The Role Of Constructivism in Teaching Science

Teaching science through traditional way of lecturing is very convenient, as in this method the teacher uses his notes or a book and the students listen. This is one reason that lecturing has been the conventional way of teaching science.This kind of teaching and learning process results in just the memorization of the content by the students. As a result students lack analytical, critical thinking and problem solving skills.

The effective way of teaching science is providing inquiry based learning. This is the true way of teaching problem solving skills. The aim of inquiry based learning is to drift the students from passively listening to actively solve a problem by continuing questioning. Inquiry based learning prepares the students to face the real world by making them problem solvers, critical thinkers and strong analyzers.

The article also compares constructivism and inquiry based learning. Though the structure for both seems to be similar, there is one important difference. While the role of teacher is assumed not important by the constructivism, it is instead crucial in inquiry based learning. In inquiry based learning teacher provides students with a challenge followed by further questioning that act as a guidance towards solving that problem. While in constructivism the students are given a tool and are expected to master it by exploring and working their own way.

The current vision, constructivist approach that OLPC originally envisioned for the XO, is to allow the students to develop their skills with the use of machine not necessarily while at school. But this unguided, undisputed and unchallenged use of it won't make it effective.

So though constructivism plays a very important role in teaching science as it allows students to explore and learn, it will be ineffective if it is not inquiry based.

◦Constructivism as a Referent for Science Teaching

This article compares two theories of knowledge objectivism and constructivism. Objectivism is an epistemology which is dominant in most educational settings today. According to objectivism the knowledge exists outside the bodies of learners. Knowledge resides out there in the books, independent of learners. Learners are encouraged to view objects events and phenomena with an objective mind, which is assumed to be separate from Cognitive processes such as imaginations, intuitions feeling, values, and believes. As a result teachers implement a curriculum to insure that students cover relevant science content and have a opportunities to learn truths which are documented in bulging books.
The constructivist approach believes the only tools available a learner are five senses:- seeing, hearing, touching, smelling and tasting. An individual interacts with the environment through these five senses, and with these messages from the senses he builds a picture of the world. So constructivism asserts that knowledge resides in individuals. Knowledge cannot be transferred intact from the head of a teacher to the heads of students. The student tries to make sense of what is taught by trying to fit with his/her experience. So learning is defined as adaptations made to fit the world they experience.
Co-operative learning is one strategy that constructivists use in their classrooms. It allows individuals to test the fit of their experiential world with others. The interactions with others cause perturbations, and by resolving perturbations individuals make adaptations to fit their new experiential world.
According to constructivist science is not the search for truth. It is an active and social process that assists us to make sense of our world. Students should be given opportunities to make sense of what is learned by negotiating meaning; comparing what is known to new experiences and resolving discrepancies between what is known and what seems to be implied by new experience.
So try to be a constructivist, by providing students with an opportunity to use their prior knowledge and senses in making connections to the new concepts.

Students Thrive on Cooperation and Problem Solving

The article emphasizes that learning- and schooling-must be totally transformed. 21st century students need to be critical thinkers, problems solvers, effective communicators and great collaborators. The increasingly globalized world with the new work environment also requires technology literary skills, life skills, as well as interpersonal and project- management skills that demand teamwork and leadership.
The article says that project base learning prepares today's students as successful citizens and workers as it teaches kids the collaborative and critical thinking skills they will need to compete.
The fundamentals of PBL are four fold:-
1. Create teams of three or more students to work on an in-depth project for three to eight weeks.
2. Introduce a complex entry question that establishes a student's need to know, and scaffold the project with activities and new information that deepens the work.
3. Calender the project through plans, drafts, timely benchmarks, and finally the team's presentation to an outside panel of experts drawn from parents and the community.
4. Provide timely assessments and/or feedback on the projects for content, oral and written communication, teamwork, critical thinking, and other important skills.
The "New Technology high school" in Napa, California is a thoroughly PBL school. This school's strategy is simple.
1. To learn collaboration, work in teams.
2. To learn critical thinking, take on complex problems.
3. To learn oral communication, present.
4. To learn written communication, present.
5. To learn technology, use technology.
6. To develop citizenship, take on civic and global issues.
7. To learn about careers, do internships.
8. To learn content, research and do all of the above.
The article also explains that project and problem based learning doesn't work unless learners obtain feedback. The continuous feedback is critical in helping students become self-directed learners. In the best PBL classrooms, students see the rubrics when they start the project and use them to self-evaluate their work in progress and direct their own learning.
Today's students need a lot more than core academic subjects. So give your students real world projects and then give them feedback on all the skills essential in this century. Also provide them workspace and technology tools to become successful citizens and knowledge workers.

Appropriate Assessments for Reinvigorating Science Education

The article says, "We cannot expect major improvements in education without major changes in our assessments of both students and faculty performance."

Science education should be based on inquiry-based learning and problem solving skills. Science is not the memorization of facts or word definitions. Science classes using inquiry-based learning look different, as they are noisy where students challenge each other and the teacher acts as a highly skilled coach.

The article gives an example of an investigation based assessment. This type of assessment tests for abilities that prepare students for the real world, makes school meaningful and helps them for getting and keeping a skilled job.

The following problem was given to all Maryland third graders:

Your teacher has received a bouquet of flowers and is having trouble with them. The leaves are drooping, and the flowers look sick. You decide to do an investigation to discover what might be wrong with them.

Students must then perform the following tasks

1. Read two articles about plants and their stem system

2. Write an essay explaining how you would study your teacher's flower to determine what's wrong with it.

3. Draw an illustration that would help other students understand your investigation.

4. With a partner, use a magnifying glass, look at the cut edge of a bottom of a celery stalk (which is used in place of the flower), make a list of things you observe about the stalk, break the stalk, and describe what you see.

5. Draw and color a picture of what you think will happen to this celery if it sits in red dye overnight. Explain why you think so.

6. On the next day, study the celery that was soaked overnight in the red dye. Write a paragraph to explain how the celery is the same or different from what you predicted yesterday.

7. Write an essay explaining why a scientist might want to do more than one investigation when trying to answer a question about science.

8. Write a note to your teacher telling what you have learned about flowers and how to take care of them.

The article says giving only multiple choice tests does not create interest in students to understand the material. But including short essay answers in assessments definitely change students attitude, because now they have to understand something in order to write something for short essays.

The author says that higher education-faculty of colleges and universities, sets the model for K-12. If colleges and universities use multiple-choice exams, everybody is going to use multiple choice exams. If lectures at universities and colleges only lecture at students with facts and try to cover all the curriculum in one year without teaching anything in depth, high schools will emulate them. Middle schools in turn will emulate the high schools.

The author says stopping lecturing every fifteen minutes to ask a conceptual question and making students to discuss and convince their neighbors they are right, not only keeps the students alert and motivated, but also increases the percentage of students who get the answer right the second time.

In the end the author gives his favorite quote about education "The art of education is never easy. To surmount its difficulties, especially those of elementary education, in a task worthy of the highest genius. But when one considers in its length and breadth the importance of a nation's young, the broken lives, the defeated hopes, the national failures which result from the frivolous inertia with which it is treated, it is difficult to restrain within oneself a savage rage: A country that does not value trained intelligence is doomed."

What teachers, parents can do to make science a joy to learn

In order to make Science more meaningful in our schools, we should generate the "spirit of discovery" by allowing the students work like real scientists. The teachers should not teach science exclusively via a textbook. Instead teachers should allow students to conduct more experiments and explore on their own (parents can help at home). For example, if you want to get your students excited about the field of aerodynamics, announce a paper airplane contest.

Keeping a science journal and entering the records of their observations of what they have learned or demonstrated in science class, is another way students can emulate scientists. Students can have drawings, diagrams, tables, graphs, narrations, explorations, predictions and a description of what was done-and how it was done in their science journals. For every investigation students do in their science class they should follow the steps of scientific method and keep the records in their journals.

Students can compare their findings in their journals with other classroom fellows, teachers and parents. Comparing the findings with others promotes collaboration, co-operation and allows students to have meaningful conversation and scientific phenomena. Not only this new and exciting experiments come to mind constructed from what has just been learned, when students share their journals.

The article emphasizes on "spirit of discovery", student-centered work where students research their questions and care about the answers.

The 21st-Century Digital Learner

The article describes how the students input or opinions are not weighted or valued in our educationl system. The educators think they can, by themselves and without the input of their students, design the future of education.

Kids have no choices at all about how they are educated. They are, for the most part, told what to do and when to do it. Unlike other businesses, where people spend millions of dollars researching what their consumers really want, when it comes to how we structure and organize our kids education, we generally don't make the slightest attempt to listen to, or even care, what students think about how they are taught.

The 21st Century-Digital Learner is so bored in traditional classrooms, that they don't pay attention. Students frustration is rising, because what they want and what they are receiving does not match at all. Some people believe the reason of their boredom comes from the contrast with the more engaging learning opportunities kids have outside the school. Others believe it is due to continuous partial attention (CPA)-a need to be a live node on the network, continually text messages, checking the cell phone, and jumping on e-mail.

But according to the author, the source of the problem is that today's kids hate being talked at. They hate when teaching is simply telling. They hate lectures and tune them out. The 21st century students prefer dealing with questions rather than answers, sharing their opinions, participating in group projects, working with real world issues and people, and having teachers who talk to them as equals rather than as inferiors.

World Without Walls: Learning well with others

The title of the article itself says world has no walls anymore. The web tools have brought people from almost every continent and country closer. People share their ideas and volunteer to assist others online. These web tools are allowing us not only to mine the wisdom and experiences of the more than one billion people online but also to connect with them to further our understanding of the global experience and do good work together.

The article emphasizes that today's age is "Collaboration Age" and we learn well when we work together. It is about learning with a different groups of people, whom we may not know and may never meet, but who share our passions and interests and are willing to invest in exploring them together. It is about solving problems together and sharing the knowledge we've gained with wide audiences. Working together is becoming the norm, not the exception.

In this collaboration age we as educators need to reconsider our roles in student's lives, to think of ourselves as connectors first and content experts second. As connectors we provide the chance for kids to get better at learning from one another. Students can use blogs,wiki, skype, instant messaging and other tools to connect with others and discuss literature and current events. The web's social-networking can be used to teach global collaboration and communication, allowing students to create their own networks in the process.

These social web tools (wiki, blogs, social-bookmarking sites) are called "weapons of mass collaboration" by the author, as they make working with others across time and space easier than it's ever been.

In spite of some challenges, concerns and fears of using web tools by students (whether they are safe, effective and ethical) the author says that disconnecting the students from technology means disconnecting them from their passion and those who share it.

We must know for ourselves and model for our students how to create, grow and navigate these collaborative spaces in safe, effective and ethical ways. We grow when we learn together.