To close out the 2nd marking period at school, we assigned our freshmen biology students a final assessment: write a lab report for the lactase lab that they completed. The guided inquiry packet that we provided to students had a lab report rubric at the end; we also provided students with specific directions for the write-up of their lab report. In providing the rubric and write-up directions to students, we wanted to ensure that, through the careful composition of their lab reports, we could assess student understanding of the biology unit just completed (unit on the chemistry of life, organic macromolecules, chemical reactions, and enzymes) and assess student understanding of the scientific method (identification of a problem, formulation of a hypothesis, organization of a procedure, record of data collection, interpretation of results, and reflection on sources of error and future considerations for their lab experiment).
Unfortunately, many of the lab reports lacked enough detail to assess completely student knowledge and understanding of the latest biology unit. I find it very frustrating that we spent copious amounts of time discussing this biology unit in class, floated around the classroom during lab time, stopped to discuss the lab with individuals and groups, and gave students a rubric and lab report directions containing detailed instructions about what we wanted to see in the lab report and STILL most groups did not produce the quality of work we expected! We provided examples of the type of lab reports we wanted (posted on a wall in the classroom.) We scaffolded the lab for the students. We tried to make the lab personally interesting. And we gave students choice with regard to which variable they would test in their experiments. In addition to these strategies, what more could we do to engage our students and get them to do the quality of work that we know they can do?
As explained previously, we have focused on having discussions about student generated data in our class. We instructed students (verbally and written in their lab directions) to discuss class lab data in their lab report write-ups. Yet only one of the lab reports that I graded did so! I fear that students are missing an important point about scientific literacy: that true scientific knowledge is not vocabulary to be memorized but understandings built through the investigation of interesting questions and discussions of those investigations. Does this misunderstanding stem from a lack of scaffolding throughout their education before entering my classroom (as Vyzgotsky might suggest) or a lack of skills at their developmental stage to understand the complex nature of scientific knowledge and investigation (as Piaget might suggest)? Either way - if students are not willing to engage in science discussions, what is the point of spending class-time in discussion? Are the discussions in our classroom facilitating student learning of science? It is difficult to tell.
Unfortunately, many of the lab reports lacked enough detail to assess completely student knowledge and understanding of the latest biology unit. I find it very frustrating that we spent copious amounts of time discussing this biology unit in class, floated around the classroom during lab time, stopped to discuss the lab with individuals and groups, and gave students a rubric and lab report directions containing detailed instructions about what we wanted to see in the lab report and STILL most groups did not produce the quality of work we expected! We provided examples of the type of lab reports we wanted (posted on a wall in the classroom.) We scaffolded the lab for the students. We tried to make the lab personally interesting. And we gave students choice with regard to which variable they would test in their experiments. In addition to these strategies, what more could we do to engage our students and get them to do the quality of work that we know they can do?
As explained previously, we have focused on having discussions about student generated data in our class. We instructed students (verbally and written in their lab directions) to discuss class lab data in their lab report write-ups. Yet only one of the lab reports that I graded did so! I fear that students are missing an important point about scientific literacy: that true scientific knowledge is not vocabulary to be memorized but understandings built through the investigation of interesting questions and discussions of those investigations. Does this misunderstanding stem from a lack of scaffolding throughout their education before entering my classroom (as Vyzgotsky might suggest) or a lack of skills at their developmental stage to understand the complex nature of scientific knowledge and investigation (as Piaget might suggest)? Either way - if students are not willing to engage in science discussions, what is the point of spending class-time in discussion? Are the discussions in our classroom facilitating student learning of science? It is difficult to tell.