University science students as curriculum planners, teachers, and role models in elementary school classrooms
✍ Scribed by Bertram C. Bruce; Susan P. Bruce; Rebecca L. Conrad; Hui-Ju Huang
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1997
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 104 KB
- Volume
- 34
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0022-4308
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
Project SEARCH (Science Education and Research for CHildren) is an outreach program designed to teach science and to foster positive attitudes toward science. Through the project, university science students bring activity-based learning, plus materials and content expertise, to local classrooms and after-school programs. Using observations, surveys, and interviews, we examined the experiences of these students as curriculum planners, teachers, and role models for the children. We found that teachers value the enthusiasm and the resources provided by the SEARCH students. Children were engaged in the activities and looked forward to the students' visits. They also see them as positive and diverse models for the role of scientist. But there were often problems in the areas of preparation, scheduling, and communication, and the classroom activities often replicated traditional didactic lessons. The SEARCH experience highlights both the value of providing diverse and challenging experiences for children, and the need for dialogue and reflection on those experiences. Despite several concerns, the SEARCH model is one that deserves expansion and further study as it is extended into new settings. J Res Sci Teach 34: 69-88, 1997.
Despite a general recognition that early experiences with science learning may be extremely important in forming positive attitudes toward science, familiar statistics reveal a lack of emphasis on science in elementary classrooms. The National Assessment of Educational Progress reported that 40% of third graders had conducted no science experiments in the previous month. Another 19% reported never performing experiments in science class (Mullis & Jenkins, 1988). According to Goodlad (1984), science is the most neglected of all academic subjects in elementary schools in the United States, occupying an average of only 10% of total instructional time. Although there are many promising counterexamples to these overall trends, most classrooms still need better science materials and equipment, as well as support for teachers in content instruction and use of new technologies.
Project SEARCH (Science Education and Research for CHildren) is a program designed to address these problems through a collaborative model for science teaching and learning (Barlow, 1993;Wurth, 1993). Its overall goal is to enhance children's understanding of the meaning and excitement of science. Project developers hoped that children would then experience sci-