Wolff-Michael Roth, Kenneth Tobin, & Steve Ritchie, Re/Constructing Elementary Science
(New York: Peter Lang, 2001).
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Our new book on
learning science in elementary schools through technological
activities, and about learning to teach by fostering classroom
discourse. It provides images of excellent teaching and learning
science in action, and also provides stories of change. Each
chapter is followed by a professional conversation about pertinent
issues in teaching science at the elementary-school level.
Overview of the Book
We began this book
by writing seven chapters (Chapters 2-8). Although we take joint
responsibility for the entire book, the six chapters featuring
case studies (Chapters 3-8) were written from a personal
perspective. As a result, the voices in these case studies are
different both in their expression (arising from our different
professional histories) and in their location (participant,
observer). We then took those six chapters as starting points for
professional conversations about elementary science. Thus, each of
these case studies is followed by a continuing conversation that
takes its topics from the chapter. This conversation continues
into the concluding Chapter 9 which, in a Batesonian manner, rises
above the previous metalogues, turning them into the topic of the
conversation.
In Chapter 2, we
contextualize the remainder of the book in terms of several
dimensions. We begin by reviewing some traditions in design and
theories of designing. We then describe an emerging theory of the
nature of design that differs considerably from older
conceptualizations of design processes. A considerable chunk of
this chapter is devoted to descriptions of children's design and
our understandings of the nature of children's designing and
products thereof. Finally, we outline some of the problematic
issues of learning canonical science through design activities and
the tension between production and re/production of cultural
knowledge.
In Chapter 3, we
analyze a whole-class conversation in which two boys present their
bridge design. In the course of this discussion, canonical science
is made explicit and enacted by the presenting students and their
peers. Critical questions and responses provided a forum for
learning canonical science concepts. How such discussions and the
design experiences on which they built led to learning outcomes
that showed deep understanding of science concepts is shown in an
analysis of children's engineering logbooks where they defined
engineering terms that they found most relevant to their work. The
chapter includes a discussion of some characteristic features of
the classroom environment and children's experience that brought
them to the point at which they learned canonical science through
engineering design activities.
In Chapter 4, we
show another classroom in which canonical science practices
emerged from engineering design activities. It features a
whole-class discussion in which students and teacher tried to
construct descriptions of and explanations for the outcome of a
tug of war in which a teacher was victorious against 20 Grade 6-7
students because his efforts were mediated by a block and tackle.
We show in this chapter what students learn when they participate
in authentic scientific practices. Whole-class debates in which
students have to defend their positions also led in this class to
a form of argument that provides the context for many scientific
discussions. The competitive aspect of the tug of war contributed
to the setting up of a context in which the rhetorical aspects of
scientific discourse in this class were brought to the
fore.
In Chapter 5, we
provide extensive analyses of learning in an Australian classroom
in which students learn scientific discourse through their
designing of inventive machines. The teacher interprets a given
curriculum in flexible ways and thereby allows children to draw on
their personal experiences, creatively redefine the nature of
problems and curriculum sequences, and appropriate an authentic
scientific discourse about energy. Here, as in other design
curricula, children have the opportunity to develop their own
goals within a broad overarching framework set by the teacher.
Therefore, children do not convert the curriculum into their own
truck curriculum, but incorporate materials and ideas that are
salient in their worlds within the overall curriculum
framework.
Elsewhere, we
analyzed the cultural production and reproduction of science and
technology in an elementary classroom (Roth, 1998a). In such a
scenario, artifacts emerge from children's design activities and
bear the marks of multiple influences (actors). Our account of the
design activities in Mr. Hammett's class shows how important
interactions among students, between groups, and with the teacher
are not only significant for particular activities but, more
importantly, are also significant for the development of viable
observations and theory descriptions. In Chapter 6, we show how
interactions among students foster the generation and
communication of fruitful analogies that help children transit to
a discourse commensurable with canonical science.
In Chapter 7, Ms.
Scott, a Grade 2 teacher, enacted the curriculum in a
child-centered way that involved students in diverse activities
that were enjoyable and involved a degree of problem solving. The
chapter provides complementary perspectives of the teacher and the
researcher and illustrates that although the students were engaged
in inquiry, they did not build a canonical discourse that was
science-like. The efforts of the children and those of the teacher
were oriented very much toward the children's goals, which were to
build structures that looked like castles and contained as many
castle-like features as was possible. The teacher, who employed a
role of facilitator, did not mediate in the constructions of
students such that what they learned evolved to be more and more
scientific in nature. In addition, the roles of students were
constrained to include interactions only with the teacher and
peers within their small group. Ms. Scott did not use whole class
activities to share what had been learned in groups and to
negotiate classwide understandings. Nor were students encouraged
to interact with peers from other groups.
After more than 20
years of not teaching science, Ms. Mack began to adapt her roles
as a teacher of reading and language arts to her responsibility to
teach science. Chapter 8 describes how a Grade 1 teacher was able
to learn to teach science, provide her students with increasing
autonomy and responsibility, and initiate a program of science
that involved the family as a critical ingredient. Ms. Mack taught
science regularly and maintained high standards, her students used
inquiry to build understandings that were science-like about a
range of phenomena. The study demonstrates that Grade 1 learners
can undertake intensive independent studies and can build
understandings of engineering science that connect to the
materials they used in their curriculum but also are a source of
learning for their peers.
In Chapter 9, we
further develop several themes that arose from the previous
chapters and our metalogues. These themes are likely to be central
in any serious effort of re/constructing elementary science:
epistemology, role of teaching and teachers, resources and
artifacts, discourse community and participation, nature of
elementary science, and resources that support learning. We
encourage readers to take these conversations only as launch pads
for ongoing conversations and opportunities to transform science
education as it is practiced in their own situations.
