John Siraj-Blatchford Faculty of Education Cambridge Socio-cultural factors in Learning Science.

John Siraj-Blatchford

Faculty of Education

Cambridge

Socio-cultural factors in Learning Science

“Many adults have turned off science by having an incorrect stereotypical view of science that scientists are lonely, serious middle-aged white men who work in complex laboratories”

Jarvis & Rennie, 2000

"Scientific knowledge is the product of a community, not of an individual. Findings reported by an individual must survive an institutional checking and testing mechanism, before being accepted as knowledge”

(Driver et al, 1996, p44).

"..instead of science as a monolithic smart system, in which the trick is to learn it and do it, we get the very different epistemological model of many smart systems, with their limitations. Its users who have to be smart; they have to learn when to use one and when to use another."

(Sandra Harding, p18 THES October 11, 1996).

"With scientific method, we took things apart to see how they worked. Now with computers we can put things back together to see how they work, by modeling complex, interrelated processes, even life itself. This is a new age of discovery, and ICT is the gateway”.

Douglas Adams

"...we are dominant because we have the power (industrial, technological, military, moral), and they don't, because of which they are not dominant; they are inferior, we are superior...and so on and on."

(Said, 1994, p127)

The ‘personalisation of learning’, for Hodson, would involve the teacher in identifying and constructvely engaging with the prior ‘knowledge, exerience, needs, interests and aspirations’ of every learner.

Hodson, D. (1998) Teaching and Learning Science: Towards a Personalized Approach, OUP

“To be able to distinguish, classify and catalogue external things on the basis of a secure order already established in the mind, this is at once intelligence and culture."

(Maria Montessori; 1912, p205)

Constructivism is the opposite of Inductivism:

Constructivism in Science Education:

Piaget took the position that every scheme (psychologically organised action) has both cognitive and affective elements and that these are indissociable.

Piaget took the position that every scheme (psychologically organised action) has both cognitive and affective elements and that these are indissociable.

This is the ‘motor’ of constructivist cognitive developemnt, but the aspect of Piaget’s theory that is often missed is that it cannot ‘run’ without the affective ‘fuel’ of interest and encouragement.

DeVries, R. (1997) Piaget’s Social Theory, Educational Researcher, Vol. 26, No. 2 March

As Hodson suggests the contradiction that is often assumed to exist between the need to provide an enculturation into established science and the development of personal frameworks of understanding is a false one.

As Hodson argues, scientists pusuing different purposes tend to work with the same theory but at different ‘levels’ of understanding.

The problem is that many teachers assume that the business of learning science is entirely rational and that faced with the appropriate evidence all of those pupils with sufficent intellectual capacity to understand the evidence will accept the scientific ideas unproblematically.

"...we are dominant because we have the power (industrial, technological, military, moral), and they don't, because of which they are not dominant; they are inferior, we are superior...and so on and on."

(Said, 1994, p127)

It is essential that we recognise that in applying constructivism in science we are trying to introduce children to established scientific ideas and not simply developing their personal and/or ideosyncratic ‘framework of understandings’ about the world.

We are never passive in perception:

We can look at things scientifically, or critically, or with appreciation, we can also look at things poetically... and we can view things with indifference or with a view to remembering them, promoting or even changing them.

Co-construction as a complex dialogic practice

Co-constructive Development

Jamie: Why is it [the car] on that metal thing?Adult: It's not metal, its concrete.Jamie: Why is it on the concrete thing?Adult: Well, when it rains the ground gets soft and muddy, doesn't it? [Jamie nods, bends down and scratches the dry earth.]Adult: So the wheels would sink into the mud.

But the concrete's hard, you see.Jamie [excitedly]: But the concrete's soft in the mix!

Why is it soft in the mix? (Donaldson; 1992, p44)

Effective Provision of Pre-School EducationE P P E (UK)

Kathy Sylva University of OxfordIram Siraj-Blatchford Institute of Education, University of London Pam Sammons Institute of Education, University of LondonEdward Melhuish Birkbeck, University of LondonBrenda Taggart Institute of Education, University of London

For further information about EPPE visit the EPPE website at:

http://www.ioe.ac.uk/projects/eppe

• The quality of the learning environment of the home (where parents are actively engaged in activities with children) promoted intellectual and social development in all children.

• Although parent’s social class and levels of education were related to child outcomes the quality of the home learning environment was more important. The home learning environment is only moderately associated with social class. What parents do is more important than who they are.

• Children who do not attend pre-school tend to have poorer home learning environments

Key Findings : Home learning environment

• Regular reading to child

• Library visits

• Playing with letters or numbers

• Painting and drawing

• Playing/teaching alphabet or letters

• Playing/teaching with numbers/shapes

• Playing/teaching of songs/nursery rhymes

Aspects of Home Learning Environment Covered (parents’ self-report)

• There is only a moderate positive association between HLE and parents’ socio-economic status and qualifications (r=0.3)

• Some parents with high family SES and qualification levels provide a home environment low on the HLE index. Conversely there are parents low on SES and qualifications that provide a home environment high on

the HLE index.• There are significant gender differences in reported HLE

suggesting that parenting styles can differ for boys and girls

1458 100.01548 100.0Total

224 15.4 122 7.9HLE 33-45

497 34.1 463 29.9HLE 25-32

351 24.1376 24.3HLE 20-24

284 19.5381 24.6HLE 14-19

102 7.0206 13.3HLE 0-13

GirlsBoys

Do parents interact differently with boys and girls?

• When children entered primary school there were similar effects for the HLE to those seen earlier. The analyses looked at the components of the HLE and their effects upon the children’s current level of cognitive abilities and also upon their progress in these abilities over the pre-school period.

• The strength of the effect of this variable could well be informative to projects and social policies targeted on improving the home environment of children with regard to reducing social exclusion e.g. Sure Start, Health Visitors, Early years and Primary practitioners working with parents.

The key findings are in the following areas:

•Management and staff•Ethos and climate of the settings•Adult-child verbal Interactions•Differentiation and formative assessment•Discipline and adult support in talking through conflicts•Parental partnership with settings and the home education environment•Pedagogy•Knowledge of the curriculum and child development

EPPE Case Studies

Integration in Socio-dramatic Play

Science

Design and Technology

ICT

What isEmergent Science?

- accepts diversity - the power and

importance of play - promotes an emerging

awareness of scientific investigation- develop confidence in

exploration and investigation

- emphasises ‘modelling’ - promotes an awareness of

phenomenon

Scaffolding:

1. Where the teacher may direct the child's attention to different aspects of a situation.

2. Where the child is helped to break down a task into a sequence of smaller tasks which are more manageable.

3. Where the teacher helps the child to sequence the steps in the right order.

Smith, 1994

Scaffolding:

1. Where the teacher may direct the child's attention to different aspects of a situation.

2. Where the child is helped to break down a task into a sequence of smaller tasks which are more manageable.

3. Where the teacher helps the child to sequence the steps in the right order.

Smith, 1994

Play is a ‘leading activity’

(Leontiev, 1981, Oerter, 1993)

“...when children consciously reflect upon the relationship between their ‘pretend’ signs and ‘real’ meanings they are engaged in a form of semiotic activity that will provide a valuable precursor to new learning activities.”

(van Oers, 1999, p278)

Analysis and interpretation of dataPupils should be taught that the practice of science involves skilful analysis and interpretation of data.

Science and CertaintyPupils should appreciate why much scientific knowledge, particularly that taught in school science, is well established and beyond reasonable doubt, and why other scientific knowledge is more open to legitimate doubt.

Understanding the nature of Science

They recognise why it is important to collect data to answer questions (l3).L4 – they recognise that scientific ideas are based on evidence.L5 – they describe how experimental evidence and creative thinking have been combined to provide a scientific explanation.L6 – they describe how new interpretations lead to new scientific thinking (?)

Interpretation

They provide explanations for observations and for simple patterns in recorded measurements (l3).L4 – they begin to plot points to form simple graphs and use these graphs to point out and interpret patterns in their data.- they begin to relate their conclusions to these patterns and to scientific knowledge and understanding.L5/6 they draw conclusions that are consistent with the evidence and begin to relate these to scientific knowledge and understanding.

Secondary data

They use simple texts to find information (l3).L4 – they select information from sources provided for them.L5 – they select from a range of sources of information.L6 –refer to established knowledge and understanding in developing their investigative approach.

Communication

They communicate in a scientific way what they have found out and suggest improvements in their work (L3).L4 – they communicate with appropriate scientific language.L5/6 - use appropriate conventions

Michael Faraday was afamous scientist who isoften referred to as the‘father of electricity’. In1831 Faraday explainedhow an electric currentcould be made to flowaround a circuit creatingheat and light.

William Robert Grove wasa famous Welsh scientistwho is reported to have‘sealed a coil of platinumwire in a glass bulb andignited it by an electriccurrent’ in 1845.

It was in 1865 that aGerman scientist namedHermann Sprengeldeveloped the first vacuumpump capable of removingenough air to stop the lampfilaments burning.

Thomas Edison was a famousAmerican scientist whoinvented ‘carbon thread’filament lamps that burn forup to 40 hours in 1878. By 1880he had developed a ‘bamboocarbon’ filament lamp thatburnt for up to 1200 hours.

Lewis Latimer, was afamous AfricanAmerican scientist whowho invented a processfor making carbons thatmade them last longerin 1882. He alsopatented a method ofmounting the carbonsmore effectively.

The Myth of the Hero Scientist

…is not at all dissimilar to all the

other ‘hero’ myths…

• pupils are often entirely unaware of the learning objectives of investigative science.

• respect for evidence can’t be taken for granted

• use data sets to provide exemplars at the beginning of KS2

• work towards applying them as data to be engaged with and accounted for by the end of KS2

• even bad data sets may be used to good advantage

• established scientific knowledge can be usefully applied at an early stage and throughout investigations