Teaching Science for Motivation and Understanding

1. Teaching Science for Motivation and Understanding Discussion with Knowles Fellows November, 2003 Andy Anderson and Gail Richmond

2. Issues You Would Like to Discuss

3. Watching Jim Minstrell Teach about Newton’s Laws of Motion • What do you notice that would cause you to change your answers to some of the questions about moving objects? • What did you notice that would cause you to change or add to your answers to questions about problems of practice? • What did Jim Minstrell need to know in order to teach this way?

4. Problems of Practicein Science Teaching • Science content: Goals and activities for student learning • Students and assessment • Classroom learning environments and teaching strategies • Professional resources and relationships

5. Niels Bohr on Scientific Reasoning The task of science is both to extend our experience and reduce it to order, and this task represents various aspects, inseparably connected with each other. Only by experience itself do we come to recognize those laws which grant us a comprehensive view of the diversity of phenomena. As our knowledge becomes wider we must always be prepared, therefore, to expect alterations in the points of view best suited for the ordering of our experience.

6. Deepest scientific theories Sense Experience Extending experience Reducing experience to order Extending Experience and Reducing It to Order Pursuing the “turtles all the way down”

7. Piaget on Children’s First Inquiry: Developing a “Theory of Objects” • Babies: Selective attention to faces, motion, unusual stimuli; no continuing interest when something disappears from view • Peek-a-boo: Experience with objects disappearing and reappearing; encouraging adults to play • Hide and seek: Finding hidden objects • Object permanence as eventual outcome

8. Piaget on Conservation of Liquids • Extending experience by pouring liquids from one container to another • Early focus on only width or depth: More liquid in deeper container • Later: coordinating thinking about width and depth • Final: conservation of liquids; volume is always the same regardless of container

9. Edge of accepted experience Deepest scientific theories Sense Experience Extending experience Reducing experience to order Experientially Real Objects, Systems, and Phenomena Experiences taken for granted as “real” Explanations for those experiences

10. Development of Knowledge • Extending experience: Adding to our stock of “experientially real” objects, systems, and phenomena • Adding new sense experiences • Adding vicarious sense experiences (e.g., pictures, video) • Adding believable, experientially real data (e.g., measurements, carefully recorded observations) • Reducing experience to order: Developing new and better models and theories • Conceptual change: Replacing old theories with new ones that account for more data • Converting previous “theories” to taken-for-granted experientially real objects, systems, phenomena (e.g., existence of objects, conservation of liquid volume)

11. Why Extending Our Experience and Reducing It to Order Isn’t Always Science Multiple Sense-making Strategies

12. What Counts as Experientially Real? • Everyday judgments: Seeing (or hearing, touching, feeling) is believing • Vividness and immediacy of experience • Confirmation by peer group • Scientific judgments: Creating data from experience • Reproducibility • Precision • Provenance of records • Confirmation by skeptical observers

13. Times When Everyday and Scientific Judgments Differ • Rumors • News, history • Religious experience • Data collected with complicated instruments • Data presented in difficult-to-understand formats

14. What Counts as aGood Model or Theory? • Procedural display: Whatever it takes to get a good grade • Practical reasoning: Whatever it takes to get practical results (including inventing things) • Narrative/metaphorical reasoning: Stories or metaphors that bring coherence to our experiences (including news, history) • Model-based reasoning: Models that account for all relevant data in testable, parsimonious ways • “Unbroken chain of connections” from data to models • Consistency with other models and theories

15. Model-based Reasoning:Scientific Inquiry and Application

16. Content Example:Newton’s Laws What does it mean to “understand” Newton’s Laws?

17. Historical Sense-making Strategies for Explaining Motion • Aristotle, Ptolemy, and Aquinas • Setting the stage for Galileo: Impetus theorists and Copernicus • Galileo • Newton

18. Aristotle, Ptolemy, and Aquinas • Practical reasoning: Moving objects with simple machines, throwing,pushing, bows and arrows • Narrative reasoning: Where and why do objects move • Animate objects (animals) move on their own • Natural motion: Inanimate objects tend toward their own spheres (earth, water, air, fire) • Violent motion: Animals can impart motion to inanimate objects • Heavenly objects are kept in motion by the Prime Mover • Aquinas: Prime Mover is Christian God • Model-based reasoning: Ptolemaic system explains motions of sun, moon, planets

19. Setting the stage for Galileo • Practical reasoning: Siege engines (catapults, trebuchets, cannon); accuracy depends on direction and speed (not just personal skill) • Narrative reasoning: Protestant reformation emphasizes personal God rather than distant Prime Mover • Model-based reasoning: Copernicus suggests sun-centered model that fits observations better

20. Galileo • Practical reasoning: Inventing better telescopes, measuring speed and direction of rolling and falling objects • Narrative reasoning: • Challenging Ptolemy and Aquinas: Copernicus’ model is true, not just way to calculate positions • Telescopic observations of corruptible heavens • Model-based reasoning: Mathematical predictions of speed of falling objects

21. Newton • Practical reasoning: Mathematical predictions of trajectories (models improve practical reasoning rather than the other way around) • Narrative reasoning: • Anti-Trinitarian Biblical text criticism: God does not intervene in everyday events • Newton’s apple: The apple and the moon are following the same laws • Model-based reasoning: Newton’s Laws of motion and universal gravitation

22. Traditional wording Every object continues in a state of rest, or of motion in a straight line at a constant speed, unless it is compelled to change that state by unbalanced forces exerted on it. Contrasting Newton and Aristotle Motion doesn’t need to be explained, only changes in speed or direction (velocity). Necessity: No forces or balanced forces always mean no change in speed or direction, and vice versa. Newton’s First Law

23. Traditional wording The acceleration produced by a net force on an object is directly proportional to the magnitude of the net force, is in the same direction as the net force, and is inversely proportional to the mass of the object (F = ma). Contrasting Newton and Aristotle Forces do not cause motion. Instead they cause acceleration, or change in speed or direction (i.e., velocity). Newton’s Second Law

24. Traditional wording For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Contrasting Newton and Aristotle Forces always come in pairs. When A exerts a force on B, B exerts an equal and opposite force on A. This does not mean that the forces on A or B are balanced. Newton’s Third Law

25. Aristotelian and Newtonian Answers to Questions • Book on the table • Aristotelian: Table blocks book from falling • Newtonian: Table exerts an upward force that balances the downward force of gravity • Coin in the air • Aristotelian: Coin’s upward flight is sustained by a “force from the hand” • Newtonian: Continuing upward motion doesn’t need to be explained. Unbalanced force of gravity slows the coin down.

26. Aristotelian and Newtonian Answers to Questions (cont) • Cart at constant velocity • Aristotelian: Continued motion requires continued force • Newtonian: Net force is 0 for motion at constant speed and direction • Accelerating cart • Aristotelian: Increasing motion requires increasing force • Newtonian: F = ma. Constant acceleration requires a constant net force

27. Problems of Practicein Science Teaching • Science content: Goals and activities for student learning • Students and assessment • Classroom learning environments and teaching strategies • Professional resources and relationships

28. Purposes for Classroom Assessment • Understanding your students • Helping your students to assess and improve their own understanding • Grading

29. Criteria for Assessments that Help You Understand Students • Connection to goals: The questions address important objectives you have for student learning • Interesting wrong answers: Even incorrect answers reveal students' thinking • Insight into students’ sense-making: The students’ answers help you understand how they make sense of the world, not just where their knowledge of science is weak. • Starting a dialogue with students: The questions help you to start discussions with students where they can compare their ideas with scientific ideas.

30. Types of questions that produce interesting wrong answers

31. Backwards reasoning • If --- is the answer, then what was the question? • What question were scientists trying to answer: • …when they discovered photosynthesis? (e.g., why do plants need light?) • …when they discovered atomic theory (e.g., why do elements always combine in certain proportions?)

32. Familiar situations • Getting students’ theories about familiar examples. • What are the forces on a coin flipped into the air? • Are your eyes the same color as your mother’s? How do you think that happened? • What’s inside the bubbles of boiling water?

33. Connecting different representations • Seeing what happens when students represent the same example in different ways. • Draw a picture of what is happening to the atoms of NaCl as solid salt dissolves in water. • Show how the light rays travel that enable a person to see a tree as she looks out the window.

35. Short answer + explanation • Ask students to make a choice or draw arrows, then explain their reasoning. • Does food normally move up or down a plant’s stem? Explain your reasoning. • Will the “ashes” left after magnesium burns weigh more or less than the original metal? Explain your reasoning.

36. Use misconceptions research • Ask questions that will reveal common misconceptions (as reported in research). • What question would reveal a belief that liquids disappear when they evaporate? • What questions would reveal a belief that plants get their food from the soil? • What question would reveal a belief that the phases of the moon are caused by the earth’s shadow?

37. Comparing examples or concepts • Ask students to compare and contrast different real world examples or familiar terms • heat vs. temperature • force vs. momentum • Current vs.voltage • Green plants vs. fungi • Volcanoes vs. other mountains

38. Critique of suggested responses • Ask students whether they agree or disagree with responses that reveal misconceptions, and why. • My friend says that sunlight is food for plants. Do you agree? Why or why not? • My friend says that when water evaporates, the water vapor weighs just as much as the liquid water. Do you agree? Why or why not?

39. Teaching Newton’s Laws to (Aristotelian) High School Students • Describing motion: Focusing on speed and direction rather than destination and reason for motion • Negotiating standards for what counts as evidence (“experientially real”) • Extending experience: Collecting data in situations where Aristotle’s rules break down • Questioning students’ narrative and practical knowledge • Model-based reasoning: Finding consistent, parsimonious explanations that fit all the data • Quantitative rigor: Using models to make precise, quantitative predictions

40. Watching Jim Minstrell Teach Again How does he address each of the challenges to his students’ learning with understanding?

41. Problems of Practicein Science Teaching • Science content: Goals and activities for student learning • Students and assessment • Classroom learning environments and teaching strategies • Professional resources and relationships

42. Approaches to Teaching Science (from Mark Olson) Carol: Science Curriculum as a Progression of Models Jennifer: Science Curriculum as “Chapters in the Story” Example Bar magnets Electromagnets Example Example Magnetic Induction Example Ferromagnetism Magnetic Domains Example Problems with Carol’s approach: oversimplified models leaves out the good part not part of Kuhn’s normal science Problems with Jennifer’s Approach: students can only tell story no model-based reasoning students forget what they studied

43. General Teaching Strategies • Covering content: Telling the story with examples and expecting students to tell it back (Jennifer’s approach) • Leads to narrative understanding or procedural display • Learning cycles focusing on application of model-based reasoning (Carol’s approach) • Inquiry cycles focusing on developing new models through reasoning about data (Minstrell’s approach)

44. Classroom Environments for Learning and Inquiry Cycles • Personal and emotional safety for students, including moderate levels of risk and ambiguity • Motivating students to learn: Expectancy times value • Social norms for participation and communication

45. Model-based Reasoning:Scientific Inquiry and Application

46. Learning Cycles

47. Transfer of Responsibility in the Learning Cycle

48. Stages in the Learning Cycle • Establishing the problem: Connecting with prior knowledge and establishing motivation to learn • Modeling: Exposing learners to comprehensible models of good practice • Coaching: Providing opportunities for practice with scaffolding or support • Fading: Gradually removing support until learners engage in the practice independently • Maintenance: Continuing practice after initial learning is over

49. Prerequisites for Successful Learning Cycles (Focused on Application) • Model or theory that you want students to be able to apply • Set of real-world examples • Pattern for students to follow in applying theory to examples

50. Important Points about Learning Cycles • Assessing student thinking. Include embedded assessment that will help you and your students understand their ideas and practices—both correct and incorrect. • Keeping the objective whole. Students work through several examples where they see or do the whole task. • Learning as transfer of responsibility. Students take more responsibility for doing the task. • Scaffolding is temporary. Learning cycles are complete when students can accomplish the objective on their own.