|
Asia-Pacific Forum on Science
Learning and Teaching, Volume 3, Issue 2, Article 2 (Dec., 2002) Peter AUBUSSON and Kevin WATSON Packaging constructivist Science teaching in a curriculum resource
|
Jon had been using constructivist approaches in his teaching for about two years and was keen to learn about the 5Es as another way of implementing a constructivist approach. His class was used to working cooperatively with allocated group roles in a friendly and supportive atmosphere. The class was already taught using constructivist principles and the students thought science was important, fun and interesting.
Jon found the program more difficult to implement than he had expected. The amount of preparation and reading the students had to do were a burden. This was in addition to reading through the teacher's notes to find out what was required for each lesson. Jon thought it was important to carry out the program faithfully and he followed the directions outlined by the teacher's notes, even when he considered there was a better way of doing it. Consequently, he thought the program was inefficient. Jon considered the 5Es approach 'too time wasting, for the concepts gained by the kids'.
Students said the teaching in the classroom during the project was 'basically the same' as usual. The students often used the word cooperation when talking about group work. When asked what they had been learning in this topic student's answers ranged from no answer to 'what's inside materials and how to work properly together in a group'. 'How to use your brain and think, judge things and work things out'. When asked if they liked doing all this thinking one student said, 'No, it is hard, but it is okay if we work in a group. It makes it easier. If we're wrong we've got others to help us. We learn more because we can talk about it more and we get to understand'. The students also liked having a textbook because 'you can see it'.
Only in Jon's class did an examination of student books indicate differences between the BSCS topic and previous science topics in that the amount of recording had decreased. The nature of what the student recorded had also changed. Students wrote more about their own ideas and opinions. Less information was being covered in the time available than Jon expected. In order to move through the project materials at his expected rate, Jon found there was less time to spend on students recording information in their workbooks. The program inhibited Jon's natural constructivist style of teaching because he felt restricted in changing parts of the program when he thought there was a better way of doing it because 'if you're going to implement a program and research its effectiveness, you have to implement the program and not something else'.
