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.
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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