Transcript Ready, Set, SCIENCE

Ready, Set, SCIENCE
Putting Research to Work in K-8 Science
Classrooms
Chapter 1 – A New Vision of Science In
Education
 Four reasons to Teach Science well
Science is an enterprise that can be harnessed to improve
quality of life on a global scale.
2. Science may provide a foundation for the development of
language, logic, and problem solving skills in the classroom.
3. A democracy demands that its citizens make personal,
community-based, and national decisions that involve
scientific information.
4. For some students, science will become a lifelong vocation or
avocation.
1.
Chapter 1 – Key Points
 Children are more capable.
 Learning can be modeled.
 Students should play the role of the scientist.
 Developing experiences like the scientist.
 Effective change is needed in the entire system to effectively
teach science.
 Content knowledge and instructional skills are essential key
components of effective teaching.
Chapter 1
Language of Science
 Students that can understand
science as a process of
constructing theories from
facts develop many of the
skills and practices that
scientists demonstrates.
 Learn how to apply their
knowledge to new problems.
 Make connections between
different representations.
Rethinking Children’s
Capacity for Scientific
Understanding
 Laying a foundation
through work on
measurement in
Kindergarten and first
grade will have important
successes in later grades.
Chapter 2 – Four Strands of Science
Learning
 The Four Strands of Learning




Strand 1 – Understanding Scientific Explanations
o Focuses on concepts and the links between them rather than on
discrete facts and the ability to use this knowledge.
Strand 2 – Generating Scientific Evidence
o Proficiency is acquired by generating and evaluating evidence
o Master the conceptual, mathematical, physical, and computational
tools needed
o Design and carry out scientific investigations
Strand 3 – Reflecting on Scientific Knowledge
o Students will be aware that science entails searching for core
explanations and their connections
Strand 4 – Participating Productively in Science
o Doing science and together in groups
Chapter 3 – Foundational Knowledge
and Conceptual Change
 Four domains of knowledge
1.
Simple mechanic of solid bounded objects.
2.
Behaviors of psychological agents.
3.
Actions and organization of living things.
4.
Makeup and substance of materials.

Young children begin school with…

Rich knowledge of the natural world

The ability to reason

An understanding of the principles of cause and effect

Foundations for modeling

The ability to consider ideas and beliefs

An eagerness to participate in learning

Types of Conceptual Change
1.
Elaborating on preexisting concept
2.
Restructuring a network of concepts
3.
Achieving new levels of explanation
Chapter 4 – Organizing Science
Education Around Core Concepts
 Examples of Core Science Concepts
 Atomic-molecular theory of matter
 Evolutionary theory
 Cell theory
 Newtonian laws of force and motion
 Some Benefits of Learning Progressions
 Serious thinking required
 Prompt educations about topics
 Draw on research about children’s learning
 Incorporate all four strands of proficiency
 Engage students with meaningful questions
 Suggests appropriate ages for core concepts
 Suggest important tools and practices to asses understanding
Chapter 5 – Making Thinking Visible:
Talk and Argument
 Learning through Talk and Argument
 Language has to be precise
 Understanding of what argumentation means
 Encouraging Talk and Argument in the Classroom
 Revoicing
 Asking students to restate someone else’s reasoning
 Asking students to apply their own reasoning to someone else’s reasoning
 Prompting students for further participation
 Asking students to explicate their reasoning
 Using wait time
 Positive-Driven Discussion
 Forces students to choose from two or three different but reasonable
answers.
 Appreciating Differences
 Allow all students to understand the importance of scientific language
 Inclusiveness
 Make rules of participation visible in classroom
 Make evident the connections between student’s everyday thinking,
knowledge, and resources.
Chapter 6 – Making Thinking Visible:
Modeling and Representation
 Mathematics
 Provides scientists with another system for sharing, communicating, and
understanding science concepts.
 Data
 Students need to understand that data are constructed to answer
questions.
 Represented in various ways to see, understand, or communicate
different aspects of science.
 Scale, Models, Diagrams, and Maps
 Representations allow us to convey complex ideas, patterns, and trends in
accessible formats.
 Modeling and Learning Progressions
 Emphasized different and increasingly complex ideas in different grade
bands.
Chapter 7 – Learning From
Investigations
 Strategies for Teaching how to Construct Scientific
Knowledge
 Focus
1. Teaching for Conceptual change
2. Promoting metacognitive understanding
3. Engaging students with deep domain-specific core concepts.
 Pedagogical practices
1. Helping students understand, test, and revise ideas.
2. Establishing a classroom community that negotiates meaning and builds
knowledge.
3. Increasing students responsibility for directing important aspects of
their own inquiry
 Student roles
1. Taking responsibility for representing ideas
2. Working to develop ideas
3. Monitoring the status of ideas
4. Considering the reasoning underlying specific beliefs
5. Deciding on ways to test specific beliefs
6. Assessing the consistency among ideas
7. Examining how well these ideas extend to new situations
Chapter 8 – A System That Supports
Science Learning
 Types of Support Teachers need to Teach Science Well
 High-quality curriculum or supplementary materials
 Means by which to have their questions answered
 Time and support to work through science tasks as learners
 Opportunity to explore a variety of materials and experience problems
that students might have
 Time to think about an assess the knowledge their students bring to class
 Teacher learning opportunities should….
 Reflect a clear focus on student learning
 Focus on strengths and needs of learners
 Include school-based support
 Provide adequate time needed for work
 Participation of groups of teachers
 Provide teachers with a coherent view of instructional system
 Receive the active support of school and district leaders