This artifact is the inquiry-based
science platform that I developed at the end of taking Education 344:
Teaching Science as inquiry. This platform is an expression of my
beliefs about what it means for a teacher to implement teaching
science as inquiry in the classroom and how I hope to do this in some
form in my own classroom. One of my main objectives as a teacher of
science is to help prepare students with meaningful opportunities to
engage in science to connects to its use and application in life
outside of school.
I choose to include this artifact under the competency "Content Mastery" because my platform explores the idea of what it means to teach the discipline of science in an elementary school setting and explicitly states practices that I hope to integrate into my own classroom. The statements included in my teaching science as inquiry platform are justified by research, as I believe that it is important for a teacher to view with a critical eye the decisions they make about how they will present content from the curriculum to their class.
Science as Inquiry Platform:
Samantha Bruehl
Education 344 Science Platform
I am the kind of teacher that believes that all students, regardless background or needs, should be given the opportunity to learn through appropriate support and encouragement given by the teacher. In high school, my senior internship was spending three weeks helping out in a kindergarten classroom. Even at such a young age, I could see students' varying ability
levels and backgrounds, and the way that these came into play in the way they were treated by the teacher and their learning. It was hard to see how, as a result of this, some students were being treated differently than others, when I think there should have been more of an effort made to support certain students needs so that they could have an equal of a chance to learn as possible as other students. One other influence that shaped this belief I hold was reading "Teach with Your Heart" by Erin Gruell. This book is from the perspective of the teacher who inspired the Freedom Writers, a
group of high school students, to write The Freedom Writers Diary, a testament to their personal stories and how their high school English teacher's faith in them influence their schooling and ives. Before they had Erin Gruell for a teacher, these students were seen by the school and its teachers as being unable to learn. All students have the potential to learn, but the obstacles to their learning sometimes need to be identified and worked with to help students reach this potential. This view, called a growth mind-set, means that “success isn't determined by innate ability, but rather by persistent and informed effort” (Tomlinson & Imbeau, 2010, p. 31). A result of this is, “teachers with growth mind-sets regularly help students understand that they have control over their success...” (Tomlinson & Imbeau, 2010, p.32).
The most important purpose of education students in science is to help them develop transferable skills, knowledge, and a deeper understanding of science so that they can actively engage in scientific processes and investigations. In my own personal experience, I feel as though I've had some what of a disjointed experience with science. As a young elementary student, I can not remember learning much science in kindergarten through second grade, with the exception of studying the life cycle of a meal worm, and most likely as a result performing poorly on the state standardized tests. My parents solution was to have me read and watch the Magic School Bus series, which introduces different science concepts to
children, but my issue with this reflecting back upon the situation now was that I was still focused on taking in science
versus experiencing science. There was almost no connection to thinking about science in the terms of how scientists engage in the scientific process. As I grew older, on complaint or question students always seemed to have in some of my classes was, “So why am I learning this?” This is one thing that I really like about teaching science as inquiry; it not only asks
students to “think about what we know, why we know, and how we have come to know (National Research Council, 2000,
p.6) but also aligns very clearly with the processes. As I read about the example of Mrs. Grahm's classe's investigation of a real life problem regarding a few trees in their school community (National Research Council, 2000), I could very easily see the connection between their inquiry approach and the approach a scientist would take to such an issue. This made the learning more meaningful to the students, as they had a purpose to it that captured their attention and caused them to be very engaged.
I think children learn science best when there is a balance of meaningful activity to engage them in their learning, and when the concepts are clearly identified and emphasized throughout the lesson and curricular year in a way that students can build on what they know by making strong connections to previous knowledge. Helping the children to ultimately see the “bigger picture” and science ideas and concepts that span many different topics and specific scientific disciplines is essential, because a teacher never has the time to cover all of the science content that he or she wants to over the course of a year. Many times (especially in my AP Biology class) in high school, I felt as though as we got to the end of the year, it became a mad “rush” in some subjects (almost always in science) to cram in all the science material that the teacher didn't get a chance to cover at other times during the year. Not only does this disrupt the learning pace of the class and possibly even put the class into the same panic in regards to the material that the teacher may be feeling, but I feel that it also creates less room for student-directed learning (as is the nature of learning science as inquiry) and puts more of an emphasison teacher-directed learning. The idea of helping students to see the “bigger picture” and big ideas that connect to other material and lessons has been something that we have been discussion in our Education 343 class, Teaching Social
Studies, as we have developed our understanding of what it means te teach following the Understanding by Design model of teaching and learning. One way that the teacher can seek to cover all that needs to be covered in the curriculum is to
“carefully analyze the curriculum expectations and combine several learning outcomes in lessons and units,” and “work with other grade-level teachers to eliminate redundancies that often exist in a curriculum, but rarely deepen
understanding,” (National Research Council, pp. 135-136).
When I think of teaching science to children, I see myself as more of a facilitator of learning who provides all the support needed for students to reach a deeper level of understanding about big ideas in science, rather than someone who is there to just transfer a body of knowledge from myself to the students. Science is not just about knowledge; the learning of it
requires developing practice with different skills and processes, such as the ability to ask good, investigative questions. Even in some “labs”, such as the meal worm lab I mentioned that I remembered from elementary school, there should be clear learning outcomes and skills targeted to be developed as a result of these labs, so students can connect a purpose to this and not feel as though they are just being flooded with information to memorize. Sometimes it may be necessary and appropriate in some higher level elementary grades to have a short lecture on the material, but I feel after all of our discussions during and after the inquiry-based experiments we engaged in while taking Education 344, that even at higher levels deeper understanding about scientific concepts can be something the students have the abilities to reach on their own, if provided with the right learning resources and support from the teacher. It has been found that “a classroom in which students use scientific inquiry to learn is one that resembles those that research has found the most effective for learning for understanding” (National Research Council, 2000, p.124).
One aspect of teaching science that I would like to improve upon while student teaching is the ability to identify clear concepts and objectives to teach the students through clearly identified enduring understandings and essential questions. I
feel as through this is something I struggled with to identify in both the lesson I taught to the class and my mini unit. In some ways, I feel as through because I do not have as strong of a science background, I either over think what it is I want to teach students or have trouble pulling the “big ideas” out of my lessons. I want to learn how to have the discipline and practice to identify these clearly before continuingplanning with the rest of my lesson. As we have learned from our “activity
mania” lessons, sometimes when activities are planned first without in depth thought as to the objectives, the real
learning can get lost beneath this. One article we read in class clearly summarized my thinking on this topic when it said “In effect, the textbook activities often removed the opportunities for elementary students to think, plan, or carry out their own ideas” (Everett, 2001, p.25), followed by some suggestions for a teacher teaching a science curriculum in response to this. The answer does not have to be avoiding any sort of textbook activity altogether, but making adjustments in such a way that key objectives are being met through the activities in the lesson. Another aspect of teaching science that I would like to improve upon in student teaching is scaffolding student learning in a way that gives them just enough independence to investigate different science concepts through inquiry, but also enough structure so that student discoveries can be
summarized, expanded upon, and validated. One other thing I would like to improve upon during student teaching is to let go of my need to have absolute control over what the class is doing or involved with at all times. It is important to practice classroom management skills and make sure the students are on task if teaching an inquiry-based lesson, but it is also okay to allow students to make mistakes in the learning process and learn from those (Gassert & Wenger, 2001, p. 48). A key component of teaching science as inquiry is giving students the opportunity, much like that given to scientists, investigate on their own, make mistakes, and learn from those mistakes in their conduct of further investigations. “When students are
given explicit instructions, when they are told what they need to know, become less likely to explore on their own” (Lehrer, 2011, p.3).
I believe that two of my strengths as a science teacher are the ability to ask question that involve the participation and engagement of the students in my lesson and their learning (to create a student-centered classroom) and my ability to integrate other subject areas into that of science to engage students in multiple ways. I was surprised at how comfortable I felt asking questions to the class and attempting to scaffold their learning when teaching part of my lesson plan during our lesson presentation. I think that this can always improve with practice, but since I felt fairly comfortable and rooted in the concepts and ideas that I wanted the students to develop as a result of my lesson, it was easier for me to take their thoughts and ideas and validate them while at the same time directing them in a way that made them start to uncover some of the ideas and concepts that I intended them to. It is also important to get students to a point where they are able to naturally be curious and ask their own questions in response to something we are learning or investigations we are doing. “The highest level of inquiry occurs when students raise and initiate their own questions” (Evans, 2004, p. 28). The teacher needs to have the ability, as we have seen through numerous inquiry-based science investigations that we have conducted in our Education 344 class, to scaffold student learning by taking their questions and ideas and directing them in a way that helps students see the outcomes and intended concepts and big ideas of the lesson. I have been trying to reshape my traditional view over the last few years taking educationcourses of school having to be divided into isolated subject areas with no overlap between, say, science and literature. Having isolated subject areas, however, does not provide students with realistic views and expectations about life in the 'real world' where, in fact, these segregated subjected areas overlap all the time. We have certain seen how science can be integrated with other disciplines in our Education 344 class, Teaching Science as Inquiry, such as when the “hook” to one of the lessons we participated in was being read the book Bartholomew and the Oobleck by Dr. Seuess. This transitioned us into a very relevant lesson about the properties of matter. In this day and age, with so much information available to be taught to students, it is essential to be able to pick and choose what is important and crucial to their learning, and what is not. Research has produced the idea that if teachers “teach subjects other than science, they can integrate science outcomes into other subject areas (for example, presenting the findings
of an investigation in a language arts lesson)” (National Research Council, 2000, p. 136)
Bibliography
Evans, C. (2004) Learning Minds, The Science Teacher; Jan 2004, 1; Research Library, pp. 27-30.
Everett, Susan (2001). Modifying Ready-Made Science Activities, Journal of Elementary Science Education, Vol. 13, No. 2 (Fall 2001), pp. 23-28.
Gassert, Patti & Wenger, Gwen (2001). See Jane Swing...from a String?: Using dramatics to motivate students' science exploration, Science and Children (March 2001), pp. 46-49.
Leading and Managing a Differentiated Classroom (2010) by C.A. Tomlinson & M.B. Imbeau. Lehrer, Jonah. Every Child is a
Scientist.(2011). The Frontal Cortex, Science Blogs, September 28, 2011.
National Academy Press (2000). Inquiry and the National Science Education Standards: A Guide for Teaching and Learning, National Academy Press.
I choose to include this artifact under the competency "Content Mastery" because my platform explores the idea of what it means to teach the discipline of science in an elementary school setting and explicitly states practices that I hope to integrate into my own classroom. The statements included in my teaching science as inquiry platform are justified by research, as I believe that it is important for a teacher to view with a critical eye the decisions they make about how they will present content from the curriculum to their class.
Science as Inquiry Platform:
Samantha Bruehl
Education 344 Science Platform
I am the kind of teacher that believes that all students, regardless background or needs, should be given the opportunity to learn through appropriate support and encouragement given by the teacher. In high school, my senior internship was spending three weeks helping out in a kindergarten classroom. Even at such a young age, I could see students' varying ability
levels and backgrounds, and the way that these came into play in the way they were treated by the teacher and their learning. It was hard to see how, as a result of this, some students were being treated differently than others, when I think there should have been more of an effort made to support certain students needs so that they could have an equal of a chance to learn as possible as other students. One other influence that shaped this belief I hold was reading "Teach with Your Heart" by Erin Gruell. This book is from the perspective of the teacher who inspired the Freedom Writers, a
group of high school students, to write The Freedom Writers Diary, a testament to their personal stories and how their high school English teacher's faith in them influence their schooling and ives. Before they had Erin Gruell for a teacher, these students were seen by the school and its teachers as being unable to learn. All students have the potential to learn, but the obstacles to their learning sometimes need to be identified and worked with to help students reach this potential. This view, called a growth mind-set, means that “success isn't determined by innate ability, but rather by persistent and informed effort” (Tomlinson & Imbeau, 2010, p. 31). A result of this is, “teachers with growth mind-sets regularly help students understand that they have control over their success...” (Tomlinson & Imbeau, 2010, p.32).
The most important purpose of education students in science is to help them develop transferable skills, knowledge, and a deeper understanding of science so that they can actively engage in scientific processes and investigations. In my own personal experience, I feel as though I've had some what of a disjointed experience with science. As a young elementary student, I can not remember learning much science in kindergarten through second grade, with the exception of studying the life cycle of a meal worm, and most likely as a result performing poorly on the state standardized tests. My parents solution was to have me read and watch the Magic School Bus series, which introduces different science concepts to
children, but my issue with this reflecting back upon the situation now was that I was still focused on taking in science
versus experiencing science. There was almost no connection to thinking about science in the terms of how scientists engage in the scientific process. As I grew older, on complaint or question students always seemed to have in some of my classes was, “So why am I learning this?” This is one thing that I really like about teaching science as inquiry; it not only asks
students to “think about what we know, why we know, and how we have come to know (National Research Council, 2000,
p.6) but also aligns very clearly with the processes. As I read about the example of Mrs. Grahm's classe's investigation of a real life problem regarding a few trees in their school community (National Research Council, 2000), I could very easily see the connection between their inquiry approach and the approach a scientist would take to such an issue. This made the learning more meaningful to the students, as they had a purpose to it that captured their attention and caused them to be very engaged.
I think children learn science best when there is a balance of meaningful activity to engage them in their learning, and when the concepts are clearly identified and emphasized throughout the lesson and curricular year in a way that students can build on what they know by making strong connections to previous knowledge. Helping the children to ultimately see the “bigger picture” and science ideas and concepts that span many different topics and specific scientific disciplines is essential, because a teacher never has the time to cover all of the science content that he or she wants to over the course of a year. Many times (especially in my AP Biology class) in high school, I felt as though as we got to the end of the year, it became a mad “rush” in some subjects (almost always in science) to cram in all the science material that the teacher didn't get a chance to cover at other times during the year. Not only does this disrupt the learning pace of the class and possibly even put the class into the same panic in regards to the material that the teacher may be feeling, but I feel that it also creates less room for student-directed learning (as is the nature of learning science as inquiry) and puts more of an emphasison teacher-directed learning. The idea of helping students to see the “bigger picture” and big ideas that connect to other material and lessons has been something that we have been discussion in our Education 343 class, Teaching Social
Studies, as we have developed our understanding of what it means te teach following the Understanding by Design model of teaching and learning. One way that the teacher can seek to cover all that needs to be covered in the curriculum is to
“carefully analyze the curriculum expectations and combine several learning outcomes in lessons and units,” and “work with other grade-level teachers to eliminate redundancies that often exist in a curriculum, but rarely deepen
understanding,” (National Research Council, pp. 135-136).
When I think of teaching science to children, I see myself as more of a facilitator of learning who provides all the support needed for students to reach a deeper level of understanding about big ideas in science, rather than someone who is there to just transfer a body of knowledge from myself to the students. Science is not just about knowledge; the learning of it
requires developing practice with different skills and processes, such as the ability to ask good, investigative questions. Even in some “labs”, such as the meal worm lab I mentioned that I remembered from elementary school, there should be clear learning outcomes and skills targeted to be developed as a result of these labs, so students can connect a purpose to this and not feel as though they are just being flooded with information to memorize. Sometimes it may be necessary and appropriate in some higher level elementary grades to have a short lecture on the material, but I feel after all of our discussions during and after the inquiry-based experiments we engaged in while taking Education 344, that even at higher levels deeper understanding about scientific concepts can be something the students have the abilities to reach on their own, if provided with the right learning resources and support from the teacher. It has been found that “a classroom in which students use scientific inquiry to learn is one that resembles those that research has found the most effective for learning for understanding” (National Research Council, 2000, p.124).
One aspect of teaching science that I would like to improve upon while student teaching is the ability to identify clear concepts and objectives to teach the students through clearly identified enduring understandings and essential questions. I
feel as through this is something I struggled with to identify in both the lesson I taught to the class and my mini unit. In some ways, I feel as through because I do not have as strong of a science background, I either over think what it is I want to teach students or have trouble pulling the “big ideas” out of my lessons. I want to learn how to have the discipline and practice to identify these clearly before continuingplanning with the rest of my lesson. As we have learned from our “activity
mania” lessons, sometimes when activities are planned first without in depth thought as to the objectives, the real
learning can get lost beneath this. One article we read in class clearly summarized my thinking on this topic when it said “In effect, the textbook activities often removed the opportunities for elementary students to think, plan, or carry out their own ideas” (Everett, 2001, p.25), followed by some suggestions for a teacher teaching a science curriculum in response to this. The answer does not have to be avoiding any sort of textbook activity altogether, but making adjustments in such a way that key objectives are being met through the activities in the lesson. Another aspect of teaching science that I would like to improve upon in student teaching is scaffolding student learning in a way that gives them just enough independence to investigate different science concepts through inquiry, but also enough structure so that student discoveries can be
summarized, expanded upon, and validated. One other thing I would like to improve upon during student teaching is to let go of my need to have absolute control over what the class is doing or involved with at all times. It is important to practice classroom management skills and make sure the students are on task if teaching an inquiry-based lesson, but it is also okay to allow students to make mistakes in the learning process and learn from those (Gassert & Wenger, 2001, p. 48). A key component of teaching science as inquiry is giving students the opportunity, much like that given to scientists, investigate on their own, make mistakes, and learn from those mistakes in their conduct of further investigations. “When students are
given explicit instructions, when they are told what they need to know, become less likely to explore on their own” (Lehrer, 2011, p.3).
I believe that two of my strengths as a science teacher are the ability to ask question that involve the participation and engagement of the students in my lesson and their learning (to create a student-centered classroom) and my ability to integrate other subject areas into that of science to engage students in multiple ways. I was surprised at how comfortable I felt asking questions to the class and attempting to scaffold their learning when teaching part of my lesson plan during our lesson presentation. I think that this can always improve with practice, but since I felt fairly comfortable and rooted in the concepts and ideas that I wanted the students to develop as a result of my lesson, it was easier for me to take their thoughts and ideas and validate them while at the same time directing them in a way that made them start to uncover some of the ideas and concepts that I intended them to. It is also important to get students to a point where they are able to naturally be curious and ask their own questions in response to something we are learning or investigations we are doing. “The highest level of inquiry occurs when students raise and initiate their own questions” (Evans, 2004, p. 28). The teacher needs to have the ability, as we have seen through numerous inquiry-based science investigations that we have conducted in our Education 344 class, to scaffold student learning by taking their questions and ideas and directing them in a way that helps students see the outcomes and intended concepts and big ideas of the lesson. I have been trying to reshape my traditional view over the last few years taking educationcourses of school having to be divided into isolated subject areas with no overlap between, say, science and literature. Having isolated subject areas, however, does not provide students with realistic views and expectations about life in the 'real world' where, in fact, these segregated subjected areas overlap all the time. We have certain seen how science can be integrated with other disciplines in our Education 344 class, Teaching Science as Inquiry, such as when the “hook” to one of the lessons we participated in was being read the book Bartholomew and the Oobleck by Dr. Seuess. This transitioned us into a very relevant lesson about the properties of matter. In this day and age, with so much information available to be taught to students, it is essential to be able to pick and choose what is important and crucial to their learning, and what is not. Research has produced the idea that if teachers “teach subjects other than science, they can integrate science outcomes into other subject areas (for example, presenting the findings
of an investigation in a language arts lesson)” (National Research Council, 2000, p. 136)
Bibliography
Evans, C. (2004) Learning Minds, The Science Teacher; Jan 2004, 1; Research Library, pp. 27-30.
Everett, Susan (2001). Modifying Ready-Made Science Activities, Journal of Elementary Science Education, Vol. 13, No. 2 (Fall 2001), pp. 23-28.
Gassert, Patti & Wenger, Gwen (2001). See Jane Swing...from a String?: Using dramatics to motivate students' science exploration, Science and Children (March 2001), pp. 46-49.
Leading and Managing a Differentiated Classroom (2010) by C.A. Tomlinson & M.B. Imbeau. Lehrer, Jonah. Every Child is a
Scientist.(2011). The Frontal Cortex, Science Blogs, September 28, 2011.
National Academy Press (2000). Inquiry and the National Science Education Standards: A Guide for Teaching and Learning, National Academy Press.