Forskerføtter og Leserøtter
BUDDING SCIENCE
AND LITERACY
Do it! Talk it! Read it! Write it!
Transatlantic Science Week
Berkeley, USA, 26th October, 2011
Marianne Ødegaard - project leader
marianne.odegaard@naturfagsenteret.no
Norges Forskningsråd
Seeds of Science. Roots of Reading
• Do it
Talk it
Read it Write it
• Literacy activities integrated in inquiry-based
science
• The child’s own creativity meets scientific
creativity!
 ”How do we resemble scientists?”
Motivation for study
• The Knowledge
Promotion Reform :
Budding scientist
Basic skills
• Inquiry-based science
”Inquiry into authentic questions generated from student experiences is
the central strategy for science teaching.” Anderson, 2007
• Science and literacy
”Learning the language of science is a major part of science education.”
Wellington & Osborne, 2001; Mortimer & Scott, 2003
Challenges
& Paradoxes
• The detailed procedures
• A step by step, detailed
ensure more open-ended
Teacher Guide – very rich
and creative tasks for
in words!
students
• Norwegian teachers are
used to more freedom
when teaching a subject.
• Norwegian teachers in
primary do not have much
education in science.
• US-context
• Where do units fit the
Norwegian curriculum?
Research-based development
• Starting point: Professional development
course for teachers: ”Science and basic skills”
• Combines teachers’ professional competence
from the classroom with researchers’
knowledge of science education
• Together we try out, translate and later adapt
curriculum material developed at University of
California, Berkeley - Lawrence Hall of Science
Budding Science and Literacy
A longitudinal design-based study of using
inquiry-based science and literacy in
comprehensive schooling
• Aim:
To study how the interplay of indoor/outdoor
inquiry-based science activities and literacy activities
can improve teachers’ instructional competence and
students’ learning outcome in science.
• We design:
The Budding Science and Literacy Teaching Model
Iterative design
teaching
improved
teaching
Professional
development
cohort 1
teaching
S&R
improved
teaching
Professional
development
cohort 2
teaching
S&R
improved
teaching
Professional
development
cohort 3
Improving the teaching model
teaching
improved
teaching
teaching
S&R
improved
teaching
Professional Professional
development development
cohort 1
cohort 2
teaching
S&R
Professional
development
cohort 3
Improving the teaching model
Course assignments:
Written descriptions
and presentations
Classroom observations
Classroom studies:
6 teachers in 4 schools
+ their students (1.- 5. grade)
Videoobservations
Interviews (teacher + students)
Classroom assignments
improved
teaching
????
BUDDING SCIENCE
AND LITERACY
Explicit teaching
Systematic variation of
inquiry-based activities
Teaching
model:
(researchbased draft)
(Ødegaard, Frøyland
and Mork, 2011)
• Multi-modal learning
activities: Do-it. Read-it.
Write-it. Talk-it.
• Firsthand- and secondhand investigations
• Multiple learning arenas
• Synergy effects of inquiries
in science and literacy
•Formative assessment
Explicit teaching
Systematic variation of
inquiry-based activities
• Few concepts
BUDDING SCIENCE
AND LITERACY
• Modeling learning strategies
Teaching
• Multi-modal learning
The good thing withactivities:
this teaching
model is that
Do-it. Read-it.
model:
Write-it. Talk-it.
it gives support to the low achievers
and
(Ødegaard, Frøyland
and Mork, 2011)
•Explicit end product
• Firsthandand secondchallenges the high
achievers.
(researchhand investigations
Teacher, 4th grade
based draft)
• Multiple learning arenas
• Synergy effects of inquiries
in science and literacy
•Nature of Science
• Why are teachers so content with the teaching
model/material?
• Why do students think this kind of learning is fun?
Searching for quality!
 gathering and analysing data
It’s not so much what they do,
but the quality of how they do it.
(from PISA+ Ødegaard & Klette, 2011)
BUDDING SCIENCE
AND LITERACY
Systematic variation of
inquiry-based activities
• Multi-modal learning
activities: Do-it. Read-it.
Write-it. Talk-it.
• Firsthand- and secondhand investigations
• Multiple learning arenas
• Synergy effects of inquiries
in science and literacy
•Nature of Science
(Ødegaard, Frøyland og Mork, 2011)
• Modeling learning strategies • Few concepts
•Formative assessment
•Explicit end product
Research
project:
Explicit teaching
Trying out Seeds and Roots:
• Unit:
• Read it
(3.klasse)
Wondering about
what things are
made of and why.
• Do it
• Write it
Students make
their own glue
for glueing
beans on paper.
Students
write down
the receipe
• Talk it
Which glue is best?
And why??
Beginning to analyse videos:
70
60
50
Individual
40
Group
30
Whole class
20
10
0
Writing
Reading
Talking
Doing
(Pilot analysis from one lesson)
Searching for incidents for in-depth analysis:
Timeline for one pilot lesson:
Reading
Writing
Talking
Doing
Interesting?
Reading whole class
Writing individual
Writing whole class
Talking whole class
Talking group/pair
Talking ind. presenting
Doing whole class
Doing group/pair
Doing individual
Preliminary findings (PhD study):
Linking everyday and scientific language
Gard Ove Sørvik (2011)
• A focus on a few key concepts seem to support “link-making”
(Scott et al. 2011) in the on-going meaning making interaction of
the classroom.
• The concept of systems appears to be especially valuable in
this regard as it functions as a link-making tool across
discourses for the students—linking their everyday ways of
talking and thinking to the language of school science—and
in the process of forming conceptual webs (Howe 1996).
• Students down to the year 1 appropriated the concept of
systems.
• The notion of systems may be important to consider in terms
of big or key ideas in science (Harlen 2010) or alternately as a key
idea for science in schools.
How teachers know what students understand
Teachers’ formative assessment of student understanding of scientific concepts
Berit Haug, PhD-student
Findings based on interviews with elementary school teachers
In general:
“It’s hard to explain why I know the students know, it
-ongoing assessment
of student understanding of scientific concepts is
is a gut feeling.”
(15the
years
of teaching
experience)
a spontaneousTeacher
act that
teachers
find
hard to articulate
-the selection of concepts to explain is based upon the teachers’
implicit presupposition of students’ knowledgebase
“To focus on few concepts help me guide the students in
After implementing
Seeds/Roots
the right direction,
and I knowmaterial
what to look for when
assessing
understanding.”
-the selection
of their
key concepts
provides a direction and makes it easier
of focus
the teachers
to know Several
what to
upon
-introducing the concepts through writing, reading, doing and talking
make students’ thinking and understanding visible, hence easier to
assess
Some system!
Before I just said things, now I can call them
systems!
Student, 4th grade (9 years)
Thank you!
marianne.odegaard@naturfagsenteret.no