Researcher Identity Memo

Qualitative Research Methods

Spring 2005

Erin Peters

Science education in America is very complicated due to the structure of the sub-disciplines such as biology, physics, and chemistry and due to the unnecessarily rigid sequence of classes. In America students are scheduled to take biology, chemistry, and then physics, but the courses are self-contained and rarely try to make connections to each other. Science teachers are not just science teachers; they identify themselves as biology, chemistry, earth science or physics teachers. The current culture in education isolates each of these sub-disciplines through high stakes testing. In high school, students take a state-wide test after each science course. The teachers don’t have time to integrate other sub-disciplines into their coursework. Even at the elementary level I hear discussions about what content “belongs” to 4^th grade teachers, and which content “belongs” to 5^th grade teachers. Attend any secondary science department meeting and there will be plenty references to the unique responsibilities of each sub-discipline, but little talk of how to better connect the content from grade-level to grade-level. The National Science Education Standards and the Benchmarks for Scientific Literacy call for more integration among science sub-disciplines and offer valuable guides for teachers to aid in understanding the nature of science. I feel that students are more likely to become scientifically literate if teachers worked together to integrate the ideas from other sub-disciplines into their courses. One way to accomplish this goal is to have a collective understanding of the nature of science and draw on the similarities of the habits of mind in each sub-discipline to connect the content.

When I was training to become a science teacher, my science teaching methods professor was very progressive, and I was very attentive to his ideas. He helped me understand what scientific literacy meant and helped me work hard to develop our own understanding of how science operates as a discipline. I find that I draw on this knowledge of the nature of science when I am asked to teach a different sub-discipline outside of my field. Looking at other sub-disciplines through the lens of the nature of science helps me to visualize the broad ideas and helps my students to use science concepts outside of the classroom. I was able to “jump” from teaching a class of physics to chemistry to earth science very easily because I saw the universal understanding in all of the sub-disciplines. In a nutshell, knowing and being able to utilize my knowledge of the nature of science has made me a more effective teacher. I have experienced many more of my own “ah-ha” moments about how the sub-disciplines of science are complimentary when developing lessons regarding the nature of science. I feel that the particular lessons which are developed to explicitly teach the nature of science through the content are more meaningful to the students, and I am better able to express my passion for how science works by helping students think like scientists.

When I began collecting evidence for my national board portfolio, I allowed the concepts of the nature of science drive my decisions. I chose lessons where students were better able to show their understanding of scientific operations, and the feedback I received from my portfolio indicated that those lessons were significant to student learning. When I studied for the assessment portion of national boards, I looked to the national guidelines regarding the nature of science to help me understand the concepts. Assuming the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards guidelines, the National Science Education Standards, and the Benchmarks for Scientific Literacy provide helpful guidelines for effective teaching, then having a solid understanding of the nature of science is a necessity for science teaching from all sub-disciplines. Understanding the nature of science gives teachers a broad conceptual framework on which to hook factual information and make coherent the multitude of ideas in science.

My discovery of the connection between effective teaching and knowledge regarding the nature of science came in small portions over time. My methods professor gave me a foundation of the nature of science, but I couldn’t see how important it was until my tenth year of teaching when all of the parts became coherent to me. That means there were plenty of my students who didn’t get the best education I could have provided. The resource materials and conference presentations I had access to did not help me develop this understanding. I stumbled upon it myself and saw its importance. Once I saw the importance, it was like a new world opened up for me. I found more meaning in what I was teaching and I found the students making more coherence of multiple facts. Now that I can see the importance knowledge of the nature of science has in education, I want to know how other teachers see the role of the nature of science in their classes. I would ultimately like to develop an explicit way to aid pre-service teachers with their construction of knowledge about the nature of science.

The nature of science is not a discrete idea, rather it is very amorphous. Many researchers, teachers and administrators have very different definitions of the nature of science. Some scientists believe that having a constantly evolving concept of the nature of science is beneficial, because science is an entity that is constantly changing. From my experience being in education for fourteen years and from studying education, most teachers are used to working in a top-down system where information is provided and they are the conduits of this information to the students. For example, the Standards of Learning tell teachers what content should be taught and resource materials, provided mostly by textbook companies, tell teachers how to accomplish the teaching of content. The nature of science is not addressed, other than in a very superficial way, in any of the information given to teachers. I assume many teachers still do not have an understanding of the nature of science and the ones who do have an understanding have put their ideas together on their own, as I did. If teachers need to make connections on their own, then their perceptions of the nature of science could be very different. I want to ask questions to get at the heart of what teachers know about the nature of science, and how they acquired this information. If they acquired it in a pre-service program, I want to know specifically what was taught. In my case I had exposure to Science for All Americans, a book written by scientists explaining what a scientifically literate high school graduate should know, in my pre-service experience. This exposure helped with my foundation of how scientists operate, but after my pre-service experience, I still could not verbalize what that meant. I only had a “feeling” of what was a good way to teach how science is done. I still had to put the pieces together for myself, and I assume other teachers’ knowledge of the nature of science were self-taught, too. I want to know how they progressed to the point of knowing about the nature of science and elicit the significant points they remember in their progression.

I believe that teachers who teach in an open, inquiry method have a deeper understanding of the nature of science. Teachers who are able to see the big ideas in science probably know something about how scientists think, and insist that their students think in the same way. Teachers who are more focused on smaller, factual knowledge probably do not offer opportunities for inquiry in the classroom. Teachers who are focused more on science being a collection of facts probably do not have time to allow students to openly explore ideas through open ended experiments. I chose to observe a teacher who is known for her inquiry style because I think she has already developed somewhat of an understanding of the nature of science. From my experience, I know that I was more concerned with factual knowledge early in my teaching career and that students were less likely to take away universal scientific understandings. I want to find out how her understanding of the nature of science has influenced the way she structures her lessons, and how the students react to her methods.

I think one potential advantage my beliefs and experiences regarding the nature of science have for this project is that I have thought about some of the relationships and am familiar with many of the versions of the nature of science and inquiry science. Since there is no agreed upon version of the nature of science or inquiry science, the participating teacher may have a concept that is different from my own. I am previously aware of the variety of versions, and I will keep an open mind about her responses. I may be able to develop an understanding of her conceptual framework because I have experience dealing with many adaptations of the terminology and may be able to make connections using her technology for a more authentic picture of her understanding. I am also aware through the readings of not to judge her descriptions using my criteria. I will work to put aside my prior frameworks and use my prior knowledge to understand her vocabulary, but will try to resist placing it into my conceptual frameworks. I will strive to describe her conceptual frameworks.

I am aware that there are many different versions of the nature of science, which are all considered acceptable. Being aware of this information, it is unlikely that I will try to match up her version of the nature of science with the published versions or with my own version. I will be aware of the tendency to belittle different versions and will approach my investigation with the attitude that I am trying to discover her version, not match it with another version. I want to find her story of how she developed her ideas and what connections she had to available resources.

One possible disadvantage my prior experience may have for this project is the teacher participants’ potential to say what she thinks I want to hear. She has told me before I began the study that she admires my teaching style. I have 10 years more experience than the teacher participant and during the initial interview I felt that she was trying hard to impress me. I emphasized that I was just trying to tell a story about how teachers develop ideas about the nature of science and inquiry, but I still felt like she was trying to get a reaction from me regarding the quality of her lessons. I will remain aware of this situation and will try to reduce any circumstance that verges on judgment of her teaching abilities.