Teaching Science Methods

[Tamar Cunha]

Hi. I come to science teaching from a research background, not an education background, so one thing I struggle with is how to teach the practice of science that to me is second nature. Does anyone have useful ways of teaching lab notebook skills or analytical thinking skills or good reading skills that can be incorporated into lessons on various topics?
Thanks in advance!

[Sean Nash]

Hey Tamar... glad to have you. Your post immediately made me think of a seventh grade classroom taught by a friend of mine, and fellow instructional coach, Terri Johnson. She is a middle school science teacher and coach who writes a brand new blog called "Thinkin' Thoughts." Check out her post on moving her science notebooking practice from paper to the web...

[Terri Johnson]

Hi Tamar! One idea I always keep in the back of my mind when I teach is the idea of gradual release of learning. There's a good article in the November 08 issue of Educational Leadership called Releasing Responsibility by Fisher and Frey. For example, we always need a good model when we start learning how to do something new. For those new to social networking, Sean and his cohorts modeled the use of this site for others to follow. As time goes on, we won't need the model--a releasing of responsibility. The same is true when looking at notebook skills, etc.

[Gwen Noda]

So maybe you want to try doing some nature of science activities to develop critical/analytical thinking skills?

I really like some of the activities in this book: Teaching about Evolution and the Nature of Science
National Academy of Sciences, National Academy Press, Washington, DC
ISBN: 0-309-06364-7

It is here on amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Teaching-About-Evolution-Nature-Science/dp/03...

It doesn't look searchable on amazon, so I'll to summarize...
Chapter 1: Why Teach Evolution?
Chapter 2: Major Themes in Evolution
Chapter 3: Evolution an the Nature of Science
Chapter 4: Evolution and the National Science Education Standards
Chapter 5: Frequently Asked Questions About Evolution and the Nature of Science
Chapter 6: Activities for Teaching About Evolution and the Nature of Science
Chapter 7: Selecting Instructional Materials

There are two activities I did from Ch 6 with middle school teachers and they really liked them and thought they would use them with their students.

The first activity just gets everyone thinking "Activity 1: Introducing Inquiry and the Nature of Science".
You create a cube and put information on 6 sides (given in the book), but only show 5 sides to your students. They have to figure out what is on the hidden side based on what they know about the other 5 sides. It's much more engaging then it sounds in print! :) You actually can start with dice, if you want to start off very basic. They should be able to figure out what is on the hidden side based on what they already know. Then you use the cube given in the book, which has the faces of the cube as different colors, it has people's names, and a pair of numbers. Students are suppose to figure out what name, which two numbers, and what color are on the hidden face. Then you have your students design their own cube, hide one side and see if anyone can figure out what is on that side.

The other activity I like (and this has more to do with science!) is "Activity 5: Proposing Explanations for Fossil Footprints". This is based on fossil dinosaur footprints found and uncovered. So you have an 8.5" x 11" of footprints on a transparency (given in the book), but you only show one third of the page and ask your students what they see, what do they think happened. Then you reveal another third so that they see 2/3rds of the page and then have them describe what they see now and how does that add to or change their interpretation of the data. Then you show them the whole page and ask again.

I have not done the other activities in the book, but these two were well received.

Another lesson plan that has a similar pattern of starting with some data, doing some analysis, then adding more data and rethinking, is this one: Xenosmilus
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/education/lessons/xenosmilus/xenosmilu...
This went over well with those same middle school teachers.

I hope that's helpful...

[J. Gudelsky]

Wow, Gwen, I love the sounds of these activities! They sound so engaging while asking students to think. Are you aware of any others/other books that have similar ones not necessarily related to evolution?

Judy

[Gwen Noda]

Sorry for the very delayed response!

I am looking for another lesson that was done with bank checks. There are maybe 30 bank checks written by one person for various needs in life... groceries, library overdue book fees, car payments, baby clothes, etc. And you give 3 bank checks to each group and they have to develop a story/tell what they think happened from that information - also note that there are dates on the checks and the name and address in the upper left hand corner changes over time... Then you add a few more checks and a few more, each time having your students see what edits they would make to their stories. You can use the same set of checks for each group of students, but give them a different assortment of checks... you can have groups compare stories - they'll have different things to say based on which part of the "data set" they get... even though the entire data set is the same... just depends on which part of the data set you get which influences the story you come up with.
So anyway, I've seen this lesson done, but still haven't figured out where it is written up! Does anyone know?

Also, you can give students a few pieces of a jigsaw puzzle (withOUT the box cover that would have the finished photo of the puzzle!). Have them see if they can figure out what it is a picture of. Add a few more pieces, have them reassess their guess. You don't need to give them all the puzzle pieces by the end of the lesson.

Hope that helps.

----
Thanks Maren for finding the link to the book online.

[Maren Johnson]

This book is actually legitimately available for free online. Here it is:

http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=5787&page=1