Teaching Science-01

 Teaching Science-01

by S.B.Asoka Dissanayake Visit www,writeclique.net

There is a bizarre (somewhat insane) discussion going on local English Papers. This is something I penned down many moons ago. Reproduced here for any sane person's perusal.

Approach to teaching science is changing in the West. It is realized that in spite of the rapid advances in science (in the past century) the
benefit of science has not filtered down to the masses, specially to the young (in and out of school). When out of school the young adult has
no way of furthering his or her basic learning in science for ones own benefit functionally and socially. The school should be a place to make young people learn in a constructive way (not irrelevant factual knowledge) and apply that knowledge with common sense and with a scientific approach. There are inherent
religious, ethnic and educational prejudices that one has to circumvent to achieve these goals without upsetting the social sensitivities. Young children are brought up in various ways according to the way of life they are born to. Some are enriched and others are deprived of valuable opportunity due to many factors beyond the control of the child. The school should be the ideal place that can change this social disadvantage and teaching science with a new and scientific way is desirable and is found to be wanting.

The art of teaching science has to change form what it is now in our schools.

The top down approach and the the assumption that the teacher as a sage knows all what the students should know has failed in this country and elsewhere whether it is the East or the West.

In the West however, there is a changing attitude to teaching science (in a more pragmatic way). My attempt here is to look at this problem in a child's perspective rather than the teachers perspective. It is not possible for a teacher to know (for that matter even a doctor to know all the aspects of medicine) all the aspects of science.

A mixture of integrative approach and pooling of resources rather than training pure science teachers is what is intended. Instead of a purely scientific and academic exercise it should be broad based taking the child's development stage and the social background.

The medium of instruction and the command in whatever the language that is utilized to teach is also important. Bombarding factual knowledge to young is not what is required.

What should be tested or trained is not the memory and factual contents but the way of thinking based on scientific reasoning.
It is the thinking capacity that should be developed not the retention capacity.


Even though I attempt this at the university level the outcome is not as it is expected by me in general.

What is required is to make students ready for acquiring concepts appropriate for their psychological development. Children vary in their stage of development not only in the capacity but also at what level they achieve certain milestones of conceptual development.

Brief description of the psychological development is necessary before discussing the outcome based teaching (OBE). One should not expect the children to grow developmentally in a rigid programmed pattern. Even though they follow a general pattern some are slow and some are fast in acquiring conceptual skills. It is a normal behaviour of conceptual development and it is not that a particular child is stupid or very smart. It is the way they are born with and teachers task is for the whole class to achieve a certain level of competence (achievement) in thinking science.

To cover a particular syllabus forced on them by the hierarchy in the education department who do not have a good understanding (but just follow what was prescribed for the past 40 years without any revision) of the current trends and thinking in education. Changing requirements of the higher education should be balanced by the new way of thinking and approach in teaching science.

From concrete operational (direct experience) thinking to formal (acceptable to science) operational thinking is a very big step in psychological development. This change occur around 5 to 7 years of age and go on until 16 years of age. What is amazing is that children (and many adults too) do not shed their direct experience (and their thinking with it) when the conceptual development is progressing in their development (which has inherent variability).

This is a handicap (in a way blessing in disguise) the children from the age of 8 to 16 years undergo and overcome. Bombarding with factual knowledge at this stage of development is a serious problem from the point of view of the child. It is believed that conceptual development occurs at around the age of 16 and many do not develop this even up to 30 years of age and even then the conceptual development function at a very rudimentary level.


There is another barrier that is associated with psychological development. It is the language barrier itself. The language and grammatical structure did not evolve in parallel with science and its development. Language development and acquisition pre-dated the development of science by more than 2000 years. It is only in the last hundred years that the Language of Science started integrating with the standard languages of the West. Scientific terms that emerged in the West were not kind to Eastern languages and if not for the Pali Language (specially Abhidhamma terminology) teaching science in Sinhala would have been much more difficult. Unfortunately the people who started translating scientific terminology went in tangents to the tenant of Pali which was meant for a different purpose. By doing this they not only destroyed Sinhala but also the teaching of science by distorted interpretation of an ancient language.


The end result is that we are producing poor quality scientific thinkers and educators. I am one who believe that science should be taught in English very early in children's education. Not only this will help improve the English that the children would learn to use and would be an advantage in grasping difficult concepts in later life (especially when they proceed to higher studies).

Having seen students struggling to understand simple concepts in their first year at the university and the introduction English language learning before commencing their academic career has not improved or remedied the problem as it is today my impressions are somewhat biased and the reader should excuse me for that.

Having said that English is not an difficult language to learn and English is a very good supplement even if one wants to learn purely in ones own mother tongue.


Conceptual Development

Modeling is an acceptable way of expressing situations which we cannot observe directly. Models help us to understand what we observe and predict what will happen in situations that we cannot observe. Modeling a scientific concept is an acceptable scientific tool in advancing a concept or an idea. Eventually we may become so convinced of the reliability of the model or the security of the model image. Then we tend to accept it as total reality without any objection or question. The distinction between the model and the reality disappears in our teaching of science and this in turn inhibits the acceptance of new ideas. The atomic model is a good example and everybody accepts it as a good model and almost certain reality but few thinkers deviated from this mode of thinking and went into talk about quarks and antiparticles and the like.

Our educationists in science have gone into hibernation after the atomic model and canceling the practicals at the university entrance for the advance level examination (due to inherent inability to hold examinations full proof so that some elements can doctor the results) compounded the already deteriorating approach to teaching science in schools. This is one example of the examples of skewed (squint) eye view of the teaching and education in general. We have let this phenomenon (science teaching without experiment and investigation at least at a rudimentary level) progress for nearly 40 years without a review.

It is high time at least from "middle school age" the children are brought up looking for both knowledge and wisdom with open mind rather than "programed minds"of the education department. Restricting them to free books published by the education department which are probably 30 years outdated is not the panacea for a long term problem of "learning on the go" especially in science.

Australian teachers researching in science teaching are introducing many models of art of teaching science and I would like to jot down some thoughts about one of them in some detail with my own adaptation of that model. It is called the 5E Model (I am quite at ease with the Japanese 5S model of Quality Training) and worth some elaboration. Students acquire a certain level of conceptual development on a scientific phenomenon that is discussed based on 5E Model. The focus is on a observable topic or phenomenon.

Engage
Students express their views and grasp of a particular phenomenon (or a topic) and study any connection with what they already seem to know at a particular age of their development. The teacher generate the new idea or the concept without any factual information.

Explore
Students explore the phenomenon and use their own language to express and discuss the phenomenon in their own understanding and experience without any hindrance from the teacher who act as a facilitator rather than a disseminator (discriminator) of knowledge. Students generate new ideas based on hands on activities.

Explain
They explain the phenomenon in scientific terms and teacher help to develop new ides and concepts and terminology.

Elaborate
The teacher introduces new challenging situation and students apply what they have learnt to a new situation and modify their concepts accordingly. This is the application of the newly acquired knowledge to a given problem. Problem oriented but evidenced base learning is gradually introduced and facilitated.

Evaluation
The students reflect on the preconceived views (ideas) to the post conceptual development of the new scientific theme and teacher allows ongoing development of the theme as and when the experience of the class improves with new situations and problems (the class encounter). Building on a sound base of conceptualization children learn and understand more complex phenomena.

A layer of conceptual (idea) development is formed on top of the already existing concrete operational thinking which each student inherit differently without upsetting their own previous preconceived ideas and thinking capacities. There is no label attached to the previous conceived idea as either right or wrong but a modified version of the previous concept is laid on top the previous experience which each student inherited with their own experience or lack of it. The thinking capacity is developed instead of retaining capacity. Unfortunately there is tremendous variation of memory capacity of children. The top or the surface (outermost) layer is kept open ended for further ongoing improvement and development of new ideas and concepts. The approach is not rigid as it is in the book oriented learning expectation of the department of education.

In effect there are there layers of conceptual development.
Layer 1 Students already perceived thinking and ides
Layer 2 The new concepts developed with exploration and explanation
Layer 3 Open end for further facilitation with new experience and understanding

The third layer is kept open in true scientific spirits that what is understood is kept for further development and refinement. With this level of understanding and maturity students could enter what ever the type of further education they wish in their life. It should not be a static and should not end up abruptly at advanced level examination. The concept of continuous learning should be ingrained in the minds of school leavers who are encouraged to learn in their own pace and time rather than regimented time scale as prescribed by the education department.
Before elaborating with some examples that can be used in the class room

I should introduce few of my own 5ES to make the grand total ten.


1)Evidence based
2)Expansion of the
3)Experience of the individual to
4) Encourage true
5) Emancipation of knowledge leading to right thinking and wisdom.

Whatever the field of study one is free to apply this framework of exploration.

My intentions are to promote open discussion.