Unpacking the TIMSS Video Study

What Science Teaching Looks Like: An International Perspective tells us there are two major differences in the way science is taught in the United States, and in four countries that outperformed the U.S. in science achievement on the 1999 TIMSS assessment.

1. Each of the higher-achieving countries has a distinct core pattern of science teaching; in the U.S. lessons are characterized by variety.
2. Science lessons in higher-achieving countries focus on content; U.S. lessons tend to focus on engagement in a variety of activities.

This article asks

• Is U.S. emphasis on "inquiry" in the science classroom unintentionally obscuring the importance of understanding science ideas?

• How can schools better link hands-on inquiry teaching to the development of science content understandings?

Also in this issue of EL, "Getting Past "Inquiry Versus" Content" discusses how using the Learning Cycle model helps teachers create science instruction that is both hands-on and content-rich. (Members log in for full access)

Comments

[Mary Donaghy]

What an eye-opener this article was! I agree that content is vital to a lesson (especially in relation to real life situations) but feel that skill development is equally important (e.g. being able to pose problems and hypothesise as well as form reasonable conclusions from data). By 'higher achieving countries' do you mean those countries whose students have a greater knowledge of scientific facts or those whose students have a greater range of strategies/skills to solve scientific problems?

[Jason Waskiewicz]

More and more, I've realized that any activity I do should go through a cost-benefit analysis. The cost is the amount of time put into it. The benefit is the amount of content learning that students get out of it. This has led the the dropping of a number of really good labs because they weren't worth the amount of time invested in them.

So much of the conversation between science teachers is related to activities that can be done. This can lead a newer teacher to feel inadequate and attempt to compensate. It has only been since I became involved with Standards writing in my state that I began to examine these activities with a critical eye. There are a lot of activities which are fun, innovative, and educational, but are not efficiently reaching curriculum goals. The most painful part of this was to eye my own activities the same way.