NCSLA Spring 2002 News

NCSLA's spring meeting was held at the Carolina Inn in Chapel Hill on April 25, 2002. Holt, Rinehart and Winston Publishing sponsored a social hour and Fisher Science Education sponsored the dinner. Thanks to these companies for an elegant and delicious contribution to our gathering.
Photos from the Meeting
Dr. Ann Howe's Speech

Jack Wheatley conducted the business meeting, which consisted of these items:

1. Barbara Glover gave the secretary's report
2. Beverly Lyons presented the treasurer's report
3. Mike Jackson announced the results of the elections
   Karen Dawkins - President
   Brenda Wojnowski - President-Elect
   Donna Brearley - Secretary
   Charlie Lytle - Director
4. Jack Wheatley and Fred Beyer presented the Distinguished Service Award to Dr. David Haase, Director of the The Science House at NC State University. Dr. Haase received a $500 gift certificate from Fisher as well as a plaque from the organization.
5. Ernest Bibby reported on the NCSLA Fellows Program funded by Carolina Biological Supply Company. Three of the participants were present at the meeting.
6. After passing the gavel to Karen Dawkins, outgoing president Jack Wheatley received a plaque in gratitude for his service as present.

Note to all NCSLA members:
Please consider nominations for the Herman Gatling Award to be presented at the fall membership meeting. Access information about the award on the NCSLA website. Nominations must be submitted to Mike Jackson in October.

Photos from the Spring Meeting
April 25, 2002
Carolina Inn, Chapel Hill, NC
(click on photos for a larger view)

Bill Tucci and David Haase	Tonya Hancock, Jack Wheatley, Karen Dawkins
David Haase receives the Distinguished Service Award	In coming president Karen Dawkins presents Jack Wheatley with a plaque
Where's the gavel? We'll just pass the fork.	Dr. Ann Howe delivers the program for the meeting

Dr. Ann Howe
April 25, 2002

Karen asked me to talk about some of the events and issues in science. education. during the 35 years that I have been involved in it as a field of study. A lot has happened in these 35 years but I'm afraid the bottom line - student knowledge and understanding - has not changed nearly as much as we hoped it would. So, naturally, we ask why this so.

I started out as a chemistry teacher but I came into science education. after being science teacher in an elementary school. That was in the 1960's when there was a spurt, a burst of activity in curriculum development. There were 3 main elementary science curriculum projects -, all initiated by scientists who had become interested and involved in elementary education, all funded by NSF, and all big projects with lots of money and prestige. One, ESS, was at Harvard, one, SCIENCES, was at Berkeley and one was at the Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington. When I was an elementary science teacher I was a try-out teacher for the program that became Science a Process Approach - SAPA and then when I became a grad. student I spent 5 days at the University of California at Berkeley to spend 5 learning about Science Curriculum Improvement Study(SCIS). So you could say I was there at the Creation.

Science education for children was not new - from Froebel in the mid-19th century through John Dewey and others there had been interest in teaching science to children but the NSF-funded projects were different from what had gone before. They were more coherent, more conceptual and all centered on experience with materials. They also required special training for teachers. ESS and SCIS emphasized science concepts, and SAPA was based on processes - and that's where the famous "processes of science" came from. A psychologist decided that the processes scientists used was what children should learn, rather than anything specific about science or science concepts, and the whole curriculum was built on that idea.

At the Middle School level, There were at first 2 and then a 3rd big curriculum projects - similar to the elementary ones in that they were based on hands-on experience and lessons built toward understanding concepts.

At secondary level the emphasis was on better textbooks, and laboratory work that was tied to the text, rather than a collection of exercises. There was one highly regarded project in physics, that produced a textbook and labs; everybody agreed that it was excellent but it was too difficult for all but the top students. There were two projects in chemistry - which also produced textbooks and labs. In biology the BSCS - Biological Science Curriculum Study - produced 3 textbooks based on levels of organization - the Green version at the organism level (ecology), the Yellow at the cellular level and Blue at the molecular level. These have been the most persistent of all the secondary materials of that era and BSCS is the only major project that has survived, and keeps rolling along.

All of this represented a tremendous outpouring of talent, energy, time and money. And - when all of this activity slowed down and the outcomes, in terms of student learning were examined, it turned out that curriculum didn't make as much difference as people though it would. Wayne Welch, for one, did a thorough literature search and something like a meta-analysis and concluded that curriculum accounted for about 5% of student achievement. Of the things that happen in school, what makes by far the biggest difference is guess what - THE TEACHER.

Almost ten years ago, I did a survey of the topics and research methods of articles published in Journal of Research in Science Teaching from 1965 -1990. As I expected I found that some topics peaked while others declined over the years. Looking back now for the whole 35 years it was interesting to see the shifts in theoretical frameworks. First - behaviorism - everybody writing behavioral objectives for everything. The limitations of that approach became clear to teachers long before many administrators and researchers caught on. The next wave was Piagetian - Piaget's work used as the basis for everything. that, too, turned out to have limitations. Then, very briefly, Vygotsky was considered as a basis for designing instruction. But the most striking thing to me was the change toward acceptance of qualitative or ethnographic research. In the 1970's you literally could not get an article published in JRST unless you could identify one of the research types in the little book by Campbell and Stanley which was the Bible of science education researchers. By 1990 there were as many qualitative studies as experimental studies. Why was this? I think it was because researchers thought they were missing too much that was important when they stuck to things that could be measured with numbers.

Now I think much of the research being done is atheoretical - that is, it does not have a theoretical basis. The profession is driven by practical knowledge - on what is now called Best Practice.

The emphasis is on teaching - and the teacher - rather than on curriculum. We have come to realize that all teachers need good curriculum materials - but that good materials are not enough. They are necessary but not sufficient. So the emphasis has shifted to professional development of teachers and there is some agreement on what best practice in professional development is.

The Office of Education authorized a study of the Eisenhower Programs and in the report they listed six features of best practice in professional development activities.

• reform type - either study groups or mentoring. internships - alternatives to traditional workshops
• Significant amount of time. and over a long time the time span - 2 weeks in the summer with no follow-up doesn't work
• Collective participation - not isolated teachers but groups from same school working together
• Content focus. You can't teach something you don't understand. o Active learning for teachers.
• Coherence. program has to be in line with other things going on in teacher's work life. for example If teacher has to meet standards, then the program can't ignore that. There is no point in a program that teachers how to do something that the teacher can't do in her situation. I would add a couple of things to that list. Many, maybe most, teachers have to change their ideas or concepts
• about what scienceence is. that is, what is referred to as the nature of science. Many teachers have not been pushed to think about science but have only had to learn to do calculations and carry out procedures.
• about how people learn, at all ages. They have to believe, for instance, in inquiry teaching.

No matter what, change has to come from teachers themselves - when teachers don't want to change and principals and other administrators don't encourage them to change, they find ways not to change. 30 years ago Sarason in The Culture of the School and the Problem of Change wrote that the school culture is so strong and pervasive that it takes a massive effort and desire on the part of those within to change it. And it's almost impossible for a lone teacher go against the system.

New Math & Science Partnership grant program, is tackling this problem by aiming at making structural changes in both schools, or school systems, and universities that work with schools, so that teachers will be able to work within a structure where they have the support that enables them to provide the kind of science and math programs that we promote in our work as teachers and with teachers. Then they may be able to teach so that No child will be left behind.

I hope that those of you who will be around 35 years from now will be able to look back on where we are now and see that things have, finally, changed in important ways in science education.

 

home | contact us | leadership | site map

Updated 2/28/08