Current Event #2
Running head: CURRENT EVENT #2
Urban Schools’ Teachers Enacting Project-Based Science
Current Event #2
Andrew Stephens
California State University, Northridge
1
Current Event #2
2
Urban Schools’ Teachers Enacting Project-Based ScienceCurrent Event #2
Tal, Krajcik, and Blumenfield (2006) raise the pressing question relating to science
education in urban public schools: what teaching practices assist in the development of inquiry
and learning in the face of challenging subject matter? They bolster their response with previous
research as well as their own in support of inquiry project based science. In addition to inquirybased project learning, the researchers name technology, teacher organization, classroom
management, teacher commitment, and continuous practice based professional development as
key factors that positively influence student learning. This claim is supported by gains in test
scores, in the Detroit Public Schools, exhibited by students who had teachers with the
aforementioned tools.
The article’s research strengths include the undertaking of data collection that reflected
pre and post-program statistics, its use of a solid foundation and citation of previous research,
and the focus on intense qualitative analysis. All 25 teachers involved in this study had their
students take pre-tests and posttests to help measure the efficacy of the successful teaching
strategies. All of the authors’ research questions and explanations were driven by, related to, and
cited with previous educational research (the great majority of which came from the last ten
years). The qualitative analysis went into great depth on the two teachers that served as the
article’s centerpiece. Observations and conclusions drew upon classroom visits, conversations
with students and teachers, test data, and extensive classroom videotape.
Conversely, the article’s research weaknesses include the lack of a control group, its low
sample size, its lack of longitudinal study, and its inclusion of too many variables. Instead of
comparing student gains across programs, this study only compared student gains (or lack
thereof) within the inquiry project based program. This leaves the reader wondering if the
Current Event #2
3
program increases learning over any other program or curriculum. The number of teachers
remotely involved in this study numbered a mere 25, while the number videotaped only included
ten teachers, and the crux of the article focused on a paltry number, two teachers. This coupled
with a lack of length to the study leaves holes in the research. Would this program be effective
with more that two groups of students over more than one year? Were the positive gains a
reflection of serendipity within a single school year? Finally, the researchers seemed to lump in
far too many variables for one study. Conclusions become difficult to draw when technology,
classroom management, inquiry based instruction and learning, project based learning,
professional development, teacher collaboration, and pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) get
lumped into one study with no way to control for the individual variables. This rings especially
true when only two teachers are involved and there is no control for student socio-economic
status.
While I agree with the basic findings of this article in principal, I find it difficult to justify
the implementations of those findings based on the research. I can really only assume that each
of the mentioned variables (despite a lack of control) had a positive correlation with student
learning. My conclusion is that I will perform action research in my own classroom using the
positive tools (inquiry, organization, projects, development of PCK, etc.) in different
combinations to find the best results. In addition, I plan to seek other articles that take these
variables and compare them with more of a control in an effort to discern the most effect from
the fluff.
Current Event #2
4
References
Blumenfield, P.C. Krajcik, J.S., & Tal, T. (2006) Urban schools’ teachers enacting project based
science. Journal of Research in Science Teaching 43, (7) 722-745.