SCIENCE SEMESTER AT THE UNIVERSITY OF DELAWARE: INTEGRATED INQUIRY- AND PROBLEM-BASED LEARNING APPROACH TO IMPROVE THE SCIENCE UNDERSTANDING OF FUTURE ELEMENTARY EDUCATION TEACHERS

In this NSF-funded project, we will adapt problem-based learning (PBL) and other inquiry-based approaches to create an integrated science and education methods curriculum for elementary teacher education (ETE) majors at the University of Delaware. Our goal is to foster integrated understandings of science and pedagogy that future elementary teachers need to effectively use inquiry-based approaches in their classrooms.

An introductory-level earth science course is presently one of the four science courses, the other three being general biology, physical science, and science teaching methods, required of ETE majors. Presently, ETEs take the courses in variable sequences and at widely scattered times. Too many fail to appreciate the value of science courses to their future careers as teachers, and when they reach the methods course in the junior year they often retain little of the science content studied earlier. These episodic encounters with science make it difficult for students to learn the content, and to translate their understandings of science into effective, inquiry-based teaching strategies.

To encourage integrated understandings of science concepts and pedagogy we will coordinate the science and methods courses in a junior-year “science semester” for ETE majors. Traditional subject matter boundaries will be crossed to stress shared themes that teachers must understand to teach standards-based elementary science. We will adapt exemplary approaches that support both learning science and learning how to teach science. Students will work collaboratively on multidisciplinary PBL activities that place science concepts in authentic contexts and build learning skills. “Lecture” meetings will be large group active learning sessions that help students understand difficult concepts, make connections between class activities, and launch and wrap-up PBL problems. Labs will include activities from elementary science kits as launching points for in-depth investigations that demonstrate the continuity of science concepts and pedagogies across age levels. In the methods course, students will critically explore the theory and practice of elementary science teaching, drawing on their shared experiences of inquiry learning in the science courses.