Inquiry good…traditional bad?. Approaches to teaching scientific

conceptual knowledge

Phil ScottCSSME, School of Education

University of Leedsp.h.scott@education.leeds.ac.uk

The Technion Israel, June 2009

Leeds

Leeds University Campus

Centre for Studies in Science and Mathematics Education (CSSME)

Jaume AmetllerHilary Asoko Indira BannerJim Donnelly Andy EdwardsEdgar Jenkins John LeachJenny LewisJim Ryder Phil Scott

Science Education NOW! A renewed pedagogy for the future of Europe

Deductive pedagogical approach

Inductive pedagogical approach

Science Education NOW! A renewed pedagogy for the future of Europe

The deductive pedagogical approach:…teacher presents the concepts, their logical-

deductive implications and gives examples of applications.

… ‘top-down transmission’ …children must be able to handle abstract notions, which make it difficult to start teaching science before secondary education.

‘Traditional’ teaching

Science Education NOW! A renewed pedagogy for the future of Europe

The inductive pedagogical approach

…gives more space to observation, experimentation and the teacher-guided construction by the child of his/her own knowledge.

…a ‘bottom-up’ approach

eg: working on an hourglass.

…inquiry based

science education

Science Education NOW! A renewed pedagogy for the future of Europe

Call for:‘A reversal of school-science teaching pedagogy

from mainly deductive to inquiry-based methods…provides the means to increase interest in science’

Concerns…and thoughts…

1. The polarisation of deductive (traditional) and inquiry approaches: creating a dichotomy

2. Suggested reversal of school science teaching pedagogy

• Need to match teaching approaches to teaching purposes

• Deductive teaching: boring, teacher- centred, top-down. How can we teach science concepts better?

ESRC Research Project: Dialogic Teaching in Science Classrooms (2005-2007)

Professor Neil Mercer: Cambridge University

Professor Phil Scott: University of Leeds

Jaume Ametller, Leeds

Judith Staarman, Cambridge

Lyn Dawes, De Montford

How does ‘dialogic teaching’ appear in primary and secondary science classrooms?

Teacher and students…Experienced teacher: ‘advanced skills’

24 students: mixed ability Aged 11-12 yearsGrade 7

Topic: Forces,

GRAVITY

Gravity bashing

Teacher: Now! We’re about to have a go at bashing gravity! We’re going to just see who in this room actually is capable of beating the pull of gravity towards the Earth even though they are not connected to it.

Beam hanging: Zoe

Teacher: can you feel some tension Zoe? Can you? Nod! You don’t have to speak. Impressive stuff! What’s the gravity doing here Shari? What are her arms doing Jason? 30 seconds! 30 seconds! Outstanding. What’s it feel like Zoe? What’s gravity like? Which way do you slip? Towards? Yeah towards the Earth.

Who’s that Paige?

Teacher: who’s that Paige? We’ll try to put some arrows onto there to show what was going on with Paige in terms of forces.

Levi and Ged

Teacher: Are you going to put an arrow head on there…?

Levi and Ged

Teacher: Are you going to put an arrow head on there…?

Teacher: Are you going to put an arrow head on

there or?…

Levi and Ged

Teacher: Are you going to put an arrow head on there or?… They’re using good words aren’t they? Tension, gravity. Any comments that you’ve got? Alex.

Teacher: Are you going to put an arrow head on

there or?…

Teacher: Any comments? Alex.Alex: They felt tension down their sides as wellTeacher: so it’s interesting Alex is talking about where she knows Paige and Zoe felt the tension and they felt it in their arms and you’re saying they also felt it in their sides.

Holly

Teacher: Holly what have you got to say?

Holly: Gravity pulls down so the arrow pulls down

Teacher: so you’ve looked at the direction that the gravity is going. Now you would make a change there and move it. What, the other way?

Holly: yeah.

Holly

Teacher: And why do you say that?

Holly: cos gravity is pulling her down

Teacher: to where? Where’s it pulling her?

Holly: to the Earth

Teacher: ok. So you’d make a change there

JosieTeacher: Come on then Josie, let’s see what’s she’s got to

say. Remember to face your audience Josie and tell them as you’re doing it. Nathan! Have you got ants in your pants?

Josie

Josie: Well, gravity is pulling down

Teacher: yeah. She’s saying gravity is pulling it down.

Josie

Josie: Em, you’ve got tension like…she’s got tension like all there →

Teacher: in the arms…ok…

Josie: And she’s sort of got, I’m not sure what the word for this is, but she’s got like a force in her arms keeping her up.

Josie

Teacher: Well we used a word…it was hanging down from that beam over there on top of George’s head and it was in the rope. What word was that

Josie: Haaa!! Tension?

Teacher: It was tension, wasn’t it? So where will you put that then?

Josie: In her hand…

Josie

Teacher: Go on then….is that the direction it goes? Is that what you’re trying to show or..?

Josie: NO it’s showing where it is.

Teacher: This is interesting ….you’ve talked Josie about a tension in her arms keeping her up there. Is there anything else you want to add? Go on then Jason, you show us..

Communicative approach

Presentation

‘Q&A’

ProbingPromptingEncouraging

Review

Presentation

‘lecture’

Focus on science view(Authoritative)

Open to different points of view(Dialogic)

InteractiveNon-interactive

Arrows: and the visual grammar of science…

1. Arrows: pointing to a location: ‘labelling function’

2. Arrows: signifying action: the size and direction of a force

‘EVERYDAY FUNCTION’

‘SCIENTIFIC FUNCTION’

Kress and Van Leeuwen, 1998

3 groups so far….

Teacher: Now, I’ve listened to 3 groups so far and I think I’m making sense of what you’re getting and what you’re not getting….

3 groups so far….

None of these diagrams explain to me why Paige wasn’t falling off the beam…I know she did eventually and gravity beat her. But for 31 seconds she beat gravity.

3 groups so far….

And at the moment there’s nothing on this diagram that tells me that that force down is being matched by something going somewhere else…

Which way it is and how big it is…

Teacher: Now the way everybody’s drawn their arrows so far, they’re using an arrow as a way of showing where the force is here [with tension arrows] and here [with gravity arrow], they’re doing it right they’re showing which way the force goes and how big it is…

Non-interactive dialogic approach

‘Meaning making is like an electric spark that occurs only when two different terminals are hooked together’

(Voloshinov)

Here the teacher:

…holds up the ‘two terminals’ for scrutiny by the students….drawing attention to the emerging dialogic space…

Wegerif (2007) Dialogic education and technology: Expanding the space of learning

Dialogic Space

‘Dialogic space opens up when two or more perspectives are held together in tension’

‘Meaning arises out of, and depends upon, an original ‘creative difference’ or ‘opening’ that could be thought of as the opening of a dialogue’.

‘Creating a dialogic space is therefore central to a pedagogy ‘for thinking, creativity and learning to learn…’

A ‘turning point’

dialogic exploration of everyday and scientific views

authoritative guidance/statements by the teacher

Requires resolution through…

The relationship between dialogic and authoritative approaches

dialogic exploration of everyday and scientific views

authoritative guidance/statements by the teacher

Requires resolution through…

demand…

…each approach contains the ‘seed’ of the other

Scott, Aguiar, Mortimer, 2006

…put a tension arrow on here…

Teacher: Now we should be able to put a tension arrow on here…in the right place. What do you think Holly? → Now then, this is very interesting. Tell us what you’ve done.

Tension…moving up her arms

Holly: Because she’s pulling the tension in her arms is moving up her arms…

Tension…moving up her arms

Teacher: Yeah, you can feel it can’t you. → Still a bit of work to do on this. I reckon we’ve got the right direction. We haven’t quite got the right place. And we haven’t quite got that that matches that…..

Why this activity?

• Strengthens the idea of the Earth pulling…by getting the pupils ‘away’ from the surface.

• Offers a system of balancing forces acting on the ‘body’: pull of Earth down equal to tension in arms up.

• Physical engagement of pupils• Emotional engagement…via competition• A memorable event…a point of reference …a

sense of theatre• Better than working on an hour glass?

Promoting meaningful learning of conceptual networks:

-Making links between ideas and phenomena: the hanging ‘mass’

-Differentiating between ideas: force ‘vector’ convention and labelling arrows

-Introducing new ideas: action at a distance

-Developing ideas in novel contexts: ‘gravity bashing’

Moving between communicative approaches

The DIALOGIC tendency: allowing time and space for pupil thinking

• Working in pairs/groups• Pupils making explicit and elaborating upon their ideas;

commenting on others’ ideas…

The AUTHORITATIVE tendency: controlling and shaping the flow of ideas

• Introducing key terms; repeating key ideas; synthesising and summarising…

Negotiating TURNING POINTS:• Opening up and closing down the discourse…

Pedagogical skills

• Sustaining a line of talking and thinking as ideas are introduced, reviewed, consolidated in a cumulative process involving temporal links

• Monitoring and keeping track of student understandings

• Progressing from phenomenon to description to explanation

• Selecting activities carefully to develop the science story

Pedagogical skills: affective sensitivity

• Systematically encouraging participation of all members of class

• Offering praise• Modelling enthusiasm• Remembering individual pupil’s ideas and

arguments…and linking to their name• Creating appropriate working environments:

own space…sat round front• Being consistent, warm and in control

Planning teaching to support meaningful learning of science

Everyday view

Science concept

Other concepts

Extending contexts

Pedagogical interventions

Teaching purposes

Communicative approach

Teaching activity

Working on knowledge

Learning demand

Pattern of discourse

Auth. Dial.

How to characterise this teaching…?

Top-down transmission?

Non-motivational: boring?

Passive engagement of pupils ?

Abstract ideas?

A renewed pedagogy for the future of Europe

Traditional science teaching

Inquiry pedagogical approach

Dialogic pedagogical approach

Inquiry pedagogical approach

pedagogical

purposes

Extended repertoire pedagogy