Enhancement of Science Teaching
Primary researcher
Dr. Christine Blais, University 1, University of Manitoba
Description of proposed research
Whereas high school science teachers prepare their students for success in university courses, some university professors, less confident about the preparation that high school science courses provide, assume the role of gate-keepers: a role they view as necessary because of the poor preparation of the entering students. This "weed-out" tradition in universities has a long history especially in the sciences (Seymour & Hewitt, 1997). In 1999, the Council of Ministers of Education of Canada articulated clear expectations of what post-secondary institutions should be delivering: quality, accessibility, mobility and portability, relevance and responsiveness, research and scholarship, and accountability. Teaching and learning apply to all themes. Judging the students' first-year experiences in the sciences by the dropout and failure rates, and the low numbers of students wishing to major, the conclusion can only be that this first-year experience has in general not been a positive one. Upon examination, it would seem that the common link between the high school teacher, the student and the university professor is knowledge and its transmission, i.e., the goal of the high school teacher and university professor is to transmit knowledge to the students in their care. The question is: why are the same students seen as prepared by high school teachers and as unprepared by the university professors? Where is the disconnect?
The objective of this project is to examine, within a cognitive approach to learning and the structure of knowledge, what knowledge students actually need to be successful in the sciences. Two types of expertise are required in order to achieve this goal successfully: knowledge of the discipline (chemistry, mathematics, biology or physics) and knowledge of pedagogy. Expert teachers, be it high school or university, are like expert problem solvers in other fields: they have highly organized and elaborated sets of conceptual knowledge in their domain; they have sets of automated basic skills that they execute smoothly and seemingly without effort; and they have well-developed but flexible and adaptive sets of strategic knowledge that they use for planning, for working towards their pedagogical goals, and for evaluatin their progress and modifying their actions.
In order to assess the impact of socio-cultural variables, groups of teachers would be sub-divided along urban/rural and Aboriginal/non-Aboriginal lines. Two graduate students would be required to support the organizing and collection of data. The first year will be the establishment of an inventory of the basic skills, conceptual knowledge and strategies that high school and university teachers believe are necessary for first-year students to be successful in their respective disciplines.
Timeline
High school teachers and university professors in mathematics, biology, chemistry and physics from different school boards and universities will meet in order to develop this inventory as well as to establish the first-year assessment tools. The second year would have three main tasks: the collection of baseline data on first-year students; the development, by high school teachers and university professors working together, of a two-year curriculum based on the inventory of knowledge developed in the first-year assessment; and finally, the collection of baseline data on first-year students at the end of each course. In the third year baseline data on first-year students would be collected at the beginning and end of each course bu the year would be mainly devoted to teaching the revised curriculum to the high school students and the university students. In year four, the students would be tested at the beginning of course, taught the revised curriculum and tested at the end of the course. Other data that would be relevant to the overall analysis would be the drop-out rates, the failure rates, and the number of majors entering their second year of the discipline.
Project evaluation would lead to the enhancement of science teaching in university settings and a greater sensitivity to the Aboriginal student needs. The cooperation between high school science teachers and the university community would present opportunities for dialogue and sharing of pedagogical information. Publications in professional and academic journals and conference presentations will ensure a wide audience.
