Asia-Pacific Forum on Science Learning and Teaching, Volume 3, Issue 1, Article 1(June, 2002) Winnie Wing-Mui SO Constructivist Teaching in Primary Science Previous Contents Next

Conclusion

There have been ongoing calls for constructivist teaching based on the construcivist views of learning during the past decade. The reason of such advocacy is as a result of the search for better ways of teaching and learning because both researchers and teachers have noted persistent shortfalls in learners' understanding and of passive approaches to learning across all ages and grades (Gardner, 1991). There are philosophical and psychological arguments to support constructivist educational practices (Perkins, 1999). Philopsophically, the individual has to construct or reconstruct what things mean because the stimuli we encouter are never logically sufficient to convey the message. Psychologically, research shows that active engagement in learning may lead to better retention, understanding and active use of knowledge.

However, constructivisit teaching practices often require more time than do traditional educational practices and constructivist learning experiences can exert high cognitive demands on learners (Perkins, 1999). Wilson (2000) claimed that "learning is not the goal in many classrooms and the emphasis is on time on task", there is pressure on teachers from the bulky curriculum, tight schedule, expectations of parents and diversity of learners. More direct teaching strategies and text-book bound teaching seem to be an easier way to go.

Recognizing the teaching and learning in Hong Kong primary classrooms portrayed by the Education Department (Education Commission, 1994, p.8) in recent years as "…teachers in general adopted the teacher-demonstration approach in classroom teaching…" and "teacher still assigned class work…. after they had delivered their expository teaching" and "some teachers were too textbound" (Education Commission, 1994, paragraphs 1(2), 2(6), 3(8)), the findings of present study showed that there was a gradual shift of constructivist teaching among teachers throughout the longitudinal study.

From the lesson observations conducted with the student teachers once a year throughout the three years of the study, there was evidence that teachers were developing in their use of constructivist teaching. During microteaching, constructivist teaching among the twenty-five student teachers was uncommon. During the school teaching experience, the twenty teachers' teaching was improving slightly, with 15% performed at agreed constructivist teaching, the majority were still at the slightly agreed constructivist teaching. The other 15% were observed to have only few signs of constructivist teaching in this stage of study. The major strategies employed by the student teachers that were observed to have constructivist teaching were mainly: eliciting pupils' prior ideas and understanding of new ideas; engaging pupils in observing and describing phenomenon; questioning pupils' understanding and discussing the relation of current teaching points to pupils' previous knowledge. In the beginning teaching year, again a slight increase in teaching performance was observed among the nine beginning teachers remaining in the study. Still none of the beginning teachers performed at a 'strongly agreed' level of constructivist teaching, six teachers (67%) performed closely to an 'agreed level' of constructivist teaching were observed to have slightly agreed constructivist teaching. Only one (11%) beginning teacher who showed very few signs of constructivist teaching. The major observations with teachers' constructivist teaching were mainly their ability to make ideas accessible to pupils, teachers' awareness of pupils' existing ideas, facilitating pupils to observe and describe phenomena, providing a question-rich environment, as well as accepting and valuing pupils' answers and suggestions.

Across the early stage of their teaching, student teachers' seemed to value pupils' own ideas and existing knowledge, and acted as facilitators for pupils to construct knowledge. Besides, student teachers were able to provide a question-rich learning environment and to make new ideas accessible to pupils. Furthermore, teachers were also able to guide pupils to observe and describe phenomena with questions, and they often showed acceptance and valued pupils' answers. There was no problem for teachers to elicit pupils' ideas before presenting their own, to provide opportunities for pupils to utilize new ideas by relating to pupils' previous knowledge and applying to real-life, and to allow pupils to give explanations after the descriptions. But some teachers were more eager than others to give their own explanations, especially when one or two pupils made unclear descriptions or explanations. However, there was not much opportunity provided for pupils by their teachers to work with materials and activities, and teachers seldom challenged pupils' initial ideas and probed pupils' responses for clarification and justification. Besides, it was infrequent for pupils to suggest about direction of the activity, to discuss ideas with peers and to explain contradictions and misconceptions.

A few teachers in the study were found to have difficulty to construct what was regarded as a proper science lesson. They often fell back on using worksheets or workbooks in which the pupils had to do something in class, an activity that they claimed to have involved pupils in learning. Workbooks supplied with published curriculum series tended to emphasize low-level memory tasks and isolated skills practice (Osborne, 1984), which makes it difficult for pupils to achieve meaningful learning. It was stated by Morris (1995) that the textbook, along with its associated workbook, is a major influence on the pedagogy used. The use of a textbook does not provide pupils with the opportunities to work together or to share ideas and information freely with one another (So, Tang & Ng, 2000). Though there has been improvement in the worksheets provided by the textbook publishers, the use of worksheets/workbooks as the only teaching/learning activity reflects that, these few teachers were sometimes managing activities in classroom rather than teaching as a subject expert in subject matter and the associated pedagogy.

Though some student teachers were developing a more constructivist view of teaching and learning, a few of them did not change in the learner-centered direction, but towards a more teacher-centered view. Hence, there is a need for developing more powerful teacher education, with more emphasis on pupil-centered learning and with dissemination of research evidences on effective constructivist teaching, to help teachers develop a more sophisticated understanding of how pupils learn and extend their understanding to teaching practices that support pupils' active learning. And most importantly, to address the influences of textbooks and worksheets on constructivist teaching to prepare teachers to a more proper use of textbook in their teaching.