May 18, 2015 - 02:08
Education class x science class
As a student majoring in a hard science (geology) and as a the daughter of two educators, I have seen first hand the necessity of interdisciplinary work for students as they transition from high school into college. The transition is also a shift from a structured classroom into one with a fluid dynamic that needs a shape but can flow from topic to topic and even benifit from the interweaving of subjects across the disciplines.
- In creating an example interdisciplinary class, I inevitably leaned towards the sciences since that is where I’m most comfortable. What I did try to do, however, was to step back and look beyond what I’m being taught to how it’s being taught to me. This is significant because I know that I get very hung up on activities in other classes, but that sometimes the structure of a history or english class just “clicks” so maybe, in the end, it has more to do with how I’m being taught than the material being covered. In the sciences, there’s a lot of variation between lecture style classes and purely hands on courses, but in the end they are all broken down into similar sections that lightly follow the “scientific process” that most students are taught in high school or earlier.
- The class’ structure is hopefully set up similar to the steps of a basic science experiment: question → hypothesis → experiment/gather data → analyze
- Can science be applied to other topics? → yes, if we understand the process behind it → let students get hands on practice running things in a scientific manner → share their ideas and discuss how this worked → look at how other ideas spread beyond basic classroom discussion
General Course Information:
This is an interdisciplinary, half-credit course offered first quarter spring semester through Bryn Mawr College’s Education Studies Program.
Description
How is science taught to high school students? Could these methods be applied to other subjects? These and many other questions will be considered in this course as we open a discussion of current science education and delve into how these methods of teaching might be applied to other topics. Through reading, discussion, and hands on applications this class will give students the chance to develop their own miniature “non-science” experiment, and connect their learnings into other disciplines.
Possible Units/Lessons
Unit 1 - question
How is most high school science taught?
have students brainstorm terms and their pre-existing knowledge of science method
- how to do experiments and research - the scientific process
- science history - ideas and discoveries through time
- methods/labs/practice - hands on vs. theoretical vs. problem sets
Unit 2 - research/experiment
Further into the scientific process -
- run an example activity that uses this process
- hypothesize about a basic trait of class members (eye color, left or right handed, how many siblings, etc)
- survey students to gather information
- chart the results and compare to the original hypothesis
- format conclusion into something that could be shared
- homework: students must come up with their own mini experiment, preferably one not based in the physical sciences (biology, physics, chemistry, etc) but rather statistics and data gathering are a main focus here
Unit 3 - analyze
look back at how these experiments worked
- did the students experiements have any snags?
- Were some topics easier than others to run research on?
- How do we adapt our future experiments for those topics to make it easier?
- Ultimately, was the scientific process applicable to other subjects and disciplines?
Unit 4 - share
How do these ideas spread?
- discuss where class members have heard about scientific discoveries before (brainstorm sources…. have them write these down the night before to facilitate the discussion)
- spread of knowledge today - what sources influence the most?
- Schools + internet + books + word of mouth
- funding??
final project for them might be creating a “science style” plan for a lesson in a non scientific topic?