Heddie L. Richards and Dr. Larry St. Clair, Integrative Biology
Integrative Biology 101 is an optional course for preservice elementary education students to improve their science teaching skills. The format of the course allows each student the option to teach a science lesson and participate in a lab directed by the teacher’s assistant (T.A). Each lab follows a ‘cookbook’ style method. The T.A. gives the directions and explains the findings. The purpose of my research was to determine what science teaching methods improved the pre-service elementary school teachers’ attitude and confidence level.
The methods tested were the traditional ‘cookbook’ techniques compared to Inquiry, Constructivism and The Learning Cycle. I believed that students’ confidence in teaching science and their attitudes towards science would improve after being taught through Inquiry, Constructivism and The Learning Cycle. Learning science by Inquiry allows the student to be the scientist and explore by asking questions. Constructivism encourages students to build on knowledge already known (Martin, Sexton & Gerlovich, 2001). The Learning Cycle is a pattern by which learning takes place. It incorporates Inquiry and Constructivism into the following steps: engage, explore, explain, extend and evaluate (Llewellyn, 2002). By following these methods, students remain engaged and are led to answers. Because they discover the answers on their own, they are more meaningful and memorable.
The format of the experiment allowed the students to participate in five labs that followed the direct instruction of ‘cookbook’ method. Students then participated in an anonymous survey (see Appendix A) to assess their attitude towards teaching science and their confidence in teaching science. Following the initial survey, students participated in five labs that incorporated Inquiry, Constructivism and The Learning Cycle. At the end of the course, students were asked to complete the same anonymous survey.
The results were encouraging. The results from the initial and final surveys illustrated that confidence in teaching science increased. In addition, students but felt science was equally important to literacy and numeracy. More specifically, students were able to explain scientific Inquiry. They believed it was important to teach science through Inquiry methods.
My results proved my hypothesis to be correct. However, I did encounter frustrations throughout the research. For example, I was not able to apply for and obtain IRB approval until June 2005. At that time only six students were enrolled in the course. This limited the data that was obtained. I appreciate the experience of writing and administering a survey. I now have a better understanding of survey writing and statistics.
As I taught the labs, I was able to gain a better understanding of science teaching methods. This has improved my teaching skills and I have a desire to use my knowledge in my future classroom. In September I will begin my first year of teaching in an inner city school in Los Angeles. I look forward to using Inquiry, Constructivism and The Learning Cycle in my classroom to promote science education in my diverse classroom.