Assessing Science for Understanding (CZ)

Training Module Based on Socio-cognitive Constructivism (CY)

European Dimension in Integrated Science Education (LT)

Development Procedural Skills in Science Education (BG)

Using Laboratory to Enhance Student Learning and Scientific Inquiry (TR)

Unit 1 - Constructivist Science and Laboratory Education Resources

Unit 2 - Constructivist Science Teaching Techniques

Unit 3 - Scientific Process Skills and Scientific Inquiry

Unit 4 - Meaningful Learning, Nature of Science etc.

Meaningful Learning, Nature of Science etc.

• to comprehend the nature of science;
• to improve meaningful learning.

Defining Meaningful Learning

Our working definition of meaningful learning is achieving deep understanding of complex ideas that are relevant to students’ lives. Because knowledge and understanding reside in the mind of the knower, obtaining multiple perspectives can deepen our understanding of meaningful learning and its significance. We are going to mention about only two perspectives of meaningful learning (Jonassen et al.1999).

According to Jonassen et al. (1999), meaningful learning is:

• Active. We interact with the environment, manipulate the objects within it and observe the effects of our manipulations.
• Constructive. Activity is essential but insufficient for meaningful learning. We must reflect on the activity and our observations, and interpret them in order to have a meaningful learning experience.
• Intentional. Human behavior is naturally goal-directed. When students actively try to achieve a learning goal they have articulated, they think and learn more. Articulating their own learning goals and monitoring their progress are critical components for experiencing meaningful learning.
• Authentic. Thoughts and ideas rely on the contexts in which they occur in order to have meaning. Presenting facts that are stripped from their contextual clues divorces knowledge from reality. Learning is meaningful, better understood and more likely to transfer to new situations when it occurs by engaging with real-life, complex problems.
• Cooperative. We live, work and learn in communities, naturally seeking ideas and assistance from each other, and negotiating about problems and how to solve them. It is in this context that we learn there are numerous ways to view the world and a variety of solutions to most problems. Meaningful learning, therefore, requires conversations and group experiences.

Wiske (1998) provides another perspective about meaningful learning with a focus on subject matter content. She calls for teaching subject matter that is:

• Central to the domain or discipline. Every academic discipline has elements that are regarded by those in the field as the ideas and methods of inquiry that are central and controversies that are enduring. Teaching aimed at meaningful learning encompasses these aspects.
• Accessible and interesting to students. Topics must be significant from a student’s perspective. Teaching about the Monroe Doctrine, for example, must enable students to make meaning from its tenets in the here and now.
• Exciting for the teacher’s intellectual passions. For a topic to be generative, the way it is taught is as important as the substance. The teacher’s curiosity, zeal and genuine wonder are infectious and serve as a model for students to imitate.
• Easily connected to other topics, whether inside or outside the discipline. Students benefit most when they can link their previous experiences and knowledge to other important ideas.

We encourage you to use this information together with the other suggested resources to enrich your understanding of meaningful learning.

Nature of Science

Understanding how science works allows one to easily distinguish science from non-science. Thus, to understand biological evolution, or any other science, it is essential to begin with the nature of science (http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/nature/index.shtml):

Science is a particular way of understanding the natural world. It extends the intrinsic curiosity with which we are born. It allows us to connect the past with the present, as with the redwoods depicted here.

Science is based on the premise that our senses, and extensions of those senses through the use of instruments, can give us accurate information about the Universe. Science follows very specific "rules" and its results are always subject to testing and, if necessary, revision. Even with such constraints science does not exclude, and often benefits from, creativity and imagination -with a good bit of logic thrown in. (http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/nature/index.shtml).

History of the Nature of Science

Over the course of human history, people have developed many interconnected and validated ideas about the physical, biological, psychological, and social worlds. Those ideas have enabled successive generations to achieve an increasingly comprehensive and reliable understanding of the human species and its environment. The means used to develop these ideas are particular ways of observing, thinking, experimenting, and validating. These ways represent a fundamental aspect of the nature of science and reflect how science tends to differ from other modes of knowing (http://www.project2061.org/publications/sfaa/online/chap1.htm).

It is the union of science, mathematics, and technology that forms the scientific endeavor and that makes it so successful. Although each of these human enterprises has a character and history of its own, each is dependent on and reinforces the others. Accordingly, the first three chapters of recommendations draw portraits of science, mathematics, and technology that emphasize their roles in the scientific endeavor and reveal some of the similarities and connections among them.

Third and fourth units lay out recommendations for what knowledge of the way science works is requisite for scientific literacy. These chapters focus on three principal subjects: the scientific world view, scientific methods of inquiry, and the nature of the scientific enterprise (http://www.project2061.org/publications/sfaa/online/chap1.htm).

Making sense of the nature of science (NoS)

(http://www.tki.org.nz/r/science/science_is/nos):

The integrating strand: Making sense of the nature of science (NoS) is about science as a contemporary body of knowledge, created by people, to help understand the world around us.

To support Achievement Aim 1 of the NoS strand, the Ministry of Education has identified key themes. These NoS themes can be used by teachers to enrich their understandings of the nature of science, and better integrate this strand with the contextual strands in science activities.

Select a NoS theme from the lists below for supporting concepts, teacher’s notes, questions to help build your understanding of the nature of science, and example science activities.

• Scientists turn their science ideas into questions that can be investigated
• Scientists’ observations are influenced by their science ideas
• Scientists’ investigations are influenced by their communities
• Scientists’ predictions are based on their existing science knowledge
• Scientists design investigations to test their predictions
• Many different approaches and methods are used to build scientific investigations
• When scientists carry out investigations they aim to collect adequate data
• Scientists think critically about the results of their investigations

• Scientific explanations may involve creative insights
• There may be more than one explanation for the results of an investigation
• Scientific explanations may be in the form of a model
• When an explanation correctly predicts an event, confidence in the explanation as science knowledge is increased

• Scientific explanations must withstand peer review before being accepted as science knowledge
• New scientific explanations often meet opposition from other individuals and groups
• Over time, the types of science knowledge that are valued change
• All science knowledge is, in principle, subject to change

• Open-mindedness is important to the culture of science
• Scientific progress comes from logical and systematic work, and also through creative insights
• Science interacts with other cultures

The science laboratory becomes the learning environment where students work together, helping each other, and learning how to search for and use tools and resources in problem solving situations. The teacher facilitates, encourages, promotes activities in which students interact, design, express and discuss solutions, ideas and theories (Berionni and Baldon, 2006).

Tasks (assignments)

1. Do you think there are similarities with the aims of constructivist science education and meaningful learning?
2. Is it compulsory to know the NoS to understand scientific process?

Case Study

During the science lesson teacher asked a lot of questions to the students in order to understand their understandings of the concepts. And also teacher used some models and analogies to teach them. Teacher tried to teach them the similarities, differences, interrelations, cause, effects of the concepts.

Questions to Case Study

1. After such a long lesson can you say that his/her students had a meaningful learning?
2. What may be the benefits of knowing NoS on meaningful learning?

Summary

Meaningful learning is achieving deep understanding of complex ideas that are relevant to students’ lives. Because knowledge and understanding reside in the mind of the knower, obtaining multiple perspectives can deepen our understanding of meaningful learning and its significance. Understanding how science works allows one to easily distinguish science from non-science. Thus, to understand biological evolution, or any other science, it is essential to begin with the nature of science.

Frequently Asked Questions

How students can explore the nature of science?

Answer the question above

• how science knowledge is developed by scientists
• the processes and practices of the science community
• how science shapes the world we all live in
• the history of science (processes, knowledge, and purposes).

Next Reading

1. http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/nature/index.shtml
2. Types of investigation
3. Teaching with models

References

Lederman, N.G., Abd-El-Khalick, F., Bell, R.L., & Schwartz, R.S. (2002). Views of nature of science questionnaire (VNOS): Toward valid and meaningful assessment of learners’ conceptions of nature of science. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 39, 497–521.

Abd-El-Khalik, F.,&Lederman,N.G. (2000). Improving science teachers’ conceptions of the nature of science: A critical review of the literature. International Journal of Science Education, 22, 665–701.

Lazarowitz, R., & Tamir, P. (1994). Research on using laboratory instruction in science. In D.L. Gabel (Ed.), Handbook of research on science teaching and learning (pp. 94–128). New York: Macmillan.

Jonassen, D.H., Peck, K.L., & Wilson, B.G. (1999) Learning with technology. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill Publishing.

Wiske, M.S. (1998). What is teaching for understanding? In Wiske, M.S. (Ed.) Teaching for understanding: Linking research with practice. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishing.

http://www.tki.org.nz/r/science/science_is/nos/ entrance: 30.07.2008

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/nature/index.shtml entrance: 30.07.2008