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SAbboud Syllabus Critique

Lesson Plan/Syllabus Critique


Mrs. D.s Scientific Method Unit Plan












ETEC 512 64C
Submitted to Janet McCracken
By Sheena Abboud
23939101
December 6
th
, 2012














SAbboud Syllabus Critique
Lesson Plan/Syllabus Critique:
Mrs. D.s Scientific Method Unit Plan

All pedagogical practices are grounded in one educational theory or another.
While the educator may not have had specific approach in mind when planning and
executing a lesson, common theories can answer for the learning and teaching that
is happening inside and outside of classrooms. Constructivism, Situated Cognition,
and Behaviourism were all underlying theories in Mrs. D.s unit plan on the Scientific
Method. Mrs. D., a pre-service teacher, planned 12 consecutive lessons that
prepared Grade 6 students for designing and carrying out a scientific investigation
that demonstrated the necessary steps of the scientific method.

In this critique, I have analyzed Mrs. D.s unit, and my observations of its
application in my classroom during her practicum, against the Levels of Inquiry
(2010) as proposed by Carl. J. Wenning. As explained in his article, the inquiry
spectrum is a hierarchical approach to teaching science in a fashion that is likely to
increase student conceptual understanding as well as develop their understanding
of scientific inquiry and the nature of science. (p.1) In this framework, Wenning
proposes the inquiry-based learning happens on a 4-level spectrum. These four
levels range from lower- to higher-order thinking activities (Discovery Learning,
Interactive Demonstration, Inquiry Lesson, and Inquiry Plan), and are also to be
applied as sequential steps in guiding students to developing contextual, scientific
understanding.

Inquiry-based learning activities are highly constructivist as they allow for
the students to construct knowledge while they are engaged in authentic learning
tasks. The constructivist teacher provides tools such as problem-solving and
inquiry-based learning activities with which students formulate and test their ideas,
draw conclusions and inferences, and pool and convey their knowledge in a
collaborative learning environment. (Educational Broadcasting Corporation, 2004)
While the overarching theory applied to Mrs. D.s unit plan in constructivist, there
are areas and activities that are contradictory to constructivist practices. By altering
SAbboud Syllabus Critique
these activities, Mrs. D.s unit plan can offer to students are more authentic and
constructivist learning experience.

Analysis
Mrs. D. demonstrated behaviourist approaches through the teaching of
foundational information of the scientific method. Students spent time each class
reviewing key terms that they were expected to repeat at specific points in a song.
Students were not able to continue working on their projects, which was seen as a
reward, until they had completed the song correctly. This form of positive
reinforcement demonstrates behaviourist approaches as the students were
conditioned to respond to a stimulus, which in this case is a song. Mrs. D.
demonstrated more constructivist techniques in guiding students through their own
investigations using a scientific process. The collaborative and student-directed
nature of the unit also reflected aspects of situated cognition theory, as it allowed
for students to construct knowledge within a social context.

The bulk of the unit involved students working collaboratively on their
investigations in small groups of two or three. This portion of the unit was highly
constructivist, as the teachers role was not to disseminate information, but rather
to guide students in constructing their own knowledge on the scientific process.
Students had flexibility in deciding upon their topic of investigation, but there were
still tools in place to support their learning. Students had access to a multitude of
resources and the teacher was present during the process to offer guidance to those
who needed it. Students were also involved in the assessment process, as they had
input in the project rubric and the task-completion checklist for their investigations.

Despite Mrs. D.s thorough planning of the activities and student outcomes
for the unit, there was a lack of overall guiding questions to enable the students
inquiry. By introducing questions to focus on, students will have more meaning
exploration experiences. As the Galileo Educational Network (n.d.) states, Essential
Questions develop foundational understandings. They provide the fundamental
organizing principles that bound an inquiry and guide the development of
SAbboud Syllabus Critique
meaningful, authentic tasks. In response to this gap, I have included a list of
Essential/Guiding Questions to my reviewed version of Mrs. D.s unit plan. These
questions will be the guiding principles as students work in the Inquiry Lesson and
Inquiry Lab levels on Wennings (2010) spectrum. Students will be designing their
investigations, collecting data, constructing graphs, using technology, and drawing
conclusions during these steps in the sequence. By focusing the majority of the unit
on these higher-order thinking skills, students are not only constructing new
understandings, but they are applying previous knowledge.

Unlike the rest of the unit, the leading activities demonstrated more
behaviourist techniques, especially in the Flocabulary activity. Students were
presented with a song that used the target vocabulary that was to be learned during
the unit. This song was presented multiple times during the unit, and students were
expected to respond by repeating the vocabulary at prescribed times during the
song. Students did not proceed to the next activity until they had successfully
produced the appropriate repetitions and the appropriate times. To the core, this
stimulus-response activity is highly behaviourist. The students did not acquire
knowledge of the vocabulary in a useful context, but rather they learned when to
shout out the word in response to the timing of the song. von Glasersfeld (1995)
argues that "[f]rom the constructivist perspective, learning is not a stimulus-
response phenomenon. It requires self-regulation and the building of conceptual
structures through reflection and abstraction" (p. 14) In order to make this task
more meaningful to the students, this song could be used as a Discovery Learning
activity (Wenning, 2010), where the students are presented with the song as
something to explore, rather than something to which to respond.

In my reviewed version of Mrs. D.s unit plan, I have altered the activity to
promote a more contextual learning experience for students. Rather than presenting
the students with the song along with the list of words to listen for and react to,
students will have the task of seeking out the important terms on their own.
Through the context of the song, and in collaboration with their peers, students will
construct contextualized understanding of these terms. From there, students will
SAbboud Syllabus Critique
begin to understand the scientific method as a step-by-step process. The focus of
this form of discovery learning is not on finding explanations of phenomena or
applications for knowledge; rather, emphasis is placed on constructing conceptual
understanding based on first-hand experiences. New terms are introduced to match
concepts only after they are developed. (Wenning, p.14) In addition to this
constructivist example of Discovery Learning, this activity also demonstrates
cognitivist approaches as students are learning contextualized language as
knowledge is being constructed.

This same approach benefits students in the activities involving episodes of
Mythbusters, where investigations into everyday myths or rumours are conducted
using a scientific process. In Mrs. D.s unit plan, she identified and presented
students with the precise information that they should seek out prior to viewing the
episode. A more constructivist approach would be to have students view the
episode, then discuss what they observed and draw conclusions about how what
they observed could be applied to their task. Through this activity, students will
gain an understanding of how the scientific method is applied to the real world.

Even though this project on a whole is constructivist, adjustments to the
certain aspects of the unit make for a more authentic knowledge-constructing
experience for students. While the leading activities were more behaviourist in
nature, they helped develop a foundational understanding of the process from
which students could draw on in conducting their own investigation using the
learned process. Adjustments made to the unit to allow for more activities to fall
along Wennings (2010) Level of Inquiry spectrum ensure that the students are
learning in a truly constructivist, inquiry-based environment, thus allowing for
meaningful and contextual understanding of the scientific process.





SAbboud Syllabus Critique
References:
Clifford, P. & Friesen, S. (1993-2007) Constructing Essential Questions. Galileo
Educational Network (1999-2012). Web. 2 Dec. 2012

Constructivism as a Paradigm for Learning and Teaching. Concept to Classroom.
Education Broadcasting Corporation (2004). Web. 30 Nov. 2012

von Glasersfeld, E. (1995). A constructivist approach to teaching. In L. Steffe & J. Gale
(Eds.). Constructivism in education, (pp.3-16). New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum
Associates, Inc.

Wenning, C. J. (2010) Levels of inquiry: Using inquiry spectrum learning sequences to
teach science. Journal of Physics Teacher Education Online, 5(3) Winter, 2010, pp.
11-20. Illinois State University Physics Department.

Wester, K. & Wenning, C. J., (n.d.) Inquiry Lesson Plan Guidelines. Physics Teacher
Education Program. Illinois State University

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