Science for All

KINDS OF LEARNING METHODS

A. CONSTRUCTIVISM

General principles of constructivist learning
There are nine general principles of learning that are derived from constructivism. These nine principles are:
1. Learning is an active process in which the learner uses sensory input and constructs meaning out of it,
2. People learn to learn as they learn. Learning consists both of constructing meaning and constructing systems of meaning.
3. Physical actions and hands on experience may be necessary for learning, especially for children, but is not sufficient; we need to provide activities which engage the mind as well as the hand. Dewey called this reflective activity.


4. Learning involves language: the language that we use influences our learning. Lev Vygotsky, a psychologist that helped in the theory of constructivism, argued that language and learning are inextricably intertwined.
5. Learning is a social activity: our learning is intimately associated with our connection with other human beings, our teacher, our peers, our family, as well as casual acquaintances. Dewey pointed out that most of traditional learning is directed toward isolating the learner from social interaction, and towards seeing education as a one-on-one relationship between the learner and the objective material being learned.
6. Learning is contextual: we learn in relationship to what else we know, what we believe, our prejudices and our fears.
7. One needs knowledge to learn: it is not possible to absorb new knowledge without having some structure developed from previous knowledge to build on. The more we know, the more we learn.
8. Learning is not instantaneous: it takes time to learn. For significant learning we need to revisit ideas, ponder them, try them out, play with them, and use them.
9. The key component to learning is motivation. (Constructivist Learning Theory, 2002).

Implications for teaching
Constructivism has important implications for teaching. First, teaching cannot be viewed as the transmission of knowledge from enlightened to unenlightened; constructivist teachers do not take the role of the "sage on the stage." Rather, teachers act as "guides on the side" who provide students with opportunities to test the adequacy of their current understandings.
Second, if learning is based on prior knowledge, then teachers must note that knowledge and provide learning environments that exploit inconsistencies between learners' current understandings and the new experiences before them. This challenges teachers, for they cannot assume that all children understand something in the same way. Further, children may need different experiences to advance to different levels of understanding.
Third, if students must apply their current understandings in new situations in order to build new knowledge, then teachers must engage students in learning, bringing students' current understandings to the forefront. Teachers can ensure that learning experiences incorporate problems that are important to students, not those that are primarily important to teachers and the educational system. Teachers can also encourage group interaction, where the interplay among participants helps individual students become explicit about their own understanding by comparing it to that of their peers.
Fourth, if new knowledge is actively built, then time is needed to build it. Ample time facilitates student reflection about new experiences, how those experiences line up against current understandings, and how a different understanding might provide students with an improved (not "correct") view of the world. Source:http://www.sedl.org/pubs/sedletter/v09n03/welcome.html
Brooks & Brooks (1993) offer an interesting comparison of the visible differences between "traditional" classroom and "constructivist" classrooms.
Characteristics of Constructivist Teaching
Brooks and Brooks (1999) identify twelve descriptors of constructivist teaching; these provide a good summary of where our thinking has been taking us.
Constructivist teachers:
a. Encourage and accept student autonomy and initiative
b. Use raw data and primary information sources with manipulative, interactive, and physical materials
c. Use cognitive terminology such as “classify”, “analyze”, “predict”, and “create”
d. Allow student responses to drive lessons, shift instructional strategies, and alter content
e. Inquire about students’ understandings of concepts before sharing their own understanding about the concepts
f. Encourage students to engage in dialogue, both with the teacher and with one another
g. Encourage student inquiry by asking thoughtful, open-ended questions and encouraging students to ask questions of each other
h. Seek elaboration of students’ initial responses
i. Engage students in experiences that might engender contradictions to their initial hypotheses and then encourage discussion
j. Allow wait time after posing a question
k. Provide time for students to construct relationships and create metaphors
l. Nurture students’ natural curiosity through frequent use of the learning cycle mode,


Constructivist Theories of Learning
Science educators, using the work of Jean Piaget as a foundation, have developed a number of theories to explain learning. These science educators agree with Piaget that knowledge is constructed and theorize that students are builders of knowledge structures. They have developed a number of alternative models that have direct implication for teaching science to secondary school students. Although these models differ in some respects, they share the following characteristics.


1. Importance of content Knowledge
Cognitive scientists put a lot emphasis on what they call “expert knowledge”. They suggest that “experts” reason more powerfully about a topic in their respective fields more than a novice. Another idea that cognitive scientists have put forth is that learning requires knowledge, yet knowledge cannot be given directly. Students must generate their own knowledge. For this to be achieved, the teacher must provide a learning environment where students can discuss and question what they are told, investigate new information, and build new knowledge structures. Further, teachers need to provide ways to ascertain what students know and then find ways to link this knowledge (which quite often is naïve) to new knowledge structures.

2. Integration of skills and content

Because the cognitive approach places the student in the center of learning, the development of thinking skills must be integrated with content knowledge. This, if course, an idea proposed by many other theorists, especially Piaget and Bruner. It is just as important for students to observe, question, test, and hypothesize as it is to develop cognitive structures about gravity, electrons, plate tectonic, and carnivores. In fact without observing, questioning, testing and hypothesizing, the student has little chance of developing scientific conceptions about these or any other concepts.

3. Intrinsic nature of motivation
This is a major change in the emphasis for cognitive scientists. Typically, motivation has been the subject of social psychologists who are interested in attitudes, effort, and attention. Cognitive scientists have realized the importance of developing a learning environment in which students will want to learn. Cognitive scientists, unlike behaviorists, focus their attention on the intrinsic nature of content and instruction as a means to motivate. They are also learning that students’ concept of self can be a contributing factor in motivation.
Resnink and Klofer report that social psychologists have found that motivation is closely related to students’ conceptions of intelligence. In one study, if students were helped to understand that intelligence is an incremental ability rather than a fixed entity, the students who believe the former, when faced with challenging or difficult problems, stuck with the problem and tried to use what they have to solve the problem. The other students, according to the researchers, might in some cases give up, saying that they lacked the intelligence to find the solution. Interesting, thought provoking, challenging and stimulating approaches to instruction may motivate students more so than the positive reinforces suggested by behavioral psychologists.



4. Role of learning groups
Cognitive scientists believe that the social setting for learning is crucial. They have found that cooperative problem-solving groups have been found effective with students of varying abilities. Reshick and Klofter suggest that skilled thinkers (high ability students) can demonstrate ways of solving problems, thereby helping students who lack these mental abilities or experiences.
The implication for the science teacher is to develop in the classroom open, positive communication patterns and to place students in small, mixed ability cooperative groups where social interaction can occur. In either case, cognitive scientists are calling for the formulation of “social learning communities”, environments where questioning, critical thinking, and problem-solving are valued. According to cognitive scientists, these learning communities can be critical in helping the less able student learn thinking patterns that the more able student possesses.


Some Examples of Constructivist Teaching Models

1. CLIS Model – Children’s Learning in Science Model proposed by the CLIS group in United Kingdom. This model; has five phases, namely, orientation, elicitation of ideas, restructuring of ideas, application of ideas, and review change in ideas

a. Orientation: This phase is to generate interest and create learning situations
b. Elicitation of Ideas: This phase entails asking pupil’s questions to enable the teacher and pupils to realize alternative frameworks or preconceptions.
c. Restructuring of Ideas: if teachers find that the pupils have alternative frameworks, there is a need to change their existing conceptions. Teachers can do this by:
1. Asking pupils to clarify and exchange ideas (ask pupils to identify critically their own ideas)
2. Exposing pupils to conflicting situations (to check the validity of the pupils’ ideas)
3. Asking pupils to construct new ideas, and
4. Asking pupils to evaluate their newly generated ideas

d. Application of Ideas: This phase involves reinforcement of the ideas that have been built in different situations
e. Review Change in Ideas: Pupils are asked to reflect on their new ideas and how they relate to their old ideas, and what it was that made them change their ideas.

2. Five Es – proposed by the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study (BSCS) team. It has five phases namely, Engage, Explore, explain, Elaborate, and Evaluate


3. Generative Learning Model – the Learning in science Project (LISP) at the University of Waikato, New Zealand, used this model proposed y the team members, Osborne and Freyberg in 1985. This model is centrally concerned with clarifying the students’ existing views and consolidating the scientific views with the background experience and values of the students. There are four phases, namely, preliminary, focus, challenge, and application.
a. Preliminary: In this phase, the teacher ascertains students’ views, classifies these and seeks scientific views. Teachers can discuss early ideas of scientists in explaining certain phenomena and show pupils why the early ides were disputed.
b. Focus: The teacher establishes a context. Asks open-ended personally-oriented questions and interprets students’ response. This phase also involves activities focusing on the explanation of phenomena or scientific terms.
c. Challenge: Teacher facilitates exchange of views. Ensures all views are considered. Keep the discussion open and suggest demonstrative procedures. Presents evidence from scientist’s views. Accepts the tentative nature of students’ reaction to new view.
d. Application: Assists students to clarify new view. Students solve practical problems using the concepts as a basis. Ensures students can verbally describe solutions to problems.

4. Interactive Learning Model – developed by the “Making Sense of the World” project by Biddulp and Osborne in 1984. This model requires the teacher to take into account the students’ prior knowledge and their questions. From the questions that arise, students are to plan and carry out own investigations, verify scientific concepts and critically evaluate findings. There are 7 phases in this model, namely; preparation, before views, exploratory activities, students’ questions, investigations, after views, and reflection.

a. Preparation: Teacher discusses with the class the topic, possible investigations, gather references, etc.
b. Before Views: Individuals, groups, or class give opinions about the topic. Various tools such as concept mapping and post box techniques can be applied to elicit students’ knowledge.
c. Exploratory Activities: Class conducts activities to explore the topic. Teacher clarifies the topic so that everyone communicates at same frequency level.
d. Students’ Questions: Teacher challenges students to ask questions. Students need to consider other students’ questions before investigating. Teacher helps to analyze relevant and irrelevant questions.
e. Investigations: Teacher selects relevant questions for investigations. Guide students to devise and conduct investigations. Challenge students to consider other aspects of the topic in more depth and formulate more questions.
f. After Views: Students report findings and present any further questions. Teacher compiles and compare after views with before views. Ask students to state how their views changed.
g. Reflection: Students establish what has been verified and which aspects need further investigation. Ask students how they feel about the sessions.
What are some critical perspectives?
Constructivism has been criticized on various grounds. Some of the charges that critics level against it are:
1. It's elitist. Critics say that constructivism and other "progressive" educational theories have been most successful with children from privileged backgrounds who are fortunate in having outstanding teachers, committed parents, and rich home environments. They argue that disadvantaged children, lacking such resources, benefit more from more explicit instruction.
2. Social constructivism leads to "group think." Critics say the collaborative aspects of constructivist classrooms tend to produce a "tyranny of the majority," in which a few students' voices or interpretations dominate the group's conclusions, and dissenting students are forced to conform to the emerging consensus.
3. There is little hard evidence that constructivist methods work. Critics say that constructivists, by rejecting evaluation through testing and other external criteria, have made themselves unaccountable for their students' progress. Critics also say that studies of various kinds of instruction -- in particular Project Follow Through 1, a long-term government initiative -- have found that students in constructivist classrooms lag behind those in more traditional classrooms in basic skills.
Constructivists counter that in studies where children were compared on higher-order thinking skills, constructivist students seemed to outperform their peers.
What are the benefits of constructivism?
1. Children learn more, and enjoy learning more when they are actively involved, rather than passive listeners.
2. Education works best when it concentrates on thinking and understanding, rather than on rote memorization. Constructivism concentrates on learning how to think and understand.
3. Constructivist learning is transferable. In constructivist classrooms, students create organizing principles that they can take with them to other learning settings.
4. Constructivism gives students ownership of what they learn, since learning is based on students' questions and explorations, and often the students have a hand in designing the assessments as well. Constructivist assessment engages the students' initiatives and personal investments in their journals, research reports, physical models, and artistic representations. Engaging the creative instincts develops students' abilities to express knowledge through a variety of ways. The students are also more likely to retain and transfer the new knowledge to real life.
5. By grounding learning activities in an authentic, real-world context, constructivism stimulates and engages students. Students in constructivist classrooms learn to question things and to apply their natural curiosity to the world.
6. Constructivism promotes social and communication skills by creating a classroom environment that emphasizes collaboration and exchange of ideas. Students must learn how to articulate their ideas clearly as well as to collaborate on tasks effectively by sharing in group projects. Students must therefore exchange ideas and so must learn to "negotiate" with others and to evaluate their contributions in a socially acceptable manner. This is essential to success in the real world, since they will always be exposed to a variety of experiences in which they will have to cooperate and navigate among the ideas of others.


B. Inquiry-Based Science
1. Inquiry refers to a way of questioning, seeking knowledge or information, or finding out about phenomena
2. a step beyond “science as a process “ in which students learn skills such as observation, inference, and experimentation.
3. includes the “processes of science” and requires that students combine processes and scientific knowledge as they use scientific reasoning and critical thinking to develop their understanding of science.
Engaging in inquiry helps students to develop:
4. Understanding of scientific concepts
5. An appreciation of “how we know” what we know in science
6. Understanding of the nature of science
7. Skills necessary to become independent inquirers about the natural world
8. The dispositions to use the skills, abilities, and attitudes associated with science
Characteristics of Inquiry Process
1. observation: asking the right questions is a crucial aspect
2. measurement: quantitative description of objects and phenomena
3. experimentation : to test questions and ideas; involves questions, observations and measurements
4. communication: communicating results is an obligation of the scientist; values of independent thinking and truthfulness in reporting results
5. mental processes: include inductive reasoning, formulating hypotheses and theories, deductive reasoning, analogy, extrapolation, synthesis and evaluation
also the use of imagination and intuition
Some challenging problems
1. How did life originate on earth?
2. What will the consequences if earth’s average temperature continue to rise?
3. How can AIDS be prevented?
4. What is the effect of diet and exercise on the circulatory system?
5. What solid waste products are the most environmentally hazardous?
6. What resources are most critically in short supply?


C. Interweaving of Assessment and Instruction
1. We believe the primary purpose of classroom assessment is to inform teaching and improve learning, not to sort and select students or to justify a grade.”
(Jay MCtighe and Steven Ferrara)
2. We need to assess reasoning, not recall. Assessment should include challenging tasks without obvious answers. They should be embedded in a real-life context, unlike tests of isolated skills. Of prime importance is the need to collect information on how students approach a problem ( and how students transfer information to other situations and context).”
Classroom assessment is the process of …
a. gathering,
b. recording,
c. interpreting,
d. using and
e. communicating information about a
f. child’s progress and achievement during the development of knowledge, concepts, skills and attitudes.

Student Competencies/Outcomes to be Assessed
1. Knowledge – conceptual, declarative: The big ideas; essential questions; dealing with the whole; the content standards and key understanding of a topic or content/learning area.
2. Knowledge – skills, procedural: Understanding and use of skills, the steps or parts of concept, such as reading a map or computing an answer.
3. Learning Processes: Critical, creative, and reflective thinking skills; group and interactive learning skills; how one takes on a task and works through it to gain insights and learning.
4. Attitudes, Dispositions, Habits of Mind, Work Habits: Values toward learning and identification of self as a learner; having a disposition, desire to learn; using positive attitudes toward working, thinking, or learning such as curiosity, independence, managing time, persistence.
5. Learning Products: Products developed by groups or individuals to demonstrate conceptual, procedural, learning processes and attitudes and work habits of learning.

Authentic assessment
1. if it directly measures learning, based on students’ performances or products indicative of their understandings of their understandings of the complexity of the tasks they have undertaken.
2. requires students to construct responses or to perform tasks that requires much more than the recall of factual information or concepts.

Methods of Authentic Assessment
a. Use of open-ended response exercises
b. Extended tasks or assignments
c. Performance assessments
d. Portfolio assessment
e. Exhibitions
f. Performance assessment involves observing and assessing behavior while it is under way. It requires students to actually demonstrate proficiency rather than to answer questions about proficiency ( Kane, Crooks, & Cohen, 1999).

Performance-based assessment
refers to assessment activities that directly assess students’ understanding and proficiency.
These assessments allow students to construct a response, create a product, or perform a demonstration to show what they understand and can do.
Performance tasks are the exercises or assignments we give students to do; students’ performance of the tasks is what we assess.
Tasks vary in many ways, such as the number of right answers, use of manipulatives, required response mode, length and complexity, amount of group work, timing, and amount of student choice
Performance tasks are the exercises or assignments we give students to do; students’ performance of the tasks is what we assess.
Tasks vary in many ways, such as the number of right answers, use of manipulatives, required response mode, length and complexity, amount of group work, timing, and amount of student choice.
There are two major ways students perform tasks – with and without the use of manipulative or equipment (also called “hands on “learning).
Hands-on tasks contrast with assessments that call on students to use paper and pencil to manipulate symbols, draw pictures, and calculate, and so on.
Rubrics for Authentic and Performance Assessments
Students can hit any target that they can see and that holds still for them.

- Richard Stiggins
Rubric is an established set of criteria for scoring or rating students’ performance on tasks.

Good rubrics consist of a fixed measurement scale (e.g. 4-point) a description of the characteristics of products or performance being measured for each score point, and sample responses (anchors) that illustrate the various levels of performance (J. A. Arter and R.E. Blum, 1996).
An analytic rubric defines the dimensions of performance for each criterion.
A separate score or point is given for each dimension. Students receive separate scores for different components being considered in the rubric. Students’ composite scores are the total of these scores.

Holistic rubric provides a single score based on the overall impact of the student’s output.
It does not list separate levels of performance for each criterion.
Students are given a single score.
This single score reflects how a student performs in all the criteria combined.
The Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) 2003 is the third comparison of mathematics and science achievement carried out since 1995 by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA), an international organization of national research institutions and governmental research agencies.

The Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) is a system of international assessments that measures 15-year-olds’ capabilities in reading literacy, mathematics literacy, and science literacy every 3 years. PISA was first implemented in 2000 and is carried out by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), an intergovernmental organization of industrialized countries.

PISA also measures general or cross-curricular competencies such as learning strategies. In this second cycle, PISA 2003, mathematics literacy was the subject area assessed in depth, along with the new cross-curricular area of problem solving. Major findings for 2003 in mathematics literacy and problem solving are provided here, as well as brief discussions of student performance in reading literacy and science literacy and changes in performance between 2000 and 2003.

Reading literacy is:
An individual's capacity to understand, use and reflect on written texts, in order to achieve one's goals, to develop one's knowledge and potential and to participate in society.

Mathematics literacy is:
An individual's capacity to identify and understand the role that mathematics plays in the world, to make well-founded judgments and to use and engage with mathematics in ways that meet the needs of that individual's life as a constructive, concerned and reflective citizen.

Science literacy is:
The capacity to use scientific knowledge, to identify questions and to draw evidence-based conclusions in order to understand and help make decisions about the natural world and the changes made to it through human activity.
43 countries participated in PISA 2000 assessment, 41 countries participated in the PISA 2003 assessment, and 56 countries are participating in the PISA 2006 assessment

The Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) is an international comparative study of the reading literacy of young students. PIRLS studies the reading achievement and reading behaviors and attitudes of fourth-grade students in the United States and students in the equivalent of fourth grade in other participating countries.

PIRLS was first administered in 2001 and included 35 countries, and was administered again in 2006 to students in 45 education systems (including countries and subnational education systems, such as Canadian provinces and Hong Kong, a Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China). The next PIRLS is scheduled for 2011. PIRLS is coordinated by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA).

D. Cooperative Learning
1. Is an approach to teaching in which groups of students work together to solve problems and complete learning tasks, assignments and goals.
2. Some models delineate how tasks are structured and how groups are evaluated.
Students may work together in groups on a single task; or group members work independently on one aspect of a task, pooling their work when they finish.

5 Elements
1. Face-to-face interaction: students in small heterogeneous groups encourage students to help, share, and support each other’s learning
2. Positive interdependence: assigning each person a role in the group or a team completes one lab report and everyone signs in agreement
3. Individual accountability: each member must be held accountable for learning and collaborating with other team members
4. Cooperative social skills : interpersonal skills such as active listening, staying on tasks, asking questions, making sure everyone contributes, using agreement, etc.
5. Group processing: students reflect on how well they worked together as a team to complete a task ( how ell they did in the activity or how well they “practiced” the social skills

E. Technology Integration
Integrating technology with teaching means the use of learning technologies to introduce, reinforce, supplement and extend skills . . .
1. In the exemplary classrooms, student use of computers is woven integrally into the patterns of teaching; software is a natural extension of student tools. . .
2. technology can be considered as being integrated only if it is used in a seamless manner as part of the daily learning process that takes place in classrooms.
3. It should not be considered as a separate activity that can be completed apart from the learning process in classrooms.
4. From an educator’s point of view, then the function of IT in schools is not primarily to promote computer literacy, or because technology is the “wave of the future”, or because it will be “good for students” to use computers once in a while.
5. Rather, the function of technology in schools is to enhance teaching and learning. Using technology in any other way is not true integration.
6. integration consists of using technology to promote students’ learning by challenging them with complex and authentic tasks, worked in a collaborative environment where technology is used to furnish students with information to support their inquiry and investigation process.