Problem of Practice
“Do I have to copy this down?” “Is this going to be on the test?” “Do I need to know this?”
Only a handful of questions exist that I do not welcome in my classroom; the quotes above represent three of those questions. If I have taken the time to write something on the board or to include it in a presentation, then I find it very important; so yes, you should copy it down! If all you are worrying about is the grade you will receive on a test, then you are missing the best part of science! While I state my answers as matter of fact, inside I feel perpetually frustrated. I want my students to understand science not as a collection of facts or statistics to memorize, but rather as an exciting, complex, ever evolving process.
As Osborne (2007) notes, science educators of the 21st century should guide the development of student scientific literacy skills. Our students should be able to engage in public discussion on science-related issues. Even if they do not pursue a career in science, they should be able to be critical consumers of scientific and technological ideas, theories, and products that affect their everyday lives. In order to reach these scientific literacy goals, our students must learn both how to ask questions about science and how to discuss the answers delivered to them.
Science is inquiry. Science is exciting. Science is unmistakably important. As a teacher, I want my students to practice inquiry, to formulate and engage with fundamental scientific questions about the world, and to understand how scientists investigate and find answers to those questions (Pratt, 2012). In order for this great type of inquiry to happen, great discussions must develop within the classroom. The job of facilitating that discussion resides with the teacher. Thus, I have chosen for my problem of practice question: “How can science teachers implement productive discussion-based praxis in the science classroom?”
Though I had not thought about this before engaging in our methods class, I realize now how puzzling it is that science teachers (in my previous experiences as a student at least) usually do not make discussion a significant part of their praxis in the classroom. So much about the practice and process of science involves discussion! In our classroom this year, we have taught that the scientific method starts with making an observation and formulating a question. The more students who observe and discuss an object or phenomena, the more detailed the observation can be. The more observations, the more questions generated. The more questions, the more answers and thus knowledge our students can construct.
The next step, researching the topic of investigation, progresses more quickly and smoothly if everyone shares what he or she knows. While everyone may form a different hypothesis, discussion of possible hypotheses can help students and scientists decide which merit the most attention. Even conducting experiments should involve discussion about the specifics of materials and methods, which seems especially important today in our resource strapped schools and research labs! I find that the most discussion-friendly aspect of the scientific method comes with reporting, analyzing, and discussing experimental results. Not only does this part of the scientific method provide students/scientists a chance to show off (which I have found many of my teenage students try to do a lot of the time anyway), but it also helps students/scientists to obtain a better understanding of what their results suggest, what possible sources of error their method(s) contain, and what they should change if they repeat the experiment.
Despite the fact that I see discussion in the science classroom as critically important to student education, I have struggled to successfully and consistently implement this tactic in my own teaching practice. In every one of our biology classes, whether I sit in as observer or take the lead as teacher, I have noticed that classroom discussion usually follows an “IRE dialogue” (Schwartz, 2009, p.44) format or low-level, “back-and-forth interchange[s]” (Bybee, 2009, p.243) between student and teacher: the teacher asks a question, a student provides an answer, and the teacher either accepts the answer and continues the lesson, or fishes for more or slightly different answers. Additionally, while we never completely lack student response to a question, the answers tend to come from the same four or six students every time. Even when I pause, provide five seconds of wait time (Bybee, 2009, p.242), and verbally note something like “I see that two (or three or four) of you have an idea that you would like to share, but I want to give the rest of the class an extra second to think,” I still do not usually get a more robust number of students who raise their hands. These experiences make me pause and wonder: if I cannot get students to answer a specific, teacher-directed question, then how will I get them to discuss science with each other in small groups or as a whole class?
If a teacher does get students to actively engage and discuss science topics or data with each other, then the teacher runs the risk of loosing control: the teacher may lose control of the course of the conversation (if discussion occurs as a whole class) or may lose control over the classroom environment itself (if students move about to gather and work in small groups or even when discussion occurs as a whole class.) When monitoring student group work, I find that I have trouble at times discerning between productive classroom discourses and idle chatter. Additionally, I have noted that successful implementation of small group or classroom discussion requires putting much extra time and thought into lesson plan development. I suspect that other teachers experience struggles similar to the ones I have listed; perhaps these experiences partly account for the lack of discussion praxis in our science classrooms today.
Thus, I return to the topic of this problem of practice paper (“How can science teachers implement productive discussion-based praxis in the science classroom?”) in the hopes of providing some sensible solutions. First and foremost, a teacher needs to establish both the tone of the classroom and the expectations to which students must adhere before beginning classroom discussions. Bybee (2009) provides some specific, simple guidelines for implementing class discussion; the three that I find most important include “create an atmosphere in the class in which questions [are] not only welcomed but expected,” “when you give reinforcement, do it positively and as often as you can,” and “maintain a positive and accepting attitude” (p.247). I find these suggestions most important because they can enhance any classroom environment, whether the class uses discussion based teaching techniques or not.
Secondly, teachers need to provide explicit ways to engage students and make students care about the lessons. Why should students spend their time and energy discussing a topic for which they see no use or relevance? A way for teachers to engage students is by implementation of culturally relevant pedagogy: a teaching style that matches the culture and background of the students. In the classroom, teacher use of pedagogy, especially for minority students, should go beyond the pursuit simply of “academic achievement” and extend to helping students “achieve cultural competence and develop a broader sociopolitical consciousness that allows them to critique the cultural norms, values, mores, and institutions that produce and maintain social inequities” (Ladson-Billings, 1992; 1995). Students should have the opportunity to apply scientific concepts to bigger sociopolitical issues, to problem solve, and to discuss their ideas with each other.
Third, the design of the classroom should contribute to successful discussion based teaching. As Llewellyn (2005) notes, both display of thought provoking resources (“What if…” and “I wonder…” posters; concept maps and graphic organizers; extra textbooks for student use; bookshelf housing fiction and nonfiction book, science magazines, journals) and physical room organization (arrangement of student desks in a “U” shape so that students can see and hear each other; separate learning centers for small group work) can help with implementation of an inquiry and discussion based practice. A discussion-based classroom must be student/learner centered; it must be a place where “students feel that their teacher and peers value their ideas, thoughts, opinions” (Llewellyn, 2005, p.56) and where students feel safe.
Finally, after a teacher identifies classroom expectations, considers the enduring understandings (Tomlinson, 2006) he or she wants the students to take away from a lesson, plans the lesson so that it relates to students’ lives (culturally relevant pedagogy), and designs a classroom space that invites student dialogue, the teacher can then plan specific activities that will engage students in discussion. In the short time that I have spent as a teacher in the classroom, I have found that implementing a variety of activities is one of the best ways to maintain students attention. One simple and usually successful discussion based method is the ‘think-pair-share’ activity. This activity only requires five minutes of class time to do (though it can be implemented for a longer period of time, depending on the topic and scaffolding of the lesson) and requires students to speak only with one or two other individuals near them. As a quiet student myself, I find ‘think-pair-share’ to be the least intimidating of all possible discussion activities. I believe much learning can happen when students have time to think independently, speak briefly with another person to offer ideas or clarify concepts (during which time both people hopefully have a chance to say something), and come back to the larger group to share.
A step up from the ‘think-pair-share’ activity is the group lab activity. We have used these quite often in our classroom teaching already this year. Our groups typically consist of four to five students. Challenges teachers face when planning group lab activities include: careful scaffolding of lab work (especially important for our freshman students), collection and organization of materials for the labs (in our case, four full classes worth of labs), time management of the class period during lab days (will students have enough time to finish? what options do they have if they do not finish?), and other challenges that pop up depending on the lab. However, group labs help students learn not only skills for talking about science topics and science methods with each other, but also skills for working productively in groups in general, an ability that all career ready individuals should possess. The group discussion can extend beyond just the class period(s) in which the lab happens; students should also spend time organizing and writing their lab reports together and doing exercises like “Pass It On” and “Peer Editing” (Think Literacy). Data can also be shared in discussion style by selecting a representative student from each lab group to write data on the board as they finish, or by presenting data in a carousel activity (students rotate through stations where they analyze, discuss, and summarize different groups data).
For this school year, I have made it my goal to try out as many different discussion activities as possible in the classroom. I hope to discover what works, what does not work but could be changed, and what just does not fit my pedagogical style. Through the activities and discussions that will occur in my classroom, both this year and in years to come, I want my students to understand science as the “construction of theories that provide explanatory accounts of the material world” (Pratt, 2012). If we can teach students to slow down and examine, imagine, discuss, and wonder about the world around them, we could help our students better understand the important and interesting nature of science. If I can achieve this goal, even though all of my students will not enter the world of science for their career, I believe they will at least be educated and critical consumers of the science that affects their everyday lives.
As Osborne (2007) notes, science educators of the 21st century should guide the development of student scientific literacy skills. Our students should be able to engage in public discussion on science-related issues. Even if they do not pursue a career in science, they should be able to be critical consumers of scientific and technological ideas, theories, and products that affect their everyday lives. In order to reach these scientific literacy goals, our students must learn both how to ask questions about science and how to discuss the answers delivered to them.
Science is inquiry. Science is exciting. Science is unmistakably important. As a teacher, I want my students to practice inquiry, to formulate and engage with fundamental scientific questions about the world, and to understand how scientists investigate and find answers to those questions (Pratt, 2012). In order for this great type of inquiry to happen, great discussions must develop within the classroom. The job of facilitating that discussion resides with the teacher. Thus, I have chosen for my problem of practice question: “How can science teachers implement productive discussion-based praxis in the science classroom?”
Though I had not thought about this before engaging in our methods class, I realize now how puzzling it is that science teachers (in my previous experiences as a student at least) usually do not make discussion a significant part of their praxis in the classroom. So much about the practice and process of science involves discussion! In our classroom this year, we have taught that the scientific method starts with making an observation and formulating a question. The more students who observe and discuss an object or phenomena, the more detailed the observation can be. The more observations, the more questions generated. The more questions, the more answers and thus knowledge our students can construct.
The next step, researching the topic of investigation, progresses more quickly and smoothly if everyone shares what he or she knows. While everyone may form a different hypothesis, discussion of possible hypotheses can help students and scientists decide which merit the most attention. Even conducting experiments should involve discussion about the specifics of materials and methods, which seems especially important today in our resource strapped schools and research labs! I find that the most discussion-friendly aspect of the scientific method comes with reporting, analyzing, and discussing experimental results. Not only does this part of the scientific method provide students/scientists a chance to show off (which I have found many of my teenage students try to do a lot of the time anyway), but it also helps students/scientists to obtain a better understanding of what their results suggest, what possible sources of error their method(s) contain, and what they should change if they repeat the experiment.
Despite the fact that I see discussion in the science classroom as critically important to student education, I have struggled to successfully and consistently implement this tactic in my own teaching practice. In every one of our biology classes, whether I sit in as observer or take the lead as teacher, I have noticed that classroom discussion usually follows an “IRE dialogue” (Schwartz, 2009, p.44) format or low-level, “back-and-forth interchange[s]” (Bybee, 2009, p.243) between student and teacher: the teacher asks a question, a student provides an answer, and the teacher either accepts the answer and continues the lesson, or fishes for more or slightly different answers. Additionally, while we never completely lack student response to a question, the answers tend to come from the same four or six students every time. Even when I pause, provide five seconds of wait time (Bybee, 2009, p.242), and verbally note something like “I see that two (or three or four) of you have an idea that you would like to share, but I want to give the rest of the class an extra second to think,” I still do not usually get a more robust number of students who raise their hands. These experiences make me pause and wonder: if I cannot get students to answer a specific, teacher-directed question, then how will I get them to discuss science with each other in small groups or as a whole class?
If a teacher does get students to actively engage and discuss science topics or data with each other, then the teacher runs the risk of loosing control: the teacher may lose control of the course of the conversation (if discussion occurs as a whole class) or may lose control over the classroom environment itself (if students move about to gather and work in small groups or even when discussion occurs as a whole class.) When monitoring student group work, I find that I have trouble at times discerning between productive classroom discourses and idle chatter. Additionally, I have noted that successful implementation of small group or classroom discussion requires putting much extra time and thought into lesson plan development. I suspect that other teachers experience struggles similar to the ones I have listed; perhaps these experiences partly account for the lack of discussion praxis in our science classrooms today.
Thus, I return to the topic of this problem of practice paper (“How can science teachers implement productive discussion-based praxis in the science classroom?”) in the hopes of providing some sensible solutions. First and foremost, a teacher needs to establish both the tone of the classroom and the expectations to which students must adhere before beginning classroom discussions. Bybee (2009) provides some specific, simple guidelines for implementing class discussion; the three that I find most important include “create an atmosphere in the class in which questions [are] not only welcomed but expected,” “when you give reinforcement, do it positively and as often as you can,” and “maintain a positive and accepting attitude” (p.247). I find these suggestions most important because they can enhance any classroom environment, whether the class uses discussion based teaching techniques or not.
Secondly, teachers need to provide explicit ways to engage students and make students care about the lessons. Why should students spend their time and energy discussing a topic for which they see no use or relevance? A way for teachers to engage students is by implementation of culturally relevant pedagogy: a teaching style that matches the culture and background of the students. In the classroom, teacher use of pedagogy, especially for minority students, should go beyond the pursuit simply of “academic achievement” and extend to helping students “achieve cultural competence and develop a broader sociopolitical consciousness that allows them to critique the cultural norms, values, mores, and institutions that produce and maintain social inequities” (Ladson-Billings, 1992; 1995). Students should have the opportunity to apply scientific concepts to bigger sociopolitical issues, to problem solve, and to discuss their ideas with each other.
Third, the design of the classroom should contribute to successful discussion based teaching. As Llewellyn (2005) notes, both display of thought provoking resources (“What if…” and “I wonder…” posters; concept maps and graphic organizers; extra textbooks for student use; bookshelf housing fiction and nonfiction book, science magazines, journals) and physical room organization (arrangement of student desks in a “U” shape so that students can see and hear each other; separate learning centers for small group work) can help with implementation of an inquiry and discussion based practice. A discussion-based classroom must be student/learner centered; it must be a place where “students feel that their teacher and peers value their ideas, thoughts, opinions” (Llewellyn, 2005, p.56) and where students feel safe.
Finally, after a teacher identifies classroom expectations, considers the enduring understandings (Tomlinson, 2006) he or she wants the students to take away from a lesson, plans the lesson so that it relates to students’ lives (culturally relevant pedagogy), and designs a classroom space that invites student dialogue, the teacher can then plan specific activities that will engage students in discussion. In the short time that I have spent as a teacher in the classroom, I have found that implementing a variety of activities is one of the best ways to maintain students attention. One simple and usually successful discussion based method is the ‘think-pair-share’ activity. This activity only requires five minutes of class time to do (though it can be implemented for a longer period of time, depending on the topic and scaffolding of the lesson) and requires students to speak only with one or two other individuals near them. As a quiet student myself, I find ‘think-pair-share’ to be the least intimidating of all possible discussion activities. I believe much learning can happen when students have time to think independently, speak briefly with another person to offer ideas or clarify concepts (during which time both people hopefully have a chance to say something), and come back to the larger group to share.
A step up from the ‘think-pair-share’ activity is the group lab activity. We have used these quite often in our classroom teaching already this year. Our groups typically consist of four to five students. Challenges teachers face when planning group lab activities include: careful scaffolding of lab work (especially important for our freshman students), collection and organization of materials for the labs (in our case, four full classes worth of labs), time management of the class period during lab days (will students have enough time to finish? what options do they have if they do not finish?), and other challenges that pop up depending on the lab. However, group labs help students learn not only skills for talking about science topics and science methods with each other, but also skills for working productively in groups in general, an ability that all career ready individuals should possess. The group discussion can extend beyond just the class period(s) in which the lab happens; students should also spend time organizing and writing their lab reports together and doing exercises like “Pass It On” and “Peer Editing” (Think Literacy). Data can also be shared in discussion style by selecting a representative student from each lab group to write data on the board as they finish, or by presenting data in a carousel activity (students rotate through stations where they analyze, discuss, and summarize different groups data).
For this school year, I have made it my goal to try out as many different discussion activities as possible in the classroom. I hope to discover what works, what does not work but could be changed, and what just does not fit my pedagogical style. Through the activities and discussions that will occur in my classroom, both this year and in years to come, I want my students to understand science as the “construction of theories that provide explanatory accounts of the material world” (Pratt, 2012). If we can teach students to slow down and examine, imagine, discuss, and wonder about the world around them, we could help our students better understand the important and interesting nature of science. If I can achieve this goal, even though all of my students will not enter the world of science for their career, I believe they will at least be educated and critical consumers of the science that affects their everyday lives.
References:
Bybee, R., Powell, J., & Trowbridge, L. (2009). Teaching secondary school science: Strategies for developing scientific literacy (9th ed.). New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall.
Ladson-Billings, G. (1995). But That’s Just Good Teaching! The Case for Culturally Relevant Pedagogy. Theory Into Practice, 34(3), 159-165
Ladson-Billings, G. (1992). Culturally relevant teaching: The key to making multicultural education work. In C.A. Grant (Ed.), Research and multicultural education (pp. 106-121). London: Falmer Press.
Osborne, J. (2007). Science education for the twenty first century. Eurasia Journal of Mathematics, Science & Technology Education, 3(3), 173–184.
Pratt, H. (2012). NSTA’s Reader’s Guide to a Framework for K-12 Science Education. Expanded Edition. NSTA Press: Arlington, VA.
Schwartz, Y., Weizman, A., Fortus, D., Sutherland, L., Merrit, J., & Krajcik, J. (2009). Talking science: Classroom discussions and their role in inquiry-based learning environments. The Science Teacher, Summer, 44-47.
Think Literacy (n.d.). Cross Curricular Approaches, Grade 7-12.
Tomlinson, C.A., and McTighe, J. (2006). Integrating Differentiated Instruction & Understanding by Design: Connecting Content and Kids. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
Bybee, R., Powell, J., & Trowbridge, L. (2009). Teaching secondary school science: Strategies for developing scientific literacy (9th ed.). New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall.
Ladson-Billings, G. (1995). But That’s Just Good Teaching! The Case for Culturally Relevant Pedagogy. Theory Into Practice, 34(3), 159-165
Ladson-Billings, G. (1992). Culturally relevant teaching: The key to making multicultural education work. In C.A. Grant (Ed.), Research and multicultural education (pp. 106-121). London: Falmer Press.
Osborne, J. (2007). Science education for the twenty first century. Eurasia Journal of Mathematics, Science & Technology Education, 3(3), 173–184.
Pratt, H. (2012). NSTA’s Reader’s Guide to a Framework for K-12 Science Education. Expanded Edition. NSTA Press: Arlington, VA.
Schwartz, Y., Weizman, A., Fortus, D., Sutherland, L., Merrit, J., & Krajcik, J. (2009). Talking science: Classroom discussions and their role in inquiry-based learning environments. The Science Teacher, Summer, 44-47.
Think Literacy (n.d.). Cross Curricular Approaches, Grade 7-12.
Tomlinson, C.A., and McTighe, J. (2006). Integrating Differentiated Instruction & Understanding by Design: Connecting Content and Kids. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.