Teaching Science Outdoors

• In Event: 14.037 - Building International Professional Learning Communities

Abstract

This project was initially developed in Israel, where inquiry-based learning is highly advocated by the Ministry of Education (MoE), in all grade levels and in most school disciplines. We noticed that the language used in formal and semi-formal documents of the MoE are too vague and even conceptually inaccurate. We then conducted a pilot study among science teachers, and realized that their views of scientific inquiry and inquiry-based learning are limited. Inquiry is perceived mainly as experimental. There is no discussion of descriptive, correlational, or causal studies, and even in the social sciences, quantitative causal designs are recommended. This limited presentation of inquiry is documented in the research literature as well (Bell, Urhahne, Schanze, & Ploetzner, 2010; Dodick & Orion, 2003; Duschl & Grandy, 2008; Mayer & Kumano, 1999), as well as teachers’ challenges in inquiry-teaching (Crawford & Capps, 2016; Tal & Argaman, 2005). One reason why teachers struggle is because inquiry learning is presented in multiple, sometimes conflicting, ways and because inquiry learning has become a slogan for all student-centered learning (Osborne, 2014).
Based on this context, we offered a professional development program (PD) to expose science teachers to different genres of research, and used the outdoor environment as a context for authentic inquiry learning. About 40 Israeli high school science teachers experienced three different genres of inquiry by taking part in ecological, sociological, and archeological investigations – all done in one socio-ecological system. We supported the teachers through a dynamic website that we developed for this community to work together and followed the teachers’ collaborative inquiry projects and the ways their descriptions of inquiry learning changed throughout the PD.
This effort was then shared and modified with researchers and educators from the United States. The Michigan team identified elementary teachers, who do not have sufficient science background as a target population, and decided to focus more on the opportunities for good science teaching that involve outdoor learning aligned with the Next Generation Science Standards. The initial adaptation of the website was done by the Israeli developer, and in the following years, more and more Michigan adaptations were done. The Michigan team adopted two of the pedagogical models that directed the activities: 1) the spiral model for outdoor learning: preparation (in-school), field investigation, and summary (in-school); and 2) decreasing the Novelty-Space. A third model: The Hands-on, Heads-on, Hearts-on, was adopted too. In all three years in which we carried out the PD at KBS, teachers reported substantial change in their science teaching practice. The Israeli and the Michigan teams continuously discuss similarities and differences and inform each other about methods they use, and challenges they experience. The international team consists of science educators, an educational technologist, scientists, and outdoor educators who learn together about similarities and differences among teachers in the curricula and the local and national issues that shape our work.

Authors

• Tali Tal, Technion Israel Institute of Technology

• Irene Bayer, Michigan State University

• Kara Haas, Michigan State University

• Joseph S. Krajcik, Michigan State University

• Katherine Gross, Michigan State University