Effective science teaching and learning -

Implications for teaching Physics

Russell Tytler

Deakin University

A: Research into student conceptions

Findings concerning student conceptions, especially for Physics

The link with constructivist perspectives

Conceptual change teaching approaches and some examples

Social constructivist perspectives

B: Wider perspectives on teaching and learning science

Longitudinal research on student attitudes to science, over the secondary school years.

Research into effective teaching and learning in science: The SIS Components

Research into student conceptions Students come into our classes with a range of prior

ideas or conceptions of the physical world. They are not ‘empty vessels’;

Many of these conceptions differ in important ways from the view of the world scientists have constructed. Many are similar to views scientists held in previous eras;

Students from different countries and cultures have been found to have very similar prior ideas. Everyday language often supports these views of the world; and

These conceptions in many cases form useful prior knowledge that a teacher can build on. In many cases, however, students’ alternative conceptions have proved surprisingly difficult to shift, and can offer a serious barrier to effective teaching.

Some examples Students hold theories of motion similar to earlier

impetus theories, where force is a property of an object associated with motion, rather than something that acts on them externally

Students think of the eye as active in ‘seeing’ rather than as a receptor of light, they think of ‘light’ as an effect rather than as an entity that travels, and they think of color as the property of objects rather than dependent on the light environment. They have a range of mental models of light.

Students have a ‘historical’ view of substances in chemical change, thinking for instance that the ash left over from burning paper, is simply the paper but in a changed form, or is something that was trapped in the paper and is now the residue

Students have a variety of models of current electricity, confusing current with energy in terms of what is ‘used up’ in devices, or thinking of current as coming out both ends of a battery and ‘clashing’ to cause light in a globe.

Students believe that heat is a substance, rather than a form of energy, and run the concepts of temperature and heat together, thinking for instance that if a hot cup of coffee is divided, the temperature is halved. These views also echo historical theories

Students have a range of mental models of the earth in space, ranging from flatness, to hybrid models which combine a spherical earth with an absolute sense of ‘up-down’. They will continue to believe that summer and winter are caused by varying distance of the earth from the sun.

A personal constructivist view of learning: Learning involves the construction of meaning. Meanings

constructed by students from what they see or hear may be different to those intended, and are influenced by prior knowledge.

The construction of meaning is a continuous and active process. Children, from when they are born, struggle to construct meaning about their world.

There are identifiable patterns in the types of understandings students construct, due to shared experiences with the world, and due to cultural influences through language.

Knowledge promoted in the science classroom is evaluated, and may be accepted, accepted in a limited context only, or rejected.

Learners have the final responsibility for their own learning.

Social constructivist perspectives

Learning is a social or cultural phenomenon,

Attention is shifted to the social processes operating in the classroom by which a teacher promotes a discourse community.

The aim of science or mathematics education becomes the establishment within the class of shared meanings

The teacher represents the very powerful discourses of the scientific culture, and scientific ways of viewing and dealing with the world.

Constructivist / Conceptual Change teaching approaches

Lawson’s ‘learning cycle’

The Generative model

The interactive approach

The 5 E’s model

Japanese lesson plans

Most of these models involve exploring and challenging students’ prior ideas

C/CC approachesPhase Description Example (Peter Hubber)

1. Preparation and planning

The teacher clarifies for him or herself the focus of the sequence.

Materials are gathered and activities planned.

Assessment is planned.

Clarify light concepts eg.

Each point on a luminous object emits light in all directions.

All the light from each point on an object that passes through a lens, or reflects off a mirror, contributes to the formation of a corresponding image point.

What are the students’ views? The teacher introduces activities to probe student conceptions. Questioning is an important tool.

Examples of exploratory activities:

Cartoons that pose problem situations, such as asking which of a light or a loaded skateboard will roll faster down a slope.

Scenarios in which students express different views.

A round – robin of activities relating to the same idea, such as a set of animal skeletons or skulls that elicit student ideas about adaptation.

The teacher clarifies just what the range of student views are, and what the differences entail.

Post box sample questions:

Draw arrows to show how light from the sun helps the student to see the tree.

Can a cat or owl see a mouse in a room where there was no light? Why do you think this?

How far does light travels from a glowbug (a) During the night? (b) During the day?

Phase 2. Exploration and clarification

Phase 3. Challenge

Students engage with activities designed to challenge their intuitive views. Examples:

Predict – observe – explain sequences.

Open exploration of intriguing items such as a bird feeder, a pendulum, a candle burning under a glass jar, balance toys.

Challenge tasks such as asking students to light a globe using one wire and a battery

In ‘interpretive discussion’ the teacher ensures all views are considered. It is important not to force premature closure and to allow students room to express and explore ideas. The teacher presents the evidence from the scientists' view.

Experiments:

Can you feel a stare? – controlled experiment.

Using a darkroom to explore: can you see in total dark ?

Phase 4. Investigation and exploration

The class tests the validity of different answers, including the science view, by seeking evidence, or students carry out investigations to explore their questions.

A series of structured explorations and discussions; the eyes as receptors, ideas about dim objects, lasers shone onto white paper ….

Phase 5. Application and extension

The science ideas are established and extended. There may be discussion and debate concerning the merits of the science view.

Further activities

Students are encouraged to evaluate their learning by comparing their ideas with their earlier view and to reflect on the strategies they used to learn – supporting metacognition.

Discussion of what changes had occurred in student views of vision and light.

Phase 6. Reflection and revisiting

General Principles

Provide opportunities for students to make their own ideas explicit: Use students' own language, give them opportunities to share ideas, and encourage clarification of ideas

Provide experiences which relate to students' prior ideas ('start from where students are at'): Encourage students to extend their knowledge of phenomena, provide opportunities for them to make links between phenomena, and provide experiences which challenge their ideas.

Give opportunities for students to think about experiences: Provide opportunities for imaginative thinking, encourage reflection on alternative models and theories

Give opportunities for students to try out new ideas: Allow students to gain confidence in trying out new ideas in a variety of contexts, both familiar and new. Use a variety of teaching/learning strategies.

Encourage students to reflect on changes to their ideas: Encourage students to be aware of advances in their thinking and provide opportunities for them to identify changes in their ideas

Provide a supportive learning environment: Encourage students to put forward their own ideas and to listen to each other. Avoid always creating the impression that there is only one 'right answer'.

The nature of classroom discourse Rusting nail task - students had put nails in different

places.

Teacher.. So - what 1 want to do - put on the board, is perhaps put down

your ideas of what it was about the places that made your nail go rusty.

What do you think it was - thinking about the places - that made your nail

go rusty?...

Fiona: Condensation might.

Teacher: Condensation - right [writes it on the chalk board]. Dawn?

Dawn.. Could it be like - climate like - if it's hot or cold?

Teacher: Hot or cold. Do some other people think that hot or cold might be

something significant, in making something go rusty? Hot or cold - is that

an idea - yeah? Hot. Which? Both of them or just one? Dawn.. Both

Teacher: Haley's saying perhaps cold.

Dialogic discourse

Is multi-voiced in that it involves a number of different speakers and includes references to other students' ideas.

The teacher invites ideas through open questions and attempts to

clarify meanings through asking follow-up questions.

The students make spontaneous contributions to the discourse and

often articulate their ideas in a tentative, provisional way rather than

present them as 'finished thoughts'.

Overlap of contributions, abbreviated utterances and interanimation

of ideas between teacher and students.

Ideas are offered and received as 'thinking devices' rather than as

'fixed truths'.

Gathering ideas together Teacher: Right we've got a lot of things at the top here. Now - what I'd

like you to do first of all is to look at these suggestions - because - is

there anything that some of them actually have in common - have we

actually repeated ourselves with any of the things that we've got on the

board at the moment? ... Kevin, first of all then - what d'you think we've

repeated ourselves with? Kevin: Erm -rain, damp ... then cold.

Teacher: Rain, damp.

When Kevin suggests 'rain, damp ... then cold' Lynne ignores 'cold' and

selects rain and damp'; a number of students call out 'and cold, and

condensation' and Lynne selects from these responses 'condensation'.

At this point moisture, condensation, rain, damp, and wet are all

underlined on the board and Lynne asks what they have in common. She

is searching for the term 'water'.

Teacher: ... what have we got in common perhaps with all the things we've

underlined. What is it Kevin? Kevin: They're all wet.

Teacher: Well - they're all wet - so what do we mean by wet then? Is there

something else about wet?

Students: No - wet [other mutters] Teacher: What is wet perhaps?

Student: [chorus] Water!! [laughter]

Teacher: Water? So is that the key thing? Ketan what do you think? Is

water the key thing here that's linking all of these... Ketan: Yes.

Teacher: You've said rain, damp, moisture, wet, oh ... condensation and

what I'm asking you is 'what do you mean by that?' So what is the common

link perhaps? Ketan: S'all different forms of water.

Teacher: Water. Yeah? Anyone disagree with that? That sound

reasonable? OK, so we've all of those things we can link up and say that

water is important.

Authoritative discourse

In this brief sequence the teacher has the clear aim of reformulating ‘condensation', ‘moisture' and the other terms as 'water'. In a bid to achieve this aim, the teacher: selects from student responses; poses a series of instructional questions; initiates a confirmatory exchange with a student. Each of these interventions … draws heavily upon the teacher's authority and it is the teacher who dominates the discourse; the students' responses tend to be in single words.

Turning students on to Physics

How do we do this?

A recent Swedish study

Britt Lindahl in 2003 completed a longitudinal 4 year study of student responses to their secondary school subjects, from the time they finished primary school to when they chose their senior subjects.

She followed 80 students using yearly interviews, and questionnaires, and test results.

What follows are quotes and paraphrases of her findings.

They are very disappointed the first year at lower secondary when they meet science teaching where they are supposed to sit still and listen, copy the blackboard and fill in stencils.

As they have little experiences of physics and chemistry from lower grades they say they perceive it is so new, so strange, so difficult and so serious all at once. They compare with other subjects such as English and geography which started like a game and the difficulties have come gradually.

As they experience science as difficult, they also think they are not good in the subject, and then it becomes much more difficult and so on. This can be the beginning of a negative spiral between attitudes and behaviour which can be difficult to break.

Student sense of control

They perceive both physics and chemistry as authoritarian subjects with the message “it is like this, learn it because it is right, here is nothing to discuss”.

They also perceive all lessons are so predictable; first the teacher talks, then the pupils work. When analysing all the interviews it is so obvious to me that science teaching has to be more varied. Some pupils like one way of working, others like other ways, but all dislike doing it the same way all the time.

Sometimes they all want to discuss, work together in groups, and to pose and work with questions from their own area of interest. In other words, they want to have more influence on their learning like they have in other subjects.

Sense of where physics can be used professionally

Before the interviews in Grade 9, I read all transcriptions and the pupils were also allowed listen to this part of earlier interviews. Both I and also the pupils were very astonished that their dreams from Grade 5 or 6 have been more or less repeated every year. If so many decide their future so early and science is so unfamiliar to them, perhaps it is not strange that they do not choose science. Another problem is that they do not know very much about different professions within science. When talking about chemistry most of pupils can only give me two reasons for learning it. The first is to get good marks and the second is to become a chemistry teacher.

Two cases Anja .. is always discussing ideas. Her parents are

scientists and brother and sister too. She has from the beginning told me that her dream is to be a doctor, and therefore she will choose science for upper secondary school. But when I met her in Grade 8, she told me she had changed her mind. Her dream was still to be a doctor but she could not think of taking science so it would be impossible. She hates science and the way it is taught. She said she likes to discuss and she wants to learn more about human beings, not about dead things.

Erik is a calm and confident boy. First time I met his class in Grade 5, his teacher told me that this boy was one of the most brilliant pupils in mathematics he ever had met. His next teacher in mathematics told me the same. But Erik’s favorite subjects are history, English and sports. He thinks science in school is boring but he likes to watch scientific programs on TV.

Findings

It is not the content that is the major problem; it is more the way it is presented in school.

Even the “safe bets” fail. For a long time we have known that the girls are critical of science teaching but what is clear in this study is that the boys are as critical as the girls. The same thing is true of the well educated parents’ children.

The final finding is about the importance of understanding. The pupils complain about not understanding but they are referring to another type of understanding than the one of formal concepts.

Some questions

How do we enlist students to physics?

How do we provide an environment that is responsive to students’ interests and needs?

What can we offer students, through Physics, that will be of ongoing benefit?

The SIS components1. The learning

environment encourages active engagement with ideas and evidence

2. Students are challenged to develop meaningful understandings

3. Science is linked with students’ lives and interests

4. Students’ individual learning needs are catered for

5. Assessment is embedded within the science learning strategy

6. The nature of science is represented in its various aspects

7. The classroom is linked with the broader community

8. Learning technologies are exploited for their learning potentialities

Some critical elements

1. Encouraging students to actively engage with ideas and evidence

1.1 Students are encouraged and supported to express their ideas, and question evidence

1.2 Student input (questions, ideas and expressions of interest) influences the course of lessons

1.3 Students are encouraged and supported to take some responsibility for the design, conduct and analysis of science investigations

2. Challenging students to develop meaningful understandings

2.3 Students are challenged to develop divergent/lateral thinking to respond to science-based problems

3. Linking science with students’ lives and interests

Students’ interests and concerns (eg. Sport and recreation, youth media) provide the context for learning science ideas

4. Catering for individual students’ learning needs

Teachers monitor and respond strategically to students’ range of abilities and learning needs and preferences

5. Embedding assessment within the science learning strategy

5.2 A range of styles of assessment tasks is used to reflect different aspects of science and types of understanding

• 5.2.1 A range of assessment types is used

• 5.2.2 Different levels of science knowledge are assessed (information, comprehension, application)

• 5.2.3 Different aspects of the nature of science are assessed (knowledge, process, technology, social links)

6. Representing the nature of science in its different aspects

6.1 Science knowledge and investigative processes are richly represented

6.2 Links are made between science, and social and personal issues

6.3 Science ideas and processes are linked to technologies and professions

7. Linking science with the broader community

Science activities link beyond the classroom

To sum up

There are many elements of research that call for a richer view of science teaching and learning

The findings from this disparate research point in quite compatible directions

If we want to attract students into Physics, and support them to learn effectively, teachers of Physics need to implement these principles from 7-12