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Why science? Problem Overpopulation National defense Sciences working for understanding and/or solutions Biology, psychology Pollution Biology, chemistry, physics, psychology Biology, geology, chemistry Global warming Biology, chemistry, geology, physics Disease Technology Biology, chemistry Biology, chemistry, physics, geology, psychology Genetic Engineering Biology, chemistry Extinction Biology, geology How are our students? Our educational system is not doing well educating our youth Score relative to international average Performance on the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (1995) 1.2 Science Math 1 0.8 4th grade 8th grade Grade level 12th grade What about California? California 4th graders have higher proficiency rankings than Guam, Virgin Islands and America Somoa ---- not bad (?) We were the BOTTOM of the rest of the United States Bottom line: We are not serving our students well Science Content Standards for California Public Schools Science in public school is under a reform processes Among the most important is to establish standards of science literacy Concepts that should be understood by certain grade levels * We will just concentrate on science but there are other areas as well for “content specifications” for California What does this mean for the class? YOU will be part of the solution Understand that, for most children, you will provide their first experiences with math and science Therefore, you need to understand it to teach it! How people learn There are many hypothesis that try to address the question of how people learn. We will focus on a few “classic” approaches and lead to newer approaches more applicable to science. Behaviorism Classical Conditioning Operant Conditioning Pavlov B.F. Skinner Basic idea is that learning is a result of rewards and punishments Classical Conditioning: Pavlov’s Dogs Stimulus Natural Response + Response = Drool Paired Stimuli Add New Stimulus + Response = Drool What do you think will happen if the Bell is rung without food present? Operant Conditioning Rat #1 Accidentally presses Receives Ø Accidentally presses Receives Rat #2 After 10 days, which rat will press the button more frequently? Where can behaviorism be found in human society? Animal training Gambling Behavior research and economics used to reward the gambler just enough Classroom Game learning rewards to correct answers *So the consensus of behaviorism today is that it is great for basic skills and controlling behavior but it is not useful for teaching abstract skills Behaviorism vs. Cognitive Psychology Behaviorism is the observable and measurable Cognitive is asking happens inside the brain How many times did the rat press the bar? What is the rat thinking that makes it press the bar? So what happens when a naïve rat watches a “learned” rat pressing the bar? The naïve rat learns the behavior without the reward!! Where is stimulus-response of the behaviorist? Cognitive psychologists coin this “observational learning”. Cognitive Psychology Key Ideas: Observational learning; Abstract Thought Example: Leaning to read and write Cognitive Stage Memorizing the Alphabet (observation/memorization) Associative Stage Reading/recognizing words previouslymemorized (i.e. practice!) Autonomous Stage Writing words, Sounding out novel words (i.e. application) Rat Cat Bat Chordata Arthropoda Constructivism States that there is a relationship between the learner and the information to be learned --mystical bent! Deals with the abstract nature of knowledge and how an individual develops new knowledge Basic Assumptions of Constructivism Every learner has previous experiences The learner explains these experiences with a set of beliefs about how the world works When learners encounter new experiences, they have certain expectations based on their explanations What actually happens can either meet the expectations or not Basic Assumptions of Constructivism (cont.) The relationship between expectations and reality effects the learner’s explanations. If expectations are met, the explanation is reinforced; If expectations are not met, the explanation can be judged irrelevant to that situation, or the explanation can be modified to account for the new experience; Learning occurs when you alter your previous explanation. Constructivism: example Learning is based on matching new experiences to existing explanations Previous Experience: Explanation: Seeds need soil and water to germinate New Experience: What Happens: Expectation: Won’t Germinate Conclusion? Constructivist paradigm vs. Scientific Method Not really different at all Let’s substitute terminology Constructivism: example Learning is based on matching new experiences to existing explanations Observation Hypothesis: Seeds need soil and water to germinate New Experience: Experiment: Prediction: Won’t Germinate Conclusion? Another example: scientific terminology Observations Hypothesis You have not done well because science is hard Predicition Many of you have not done well in science in the past You will do poorly in this class no matter what Experiment Try your best and see what happens Sound bleak? Another concept in science is to develop Alternative Hypothesis Alternative Hypothesis: you have not done well because you think science is hard; therefore you make it harder than it is. Prediction: if you realize that science is not hard, you will do well in this class, but if you persist in thinking science is hard, you will do poorly. Experiment: try to think of all of this as easy, then try your best.
