John Cripps Clark

Faculty of Education,

Deakin University,

Melbourne.

jcc@deakin.edu.au

Paper presented at the AARE-NZARE Conference 1999, Melbourne,

29th Nov - 2nd Dec.

I am researching the role of practical activities in learning upper primary science and as such the subject of the amount and nature of science teaching in primary schools repeatedly arises in discussions with teachers and colleagues. Much of the research that has been done

(for example Adams, Doig, & Rosier, 1991; Australian Science, 1996; Board of Studies NSW, 1997; Lokan, Ford, & Greenwood, 1997)

suggests that a minimum of 1 hour of science is done each week. Anecdotal evidence and observational research such as Cousins (1996) suggest that in many schools effectively no science is taught and where it is taught it is often taught poorly. It seemed important to try and cast some light on this question and since I was interested in finding out what was going on from the students perspective it made sense to go and visit schools, sit in on lessons and talk to teachers.

It is difficult to gauge the amount and nature of primary science teaching because in primary schools because:

• science is often taught as an integrated unit with other subject areas and thus the proportion of science taught can vary from lesson to lesson;
• the one teacher is teaching many subjects and doing many activities with the children science is often taught incidentally at other times;
• the relative importance and teaching style of science varies widely between teachers;
• the normal routine is rarely normal and never routine (Cripps Clark, 1998); and
• surveys are often better at gauging intentions than actions.

Eight schools were chosen so as to cover a wide variety of Australian primary schools, selected on the basis of personal contacts. Fourteen lessons were observed taught by twelve teachers.

Table 1: Distribution of schools visited

Each school was visited for one day during which I:

• met with the science coordinator and discussed the science program in the school, collected a copy of any school policy and curriculum documents and looked at science resources and facilities;
• observed any science lessons or lessons which involve a component of science that were occurring that day; and
• interviewed the teachers the lessons observed.

Notes were taken during and immediately after the lessons and interviews.

In the eight schools that I observed science was either taught by the normal classroom teacher (six schools) or by a specialist teacher(two schools). In K-12 schools this could have been a specialist secondary science teachers but this was not the case in the two K-12 schools observed.

The two schools which did have a specialist science teacher were both small (just below and above 100 students) and the specialist science teacher gave time release for the classroom teachers. One science teacher was the most senior teacher in the school, after the principal, a primary teacher of almost twenty years experience who had written the science curriculum for the school and had a particular interest in science teaching. The other teacher had no science training or primary teaching experience and had been hired to teach LOTE, which was their area of expertise and, because the previous LOTE teacher had also taught science, they also taught LOTE and science. Both teachers felt restricted in undertaking prolonged or involved activities because of the lesson was timetabled for forty minutes to one hour at the same time each week.

This is consistent with the findings of the N.S.W. evaluation of the science and technology K-6 syllabus.

There was, however, little concern about what equipment to use and how to effectively use it. The pedagogical problems of using resources were generally glossed over with the mantra "hands on". Unlike secondary science laboratories where there is an elaborate initiation into a specialised relationship with equipment, in primary classrooms the equipment is regarded as an extension of everyday articles and so the issues involved tend to be restricted to those of safety. Thus science is integrated in the primary classroom not only in the sense that the lesson will skip from poetry to science to geography, but also in that the activities and equipment are seen as an continuous with those of craft and cooking and everyday life.

No particular concern was expressed about the level of resourcing and budgets. Teachers said they gave requests to coordinator who went out and bought what was necessary. Yet at two of the schools a lack of basic equipment, battery holders and magnets, impeded the lessons observed.

Table 2: Average percentage of lesson devoted to various activities

Practical activities formed the central third in all but two of the lessons observed. These two lessons used information gathering as the students central activity and were somewhat eccentric. One was given by a teacher who said he was having difficulty with discipline and was therefore not prepared to do a practical activity with the students and that the other was taken from ‘Visual Ventures’ unit the N.S.W. curriculum and was closer to a media studies lesson than traditional science.

A review of the previous lesson only occurred in two lessons for two and four minutes. All teachers spoke during the interview of the lesson observed being part of a sequence of lessons yet all but three of the lessons observed functioned autonomously with no overt or implicit reference to subsequent or previous lessons. The introduction generally included a long class discussion to which students contributed many of their own ideas. In fact the discussions were generally longer, and included more student input, before the activity rather than after it. This may be because the students are less responsive at the end of the lesson or students contributions to discussion are informed more by their general experience rather than their experiences in the practical activities or the teachers simply ran out of time. In nine of the lessons the students sat on the floor for the introduction and then returned to their desks for the activities and except for three lessons stayed at their desks for the conclusion of the lesson. In six of the lessons writing up and/or discussion of results was deferred to the next lesson

There was universal commitment from the teachers to using practical activities as an important part of lessons and three of the teachers explicitly said that they used "hands on" activities. This emphasis was illustrated by the complete absence of any teacher or student demonstrations in any of the lessons observed. Students appeared to enjoy the practical activities as epitomised by one boy during an optics activity saying loudly to no-one in particular: "Science is cool" (repeated twice). The teacher commented in the interview: "Students enjoy science and technology, especially the boys".

In all cases the questions and activities investigated were generated from the teacher. Students ideas were usually solicited in the initial discussion but were directed to the teachers agenda. The teacher dominated the classroom in the introduction and conclusion. It was in the practical activities that the students were able to exercise more autonomy. This was even more so in the activity where the students were rotating around stations. Here the teacher reasserted control by ensuring a very rapid movement between stations.

As far as the one of the primary aims: to gauge the amount and nature of primary science teaching, this project has been a failure. It is difficult to randomly interrogate the amount or even the practice of science teaching in primary schools. You cannot for ethical and practical reasons, randomly visit schools, unannounced. Teachers naturally want to please and will preferentially teach science when they know you are visiting the school. The science taught and its manner of teaching will be affected by the observers presence. Nevertheless in order to improve the teaching of science in primary schools we need to start from a sound knowledge of current practice and so it behoves researchers to delve more deeply than surveys of teachers and principals.

As well as some obvious flaws there are many good features of primary science practice. We need to be very careful in our attempts to raise the standard of science teaching we do not reproduce the culture of secondary science teaching but rather nurture the best features of existing practice. To do this we need to better understand current primary science practice.

Adams, R. J., Doig, B. A., & Rosier, M. (1991). Science learning in Victorian schools: 1990. Melbourne: ACER.

Australian Science, Technology and Engineering Council (1996). Study on Primary School Science and Technology. Canberra: ASTEC.

Board of Studies NSW (1997). Science and Technology K-6: Report on the Limited Evaluation of the syllabus and support document http://www.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/k6/scitech_report1.html

Cousins, J. (1996). The state of primary science in Western Australia. In M.-W. Hackling (Ed.), Annual Western Australian Science Education Association Conference, (pp. 199). Perth, Western Australia, Australia.

Cripps Clark, J. (1998). Disruptions: Finding out what is really going on. In S. Groves, R. Tytler, & G. White (Ed.), Contemporary Approaches to Research in Mathematics, Science, Health and Environmental Education 1998 , 5, Deakin University, Burwood: Centre for Studies in Mathematics, Science and Environmental Education.

Lokan, J., Ford, P., & Greenwood, L. (1997). Maths and science on the line: Australian middle primary students performance in the Third International Mathematics and Science Study. Melbourne: ACER.

Appendix 1: Percentages of class time devoted to parts of lesson

Each capital letter refers to a different school. Numbers refer to teachers at each school and small letters to different classes taught by the same teacher. These timings and classifications are somewhat arbitrary. It was not always easy to differentiate between procedural and conceptual matters as teachers would rapidly slip between the two. That acknowledged there are some pretty unequivocal timings: the three major sections are clearly marked by the whole class discussion ending and students getting up from sitting at the front of the room and going to there own desks and working individually or in small groups.