Teaching Science

A Handbook for Primary and Secondary School Teachers

Steven Alsop, Keith Hicks

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781135378219
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Éducation
• Subtopic: Éducation générale

Designed for all trainee and newly qualified teachers, teacher trainers and mentors, this volume provides a contemporary handbook for the teaching of science, covering Key Stages 2, 3 and 4 in line with current DfEE and TTA guidelines.

Part 1

Setting the Scene

1	Teaching science Steve Alsop

I am happy to say that although initially I faced some humps in the road I feel it was a very good learning experience. I have learned so much about children and science and I am excited about starting with my own class next year.

(Angela, a trainee science school teacher)

Objectives

This introductory chapter provides opportunities to explore:

•your initial beliefs about science teaching;

•features of the Teaching Science text;

•models of teacher development.

Introduction

How teachers should be educated (or trained) is a sensitive issue that has received a lot of media attention lately. We believe that learning to teach is a multidisciplinary activity and the process of ‘training’ teachers is essentially an educational one. Throughout this text, the term ‘training’ is used in its broadest sense to mean ‘education’ because we view classroom teaching as a complex activity and consequently learning to teach is more than knowing science or acquiring a series of teaching top tips by following a recipe or rubric.

In this text we do not cover subject knowledge per se, although tangentially we do offer approaches and resources to explore subject content in follow-up activities. Here our aim is to facilitate the processes involved in learning to teach science; our focus is science education. We suggest that the content of the following 15 chapters point to key aspects of practice that complement a thorough understanding of your subject.

Like much contemporary work in education, this book is informed by constructivist theories of learning. It takes the view that knowledge is not passively acquired. Learning about science or furthermore learning how to teach science is essentially an active process. Adults, and children, reflect upon their experiences in all situations that they encounter to actively construct meaning and understanding. In learning to teach your experiences, views and beliefs must be drawn upon and expanded to form your opinions and guide your actions. We are not trying to ‘tell you how to do it’, but rather we hope to provide a series of chapters that help you to explore and contemplate issues that, we feel, are critical components of successful classroom practice. Reflective, creative and imaginative thinking drives our model of teacher training. To be a successful classroom science teacher, we believe you need to reflect upon your experiences, both inside and outside the classroom, and make decisions to shape your development and classroom practice. You need to be creative, imaginative and bold and dream up new ideas to overcome the hurdles that you will face. We encourage you to listen to children and model colleagues’ practice with originality and innovation. This is demanding. So, to help you develop your practice, we have put together a series of chapters with the aim of assisting you to explore your thoughts and feelings about a range of contemporary themes in science education. We believe that good teaching can be developed and enhanced and that this is a continuous process. It does not stop after a pre-service course and it is not a simple binary case of either you can teach – or you cannot!

A TOP feature of the text

The text contains a series of reflective activities embedded into each chapter. There are three types of activities; Theory, Observation and Practice (TOP). Most chapters start by outlining relevant education theory. For example, recent research on children's learning in science is outlined in Chapter 4; Chapter 5 describes the UK statutory science curriculum; and recent studies of special educational needs in science classrooms are covered in Chapter 12. The theory provides the backbone to the text and this draws on recent research, our experiences of teaching and working with new classroom practitioners. In covering theory, our intention is to help you to develop a framework to reflect upon your teaching. Incidentally, we also encourage you to consider the framework that we advocate. Science education is a vast and complex area and any introductory text has to be selective. We have selected certain areas that we feel are important and have been useful in our teaching. What we offer is our interpretation of the field and this, of course, is open to criticism. The text is certainly not all-inclusive. For those who wish to take the issues further, each chapter includes some recommended additional reading.

Dispersed throughout the book are also series of observation tasks – these are are designed to help you explore the theory covered in light of your recent observational experiences. The purpose of the tasks is to help you reflect upon your observations as well as apply the educational theory outlined. Learning to teach is an active process and the tasks have been designed to help you to make connections between the content of the chapters and your school experiences. We hope you will theorize about your practice and put theory into practice. Above all we encourage you to talk about classroom experiences (successes and horrors!) with colleagues and friends – learning to teach is a social activity. It is essential, for instance, that you develop professional, open relationships with your colleagues because they should offer you the support and encouragement that you need to improve.

The text also contains practice tasks. For instance, a practice task in Chapter 4 encourages you to arrange a small group discussion with pupils to find out about their preferred learning style. In Chapter 7, you are encouraged to record and analyse your questioning techniques. Wherever possible, we encourage you to make time in your busy school schedule to complete these tasks. Try to incorporate the tasks directly into your school timetable – you might also use these as a basis for planning and discussion with your mentors.

So, in summary, three features permeate the text. When learning to teach, there is no doubt that the interaction and influences of theory, observation and practice are complex. One possible way to consider this interaction is represented in Figure 1.1. In this cyclic model each component interacts and leads to development. The extent to which learning to teach is as easily represented is, of course, open to challenge.

Throughout the text, we encourage you to actively focus on the three components represented (T, O and P). Our aim is to challenge and develop your knowledge, beliefs and values about science teaching, but above all we hope to develop your classroom teaching. Our intention is to offer a text, grounded in experiences and research, that impinges on practice: not a text that is solely an academic exercise. Above all we view learning to teach science as a process of empowerment; you need to feel a sense of ownership over your own learning rather than becoming increasingly dependent on colleagues (and books!) for advice and guidance. We would like you to become the teacher that you feel comfortable with. We would also like you to innovate and be creative, new teachers have much to offer the profession in the form of a ‘fresh pair of eyes’.

From personal performance to pupil performance

So what is involved in learning to teach science? In the years to come you will no doubt face a series of challenges. Learning to teach is anything but an emotionally free experience. At times things will go well and you will feel energized and refreshed, at other times things will not go as planned and you may feel frustrated and anxious. As time progresses, the ups and downs will even out and experience will help you to come to terms with the unusual and unexpected.

The first point to stress is that you are not alone; learning how to teach more effectively is a shared goal for all those involved in education, and throughout the text we use a series of comments and quotations from experienced and new science teachers. However, of course, different teachers have differing needs. When starting to teach the initial pre-occupation is often personal performance. New teachers are frequently concerned with thoughts like: How can I not appear nervous? How will I remember all the names? How will I deal with disruptive behaviour? Where should I stand? What are my rules? At this time new teachers are thinking their way into a social role (what it means to be a science teacher). Some new teachers struggle with the role, in particular with their image of what a science teacher should (or should not) be. Other teachers, who are perhaps more fortunate, identify with a particular teacher (often their mentor) who might have a style that they feel they can adapt and use. Others might try and imitate their mentor, almost like imprinting, and adopt a style that they never really feel happy or comfortable with. Needless to say this should be avoided – learning to teach is far more complicated than simply mimicking somebody else's style.

Figure 1.1 Theory-Observation-Practice-Development

Adopting the role of a science teacher becomes internalized and automatic after a while. At this point the emphasis can shift to the class performance. The agenda now is not so much personal performance (teaching) but children's learning. New questions arise such as: Did the group grasp the concepts? Were enough questions asked? Were the pupils on task during the practical work? Did the class find the lesson interesting? Were they well behaved? Did they understand the concepts covered? These questions could form the basis of reflection both during and after a lesson. Frequently at this stage concerns about classroom management emerge as new teachers grapple with the demands of, for instance, managing a class discussion or a transition period such as packing away or getting out laboratory equipment.

Classrooms are comprised of individuals with particular needs (incidentally some of these needs are explored in more detail in Chapter 12). Often as new teachers gain experience they are able to concentrate more on individuals and to differentiate their classroom activities to meet these needs and so to analyse how their teaching impacts on pupil performance. At this point, the following questions surface: Did the lesson cater for all needs? Did I manage to spend time with those who needed me most? Was James able to cope with the linguistic demands of my worksheets? Was Latika sufficiently stretched by the cont...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Series Editor's foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• List Of Contributors
• Part 1 Setting the Scene
• Part 2 Goals, Learning and the Curriculum
• Part 3 Planning, Teaching and Assessing Science
• Part 4 Issues in Science Education
• Part 5 Looking to the Future
• References
• Index