My Philosophy
I would compare much of my experiences around science to the experience of watching a magic trick being performed. For me science was about learning factual information and conducting experiments with little understanding or building of conceptual knowledge. When watching a magic trick, we are most amazed at the result, just like when conducting an experiment. But it always stays a mystery of how the magician actually performs their trick. Until a magician reveals how he does his tricks, nothing ever quite makes sense of the result. This is how I felt as a student about science and as an educator of science until learning about what teaching science actually is.
I believe it is the role of the teacher to foster an environment that appreciates science:
Where doing science is included on a daily basis:
Our students need to be exposed to science on a daily basis. They need to be able to have the opportunity to learn how scientists think, and think as scientists themselves. As teachers I believe that we have to foster this environment with excitement, a passion for learning and teaching science, and many opportunities to relate science to the real world. The environment that I create around the subject of science is one of the most important things that I can do as a science teacher. Many students seem to perceive science negatively. In the beginning, my experience as a teacher involved reading out of textbooks and using vague vocabulary that students did not ever seem to gain a deep understanding of. Olson supports this claim by stating, “when students are assessed primarily on science vocabulary and definitions, they perceive science to be a body of facts to be memorized” (Olson, 2008). This in fact can create a negative connotation of science and change the attitudes of students in the classroom. My goal as an elementary teacher of science is to eliminate the feeling of negativity around science. This is evident in my evidence of the Great American Teach In posters (Artifact 12) focusing on how students perceive the best science. After four months of school and teaching science, students’ ideas of the best science teacher all revolved around positivity and the love for science. I have to be willing to share and show my passion toward teaching and learning science in order for students to love science too.
By bringing scientists from the community into to the classroom and taking science beyond the classroom:
Bringing scientists into the classroom also begins to create a positive experience for students around science as well. Not only is it important to let students experience science in many ways themselves, but it is beneficial for them to learn about and connect to scientists in their community. Sullenger even states that “finding out how scientists think, why they do the things they do, and why they are interested in certain things introduces learners to broader conversations about science taking place outside of the classroom” (Sullenger, 1999). Students will come into my class with ideas of what they think science is and with preconceived feelings towards science. As a teacher, I can help develop the positive ideas and break down negative ideas of science by making a connection between science and my students’ lives. It has been proven through research, and I strongly believe that “scientists visits do change perception” (Bodzin & Gehringer, 2001). Students are able to make a connection between what they are learning in the classroom to how science is actually applied in the real world.
Students also need the opportunity to experience science beyond the classroom. By taking our students out into the field to experience science in a different way, our students’ minds and perception about science can easily change from a negative perception to a positive one. This belief is evidenced in my portfolio by the zoo field trip logs (Artifact 6). As teachers we have to be willing to provide these enriching experiences for our students in order to create the type of environment where students can learn and think like scientists. In this case students took on the role of zoologists, making observations about animals.
As a teacher of science I must purposefully plan by:
Getting to know my students as learners, by eliciting information, ideas, and understandings that they have about science
As Watson and Kopnicek state, “children and how they learn should be at the center of any subject” (Watson and Kopnicek, 1990). It is so important to understand the ideas and misconceptions that students have about the content that will be taught in science. Every student comes into the classroom having developed as a learner based on experiences, and those experiences need to be taken into account when planning for a lesson. As a teacher, eliciting students’ ideas allows me to guide my instruction in a way that is meaningful to my students. In my portfolio, evidence is provided of this belief through my macro cycle lesson: properties of matter: Name that Shell (Artifact 1) and the reflection that follows the implementation of the lesson (Artifact 5). The lesson was chosen because I knew my students would relate to the experience of working with shells, and according to my lesson reflection, it was the piece of the lesson that engaged my students right away. In my portfolio this is also apparent with the use of the Page Keeley probe “The Mitten Problem” (Artifact 9) as it was a formative assessment that I used to elicit students ideas about heat energy.
Gaining an understanding of the content that I am teaching before I expect my students to learn it themselves
As Harlen discusses effective questioning in Chapter Three, she states,
“A knowledgeable teacher is then a great asset and can contribute considerably toward widening the children’s horizon of learning and knowledge, because this teacher can fathom the depth of the children’s ability and thus measure the quality and quantity of the information or explanation to be given” (Harlen, 2001).
In order to prepare for a lesson, I believe that the teacher has to become an expert on the content first. This not only comes with time, but it comes with accessing a plethora of resources that provide as much information as we can learn. If we don’t know enough as teachers, we will never know what to expect our kids to learn. Our expectations for teaching science slowly dwindle if we are not educated on the content ourselves. It is a lot of work on the teacher’s part, but it makes learning science that much more beneficial and authentic to the students. Evidence of this realization came to me while planning my learning cycle (Artifact 3). I began to plan my lesson by accessing the curriculum map to see what content needed to be covered in the third quarter of the school year. In order to effectively plan the lesson around animal teeth types and functions, I had to access many more resources to become an expert on the content. When I implement this lesson in my classroom now, I will have clear expectations for what my students need to learn based on the content.
Inclusion of the three legs of science within every lesson
Doing science involves a balance of content, process skills, and the nature of science. Although the legs do not have to be equal in each lesson, each part should be present as “coupling practice with content gives the learning context, whereas practices alone are activities and content alone is memorization” (NGSS Executive Summary, 2013). Evidence of my growth in understanding of this concept is indicated in my macro cycle lesson reflection (Artifact 5). In post conference I realized that my lesson quickly revolved around observation rather than just having the inclusion of observation while learning about the properties of matter, the content. I am now aware that although there needs to be a balance between all three legs of science, we cannot teach process and content at the same time. Without content we are teaching a process skill and what a scientist does but we aren’t making learning relevant to students and letting them experience and develop their own ideas on the world. Nature of science involves us learning why a scientist does science. It is the why to science, providing an explanation to scientific thinking. Process skills are the necessary skills our students need while engaging in scientific inquiry and investigations. Process skills without the nature of science and content will simply become a skill in use with no purpose. All three need to be included within a lesson in order for students to be engaging in purposeful science.
I believe students learn science best when:
Students are engaged in scientific inquiry
Scientific inquiry is essential to the learning of students in the classroom. While handing over your classroom to students is a scary thought, Owens and Martin explain that “children can learn through inquiry at a young age and it is important to allow children the opportunity to explore their own ideas…” (Owens & Martin, 2011). The inquiry process involves planning with the Five E learning cycle in mind, including the components of engage, explore, explain, extend, and evaluate. With the Five E learning cycle in mind, one can effectively plan and allow inquiry to occur within the classroom. Science learning in the classroom should revolve around the students, their ideas, their wonderings, and their experiences. I have learned that the best way for students to learn and develop their ideas on the world is through authentically experiencing science. Inquiry based teaching let’s students authentically experience science. Evidence of this belief in my portfolio is indicated in the STEM Fair Inquiry on chromatography (Artifact 11). We all have ah-ha moments and they only come to us when we are ready to learn and accept them. With inquiry, students have control of their learning where they are self-discovering new ideas. The Explain phase within the Five E learning cycle allows the teacher to provide an explanation to the students learning, but with inquiry, students have control of what and how they are learning.
In conclusion, we cannot be magicians when it comes to teaching elementary science. As teachers, we have to dig deep into the content ourselves in order to expose our students to the content that they need to learn. Base level information is not doing anything to develop our students as scientific thinkers in the long run. We have to stop teaching science like it is a magic trick, and start teaching with a meaningful purpose in mind. In order for our kids to effectively participate in doing science, our students need to be able to experience it for themselves. They need to know what goes into “making the magic.”
I would compare much of my experiences around science to the experience of watching a magic trick being performed. For me science was about learning factual information and conducting experiments with little understanding or building of conceptual knowledge. When watching a magic trick, we are most amazed at the result, just like when conducting an experiment. But it always stays a mystery of how the magician actually performs their trick. Until a magician reveals how he does his tricks, nothing ever quite makes sense of the result. This is how I felt as a student about science and as an educator of science until learning about what teaching science actually is.
I believe it is the role of the teacher to foster an environment that appreciates science:
Where doing science is included on a daily basis:
Our students need to be exposed to science on a daily basis. They need to be able to have the opportunity to learn how scientists think, and think as scientists themselves. As teachers I believe that we have to foster this environment with excitement, a passion for learning and teaching science, and many opportunities to relate science to the real world. The environment that I create around the subject of science is one of the most important things that I can do as a science teacher. Many students seem to perceive science negatively. In the beginning, my experience as a teacher involved reading out of textbooks and using vague vocabulary that students did not ever seem to gain a deep understanding of. Olson supports this claim by stating, “when students are assessed primarily on science vocabulary and definitions, they perceive science to be a body of facts to be memorized” (Olson, 2008). This in fact can create a negative connotation of science and change the attitudes of students in the classroom. My goal as an elementary teacher of science is to eliminate the feeling of negativity around science. This is evident in my evidence of the Great American Teach In posters (Artifact 12) focusing on how students perceive the best science. After four months of school and teaching science, students’ ideas of the best science teacher all revolved around positivity and the love for science. I have to be willing to share and show my passion toward teaching and learning science in order for students to love science too.
By bringing scientists from the community into to the classroom and taking science beyond the classroom:
Bringing scientists into the classroom also begins to create a positive experience for students around science as well. Not only is it important to let students experience science in many ways themselves, but it is beneficial for them to learn about and connect to scientists in their community. Sullenger even states that “finding out how scientists think, why they do the things they do, and why they are interested in certain things introduces learners to broader conversations about science taking place outside of the classroom” (Sullenger, 1999). Students will come into my class with ideas of what they think science is and with preconceived feelings towards science. As a teacher, I can help develop the positive ideas and break down negative ideas of science by making a connection between science and my students’ lives. It has been proven through research, and I strongly believe that “scientists visits do change perception” (Bodzin & Gehringer, 2001). Students are able to make a connection between what they are learning in the classroom to how science is actually applied in the real world.
Students also need the opportunity to experience science beyond the classroom. By taking our students out into the field to experience science in a different way, our students’ minds and perception about science can easily change from a negative perception to a positive one. This belief is evidenced in my portfolio by the zoo field trip logs (Artifact 6). As teachers we have to be willing to provide these enriching experiences for our students in order to create the type of environment where students can learn and think like scientists. In this case students took on the role of zoologists, making observations about animals.
As a teacher of science I must purposefully plan by:
Getting to know my students as learners, by eliciting information, ideas, and understandings that they have about science
As Watson and Kopnicek state, “children and how they learn should be at the center of any subject” (Watson and Kopnicek, 1990). It is so important to understand the ideas and misconceptions that students have about the content that will be taught in science. Every student comes into the classroom having developed as a learner based on experiences, and those experiences need to be taken into account when planning for a lesson. As a teacher, eliciting students’ ideas allows me to guide my instruction in a way that is meaningful to my students. In my portfolio, evidence is provided of this belief through my macro cycle lesson: properties of matter: Name that Shell (Artifact 1) and the reflection that follows the implementation of the lesson (Artifact 5). The lesson was chosen because I knew my students would relate to the experience of working with shells, and according to my lesson reflection, it was the piece of the lesson that engaged my students right away. In my portfolio this is also apparent with the use of the Page Keeley probe “The Mitten Problem” (Artifact 9) as it was a formative assessment that I used to elicit students ideas about heat energy.
Gaining an understanding of the content that I am teaching before I expect my students to learn it themselves
As Harlen discusses effective questioning in Chapter Three, she states,
“A knowledgeable teacher is then a great asset and can contribute considerably toward widening the children’s horizon of learning and knowledge, because this teacher can fathom the depth of the children’s ability and thus measure the quality and quantity of the information or explanation to be given” (Harlen, 2001).
In order to prepare for a lesson, I believe that the teacher has to become an expert on the content first. This not only comes with time, but it comes with accessing a plethora of resources that provide as much information as we can learn. If we don’t know enough as teachers, we will never know what to expect our kids to learn. Our expectations for teaching science slowly dwindle if we are not educated on the content ourselves. It is a lot of work on the teacher’s part, but it makes learning science that much more beneficial and authentic to the students. Evidence of this realization came to me while planning my learning cycle (Artifact 3). I began to plan my lesson by accessing the curriculum map to see what content needed to be covered in the third quarter of the school year. In order to effectively plan the lesson around animal teeth types and functions, I had to access many more resources to become an expert on the content. When I implement this lesson in my classroom now, I will have clear expectations for what my students need to learn based on the content.
Inclusion of the three legs of science within every lesson
Doing science involves a balance of content, process skills, and the nature of science. Although the legs do not have to be equal in each lesson, each part should be present as “coupling practice with content gives the learning context, whereas practices alone are activities and content alone is memorization” (NGSS Executive Summary, 2013). Evidence of my growth in understanding of this concept is indicated in my macro cycle lesson reflection (Artifact 5). In post conference I realized that my lesson quickly revolved around observation rather than just having the inclusion of observation while learning about the properties of matter, the content. I am now aware that although there needs to be a balance between all three legs of science, we cannot teach process and content at the same time. Without content we are teaching a process skill and what a scientist does but we aren’t making learning relevant to students and letting them experience and develop their own ideas on the world. Nature of science involves us learning why a scientist does science. It is the why to science, providing an explanation to scientific thinking. Process skills are the necessary skills our students need while engaging in scientific inquiry and investigations. Process skills without the nature of science and content will simply become a skill in use with no purpose. All three need to be included within a lesson in order for students to be engaging in purposeful science.
I believe students learn science best when:
Students are engaged in scientific inquiry
Scientific inquiry is essential to the learning of students in the classroom. While handing over your classroom to students is a scary thought, Owens and Martin explain that “children can learn through inquiry at a young age and it is important to allow children the opportunity to explore their own ideas…” (Owens & Martin, 2011). The inquiry process involves planning with the Five E learning cycle in mind, including the components of engage, explore, explain, extend, and evaluate. With the Five E learning cycle in mind, one can effectively plan and allow inquiry to occur within the classroom. Science learning in the classroom should revolve around the students, their ideas, their wonderings, and their experiences. I have learned that the best way for students to learn and develop their ideas on the world is through authentically experiencing science. Inquiry based teaching let’s students authentically experience science. Evidence of this belief in my portfolio is indicated in the STEM Fair Inquiry on chromatography (Artifact 11). We all have ah-ha moments and they only come to us when we are ready to learn and accept them. With inquiry, students have control of their learning where they are self-discovering new ideas. The Explain phase within the Five E learning cycle allows the teacher to provide an explanation to the students learning, but with inquiry, students have control of what and how they are learning.
In conclusion, we cannot be magicians when it comes to teaching elementary science. As teachers, we have to dig deep into the content ourselves in order to expose our students to the content that they need to learn. Base level information is not doing anything to develop our students as scientific thinkers in the long run. We have to stop teaching science like it is a magic trick, and start teaching with a meaningful purpose in mind. In order for our kids to effectively participate in doing science, our students need to be able to experience it for themselves. They need to know what goes into “making the magic.”