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posted by:
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Barbara Sullivan
on August 20, 1999
at 11:00AM
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subject:
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have you tried it yourself?
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Thank you for the experiences and insights discussed here - they are vey helpful for putting my own in perspective. My role in the GEMS-Net LSC in Rhode Island is as a co-PI, scientific researcher and parent. While I hold an adjunct faculty position at a university I have done a lot more science than teaching and all the experience with K-8th grade teaching has been in the last 3 years. This may give me a somewhat different perspective to share.
Implementing change to inquiry based teaching in grade 7-8 in our program has been decidedly harder than for K-6 where we have STC and FOSS kits being adopted willingly by most teachers. So far there is no agreement among districts as to how to change the 7-8 grade curriculum. It appears to me that administrators have not chosen to apply direction from above for middle school teachers as they did for K-6. This impression was confirmed to me by one administrator who explained they must "choose their battles".
Our efforts to reform from the bottom-up have included workshops exposing middle school teachers to inquiry based science and purchasing materials requested by these teachers (PASCO probes) to allow design of inquiry based laboratory exercises. Teachers using these materials must provide a workshop for others describing the exercises and results with students.
But relatively few 7-8 grade teachers have been attracted to participate in these workshops, not an encouraging start. What is needed? Miriam Robin's advice that exposure to high quality experiences with inquiry science, I think, must be taken and agrees with my own experience trying to remake my own teaching of science (hence the title of my e-mail, "have you tried it yourself?".
I am convinced middle school teachers must have more experiences with real scientific inquiry if at all possible in their pre and post graduate coursework. ("Real" meaning genuine, ongoing research projects by local scientists). In designing my own courses it is no easy task to teach using inquiry without digging very deep indeed into my own research experiences and adapting them to the classroom. Even with the large basis I have from which to draw it is VERY HARD to create activities for the class. But do-able and extremely rewarding to both instructor and students. But I don't believe anyone without this experience would be convinced of its value in teaching content. ther fore our LSC is attempting to provide as many experiences/workshops/courses with research scientists as possible.
Next teachers need, as Miriam's recommendations also mention, a resource of instructional materials that correctly adopt inquiry-based rather thay traditional laboratory exercises in the content area. I think teachers must believe that these materials hold something sigfnicantly differernt from previous attempts. I have found some of the resources being deveolped for college students are good models and can be adapted for 7-12.
With regard to the whether materials be social/societal context, besides being motivating, real problems also encourage minds-on and often require application of several disciplines at once. I think it is important to recognize and attempt this as early on as possible.
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