Learning and Teaching - Integrated Science Curriculum and Assessment Guide (Secondary 4

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Chapter 4 Learning and Teaching

The following sections outline the current view of knowledge in science and how students learn. Based on these, learning and teaching approaches and strategies and the establishment of a learning environment conducive to promoting student learning are discussed.

4.2 Knowledge and Learning

4.2.1 Views of knowledge in science

Science is not just a body of conceptual and theoretical knowledge, but a creative endeavour by scientists to understand phenomena in Nature. Scientific knowledge is generated through scientists’ insightful observations and systematic inquiry. The community of science allows scientists to exchange their findings and thoughts, and to review and assess the conclusions of others. An understanding of science, therefore, requires an appreciation of its history and development, an understanding of the nature and methods of science, the development of a certain level of expertise in scientific inquiry, and the acquisition of scientific knowledge. So, on the one hand, students have to acquire a collection of well-established facts, strict definitions and non-negotiable rules (e.g. safety procedures) and algorithms (e.g. symbols, conventions and certain experimental procedures) – and on the other to develop the sort of thinking and methodology through which the knowledge of science is generated.

Science requires creativity and personal involvement, and is constructed by a community of people. Theories are not out there simply waiting to be discovered by observing Nature; they are human constructions and shape the way in which we observe the world. Being introduced into the scientific community requires that students learn something about scientific discourse. It is important that learning activities help students to think, talk and write about science, so that they gain the vocabulary, syntax, and rhetoric – the discourse – needed to understand the knowledge structures associated with the subject.

4.2.2 Views of learning

The provision of a learning environment, which takes account of the characteristics of the students, is of paramount importance. Below are some current understanding of how students learn in science, and how we can help them to learn more effectively:

• Learning science involves being introduced to the ways of thinking and communicating used in the scientific community. These are based on particular

• The development of intellectual competence requires more than the accumulation of discrete pieces of information. The content in a domain of knowledge is embedded in coherent structures; and the ability to discern and build on those structures is what distinguishes experts from novices. It is important to promote an holistic view of science. Unifying concepts and the nature of science are introduced in the Integrated Science curriculum to familiarise students with the structure of the knowledge in the area. Helping students to recognise and build on this structure can promote transfer of learning to new situations.

• Students come to school with preconceptions about how the world works. If that initial understanding is not engaged, students may be unable to grasp new information and concepts; or they may just learn them for the purpose of passing tests, but fail to integrate the new information into their framework of existing knowledge and apply it, so making it their own. It is important to find out what constitutes a student’s understanding about the world and help them move to a more sophisticated level of understanding.

• Active learning also involves students in doing science – identifying problems, framing questions and working with the teacher as a consultant to explore, and develop possible solutions. Students should be encouraged to carry out scientific inquiries by themselves, and the problems to be investigated should relate to what they wish to know about or solve. Students should shape the questions themselves so that the investigations become their tasks – in this way, they feel in control of their learning and more fully involved in it.

• Science learning originates in interaction. Language is central to teaching and learning science. Language provides the means by which new ideas are first introduced and rehearsed, and the tools for student thinking: ‘scientific talk’

provides the conceptual tools for ‘thinking about science’. One way of facilitating learning is to adopt more group-based approaches. Group work creates a forum for challenge, debate and the construction of meaning. It also leads to the expression of alternative views about phenomena and issues.

Current theories of learning and science education suggest that knowledge is not merely actively built by the learner working alone, but requires the co-construction of meaning in a community. The establishment of a learning environment that is open and supportive, with the teacher as a consultant, helps students to put together conceptual frameworks and develop their own understanding of the world around them.

4.3 Approaches and Strategies

Different students have different abilities and learning styles and so no single teaching approach can meet all their needs. The following approaches are commonly used in the science classrooms and can complement each other:

• Teaching as direct instruction

Teaching as direct instruction is linked with a belief in learning as a faithful reproduction of knowledge input. To gain the full benefits from direct instruction, quality teacher talk and interaction with the students (including questioning and providing feedback) are essential to ensure that students understand and can express the knowledge that has been transmitted. This approach is also relevant to contexts in which the teacher, as the expert in scientific skills, acts as the transmitter of knowledge or as a model for students to follow.

• Teaching as inquiry

Teaching as inquiry derives from the belief that learning is best brought about by student inquiry. It is manifested in activities in which students undertake inquiry to develop knowledge and understanding, in order to make better sense of the world.

Students may inquire into a phenomenon through ‘hands-on’ investigation in which they identify questions, formulate procedures, test hypotheses, gather and analyse data, and draw conclusions. Or they may examine second-hand information to identify facts and inferences, clarify cause-and-effect relationships and develop their own understanding of an issue.

• Teaching as co-construction

Teaching as co-construction is linked to the belief that learning is best seen as a social act involving co-construction of knowledge in a group, rather than transmission from teacher to student, or acquisition through individual student inquiry. Students learn by constructing knowledge through interaction with their peers and teachers. Through co-construction, students are enabled to develop social skills and abilities, to organise their thoughts, and to develop rational arguments. Teachers are partners in students’ learning. Through providing conceptual tools to students (e.g. unifying concepts in science), teachers help them to relate their learning to a framework based on which they can construct new knowledge.

The above three teaching approaches can be viewed as a continuum along which the role of the teacher varies, but is not diminished. Students should be encouraged to become more

In organising the learning and teaching for the Integrated Science curriculum, a teacher should take into account students’ prior knowledge as well as their abilities and learning styles: a variety of learning and teaching activities should be used to meet the different objectives of individual lessons and the needs of different students. The most important guideline for choosing suitable strategies is their ‘fitness for purpose’.

4.3.1 Guiding students into the development of the language of science

Scientists help us to make sense of the natural world by producing objective knowledge about it. The language of science – a tool the scientific community uses for communicating, understanding and developing scientific ideas, concepts and theories – is different from everyday language. There are scientific terms (e.g. gene, molecule, force) that are carefully and unambiguously defined within conceptual structures (e.g. theories and models); and there are symbols and notations designated for specific materials, phenomena and theoretical constructs (e.g. chemical symbols and formulas), and perhaps most importantly there are particular ways of setting out scientific texts that explain how investigations were carried out or that report and explain phenomena. The science teacher and the language teacher should work hand in hand to develop good practices for initiating the students into scientific discourse in both subject areas. The Knowledge Strand in the English curriculum is specifically designed to link with content subjects (such as Integrated Science) across the curriculum.

4.3.2 Promoting a holistic view and understanding of science 4.3.2.1 Engaging students in active learning

Learning requires the active involvement of students in learning tasks arranged by teachers;

and how active they become may be determined in part by their prior knowledge and motivation. Scaffolding, which involves teachers in providing pedagogical support to learners is required when presenting students with a task that is just beyond their reach. In arranging learning tasks for each module, teachers should take into consideration the students’ prior knowledge and skills and tailor the tasks so that they find them challenging and where necessary provide them with scaffolding such as leading questions, guidelines etc.

For example, having learned about how visible light travels and reflects in Secondary 3, students will be eager to participate in investigating how invisible microwaves, which they come across in everyday life, travel and interact with matter (Module C7).

4.3.2.2 Facilitating students’ concept-building

• The abstract nature of scientific concepts makes the learning of science difficult for some students. The use of IT, such as computer simulations and modelling can help students to visualise abstract scientific constructs (e.g. the molecular shape of water in Module C1), and understand scientific concepts and theories (e.g. the surface-atmosphere radiation exchange in Module E1, and the development of drug resistance in Module E2).

• Students’ conceptions about natural phenomena influence their learning, as they build new knowledge and understanding on the basis of what they already know and believe. They formulate new knowledge by modifying and refining their current concepts and by adding new concepts to their existing knowledge. When faced with a scientifically-oriented question, problem, or phenomenon, the teacher should use activities that tap the preconceptions of the learners. For example, before performing the slinky experiments (Module C7), teachers may ask the students to predict what will happen when two pulses of different amplitudes coming from opposite directions meet, and explain their predictions. This engages the students actively in the experiments, as they will be interested in finding out whether their predictions and explanations are correct. The failure of their preconceived ideas in predicting and explaining the phenomenon, and the discovery of an alternative explanation after a scientific inquiry can bring about a conceptual change among the students.

• Learning is mediated through interaction. The learning experiences provided should include opportunities for concept-building by individuals as well as collaborative learning with peers. Teachers can ask students to debate an environmental issue of concern to them, or play the roles of the different parties involved in it (Module C6). In these activities, students have to plan, make use of the resources available to them from various sources, evaluate the information using the scientific knowledge they have learned, employ their inquiry abilities to address the issue, and seek help from one another. In the process, students will come to consolidate their ideas on the issue or develop a new way of thinking about it through exploration and interaction with their classmates. This is conducive to effective learning as students have to reorganise the deep structure of their thinking processes.

• A broad understanding of the main scientific explanations provides a framework for making sense of the world. Learning activities should be arranged in a way which helps students to understand scientific knowledge, not in isolation, but in relation to its unifying concepts. Through such unifying concepts students learn beyond the facts and see an overarching coherence in their understanding of the

students as organised systems maintained by their different components. In such cases, teachers can use a systems analysis approach in designing the learning and teaching activities. That is, activities should be designed to help students to:

identify the components of these systems and their boundaries, and to find out how the components are related and interact to shape the properties of the systems (which may be different from those of individual components) and maintain the proper functioning of the systems. With an understanding of the interactions of the components in the systems, students are able to make informed decisions on, for example, health and environmental issues.

4.3.2.3 Facilitating students’ learning through scientific inquiry

• Scientific inquiry allows scientists to actively create, modify, or discard an explanation for a phenomenon. Students should learn how to carry out scientific inquiry, not just learn about the facts/concepts which are the products of inquiry.

Conceived of in this way, students should be given sufficient opportunities to acquire the science process skills, including, observing, classifying, measuring, handling and equipment apparatus, inferring, predicting, hypothesising, interpreting and analysing, in experimental work in the laboratory. The mastery of these science process skills will enable students to carry out scientific inquiry by themselves.

• Scientists are good models for students, and asking students to repeat the experiments of some scientists helps them to experience the systematic approach scientists used to answer their questions. For example, in Module C5, students may share the curiosity of Oersted when told about his serendipitous discovery that a compass flicked when a current was passed through a wire. In repeating Oersted’s experiments, students work as scientists do – obtaining empirical evidence from experiments, making observations, analysing evidence critically, and making careful inferences conducive to scientific explanations. As some experiments which led to significant discoveries cannot be repeated in school laboratories, asking students to read stories on specific themes is a good strategy. For instance, the story of how the modern atomic model has evolved and how this model contributed to the refinement of the periodic table (Module C4) can enable students to appreciate that the periodic table is a co-constructed product of systematic inquiry by scientists over time.

• Through engaging students in scientific inquiries or exposing them to episodes of history of science, students will develop a better understanding of the nature of science – the values and assumptions inherent to science, scientific knowledge, and the development of scientific knowledge.

4.3.2.4 Promoting scientific attitudes, scientific thinking and the scientific practices

Science education aims at introducing students to the beliefs, practices, values and styles of discourse in the community of scientists, to allow them to participate intelligently in public discourse and debate about important issues that involve science, technology and society. In addition to equipping students with the scientific knowledge to decipher technical articles in journals, magazines and the Internet, learning activities should emphasise the development of logical thinking and help students to be critical about ‘evidence’ and claims in science-related matters.

• A crucial part of science education involves understanding the particular rationality that scientists employ in generating and validating scientific knowledge.

Introducing students to stories of how scientists do science (e.g. Modules C4, C5, C7 and C8) can illustrate the inductive and deductive logic used by scientists to generate scientific knowledge. As a result, students will come to appreciate the tentative nature of scientific knowledge and develop desirable scientific attitudes, such as being critical and yet open to new evidence.

• Students need to practise the use of logic in doing science. They should be provided with opportunities to analyse and make deductions, using the results of investigations of their own or by other scientists. While explaining Mendel’s Laws of Inheritance (Module C8) can help students to understand heredity and variation, it is the ‘hands-on’ experience of analysing empirical data and deducing the Laws that helps to nurture the scientific habit of mind. Also, students will be inspired by Mendel’s creativity in suggesting the Laws of Inheritance well before the existence of genes was realised.

• Science demands and relies on evidence. Students should be given opportunities to evaluate claims and theories suggested by scientists, with evidence, in groups. The discovery of the different elements discussed in Module C4 showed that Thales’s conception of water as the ‘single universal element’ from which all things were constructed was wrong. However, scientists still regard water a very important

‘element’, they now suggest that it is in water that life begins. Through an information search, students can scrutinise the relevant scientific evidence – and, in the light of what they learned about water in Module C1 and the information they have gathered, they can discuss and evaluate the arguments for or against the claim. Through this and similar activities, students’ scientific literacy is enhanced, and they become more capable of analysing science- and technology-related issues before making decisions.

4.3.3 Promoting learning to learn 4.3.3.1 Facilitating self-regulated learning

Effective learning requires that students take control of their own learning. Through scaffolding (such as instructional support and guidance on experimental procedures) provided by the teachers, students are assisted to develop their ability to question, reason and think critically about scientific phenomena. Scaffolding should be removed gradually, with students taking increasing control of their own learning. In Module C2, students are required to construct concept maps to show the mechanisms of body temperature and blood glucose regulation. Teacher assistance is expected when the construction and use of concept maps is first introduced, but this support should be reduced as students progress through the module. For instance, after equipping students with some knowledge on nervous coordination and mental health, the teacher should encourage students to explore the scientific basis of mental illnesses of interest to them. In carrying out such investigations, students should employ a range of approaches and select appropriate reference sources, working both on their own and in collaboration with others. They should also engage in critical evaluation of the evidence they have collected and the conclusions they have drawn. In this way, they will also learn to communicate their ideas clearly and precisely.

4.3.3.2 Preparing students for active participation as citizens

Studying science should not be confined to learning from standard science textbooks. Science topics should be structured in ways which highlight the relevance and meaning of science content to students as citizens. Learning activities should require students to: draw information from sources; employ the skills of carrying out quantitative or qualitative inquiries; report their findings or other information in appropriate ways; and present their conclusions or thoughts for a range of purposes in different contexts, and for a variety of audiences. It is desirable to provide learning experiences which engage students in the following ways:

Drawing upon sources of information, such as:

Using science language for the purposes of:

Presenting information in forms such as:

• Observations

• Experiments

• Textbooks

• Product brochures/