accomplished in their level of understanding of what science inquiry means”
• 62% percent believed they were proficient in using science inquiry in their classrooms (Osisioma 97).
• Once these teachers were questioned about the key elements of inquiry only thirty-nine percent “correctly identified some elements of inquiry” (98).
Improving Teacher Understanding of Inquiry
• Professional Development– Bridge the gap between the science education
research community and the community of teachers
– Continuous process – Experience learning science through inquiry
Disconnection to Science
• One study found that African American third graders pictured scientists as “A mature, intelligent, hardworking, White male, wearing glasses, formally dressed or in a lab coat, who also teaches as a part of work they do” (Walls pg 15).
Connecting Students to Science
• Culturally responsive teaching• Science that matters• Student Discourse• Simulations• Virtual fieldwork
It made me feel smart. ‘Cause. . .I made my own question up, and I never did that before. I felt like a genius when I made my own question. And then I did my own project. I did it by myself, just me and my partner. We were making our own thing. That made me feel like a genius, like a scientist. (Mallucci 1135)
Resources in NYC
Bridge Golf Foundationhttps://bridgegolffoundation.org/blog/