Archived Information

State of the Art: Science - September 1993

image omitted Exploration, dialogue, and discourse promote understanding.

As Socrates well understood, learning is more likely to change through dialogue and reflection than through lecture and imposition. 
                                                 (Kober, 1993)
Not only do children need to amass direct experience with natural phenomena, they also need time to accommodate their experience by talking about it with their classmates and their teachers. 
                (The National Center for Improving Science Education, 1989)
Learning is interactive and occurs in a social context. The vision is to transform the classroom into a learning community where ideas are shared, evidence is used to strengthen ideas, and there is willingness to change ideas through exploration, dialogue, and discourse.

Teachers should provide students with many opportunities to explore scientific phenomena, using examples from their everyday experience. Exploration allows students to "play" with materials and ideas in open discussion with others. Through exploration students apply their naive understandings and develop explanations by experimenting. It is also a way for students to confront their misunderstandings.

Teachers organize the classroom and set the social norms of discourse to help students develop understanding from experience with materials in the classroom as well as from their out-of-school experiences. As one science educator described it: "There must be opportuity for independent exploration, as well as guided group activity, for quiet reflection and for animated discussion. Small group work enables every individual to participate fully in activities and discussion, and allows children to develop leadership skills, to learn from one another, and to take intellectual risks" (Bird, 1992). Research on cooperative learning indicates several positive effects of small group, student involved or led, hands-on science lessons. However, for small group cooperative learning the teacher must carefully plan the learning environment; " ... it takes time and practice for teachers to become skilled in its use" (Blosser, 1992). Large group work brings students together to share a variety of ideas similar to professional scientists collaborating on an investigation. Through a combination of large group and small group work the teacher designs the classroom environment to promote experiential learning.

Discussion among a small group of students or between student and teacher, and the framing of ideas and arguments to support a particular point of view, is an important strategy for developing students' conceptual understanding. Every effort should be made to have children ask questions and then use their questions to further their investigation. By posing questions, teachers may assist children to confront their assumptions and lead them to follow new paths of inquiry.
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[Hands-on, inquiry-based science instruction is well established as an effective teaching strategy.] [Table of Contents] [Instruction should focus on the essential key concepts or ideas of science in the overfull science curriculum and on teaching them more effectively.]