Week six - reflection

 Welcome back to Rebecca’s Learning Adventure!

This week there was a lot of discussion of Science education, and how it has been transformed, and how it needs to be continuously improved. 

    Science is often looked at in such a light of simply knowing the theories, facts and laws that explain our universe. Science is much more than the knowing and applying of these facts. The world of science is so vast and endless. 

When I was a student in elementary school, science was presented to me in the way that it was just facts that I needed to memorize. When I got to high school, my grade nine science teacher showed me that science is so much more than the facts. She showed me what these facts looked like in relation to the actual world. She showed me through many different experiments, videos and so many more resources. This Science teacher made me fall in love with science because I was taught that everything can be explained in some way. She taught me to be curious and interested, but most importantly to question. There was never a time that a question could not be asked, and if she did not know the answer she would be honest about it, go home and do the research and tell me the next day. She created such an environment where we would learn what is out there and what can be explained, but the door would not be closed on any other questions asked. This Science teacher was one of the few teachers that made me realize that the world is a very fascinating beautiful place, as well as a teacher that inspired me to become one myself. 

Science is a vibrant evolving theory-oriented subject field that grows from people and their ideas. One important topic that I realized is that disagreements are what makes science so robust and interesting. Every single person can have their own unique ideas, and if they can find a way to prove their ideas through various means, they could have developed a new scientific theory. One thing about Science is that there are often many disagreements when new ideas are presented. This develops a new way of thinking for many as the ideas have to be backed up with evidence and there cannot be any contradictions. The process of disagreeing is a part of the scientific inquiry methods as it creates a stronger theory that people cannot disagree with. The beautiful part about science though is that any theory to this present day can be revised, or rejected. The world is in constant changes, so the theories to explain our world may also be subject to change 

The changing world of science is an important thing to teach students, so they do not get trapped in the mindset that all they have to do in class is memorize facts. There are many ways to be able to do this including, but not limited to, having investigative questions proposed that students have to solve using their own knowledge, developing experiments to build connections and so much more. The environment of the classroom needs to be a safe and open place to allow questions and discovery. In today's society, we take theories as a way of helping us to understand how the nature of our world works. If students want to develop their own understanding, or if they need to ask many questions to reach the conclusion presented, the space needed to do so needs to be provided. Students should be active agents in their own learning. If the students have the opportunity to reach conclusions on their own accord, or investigate something they are interested in, they will learn so much more. This will also help them to understand the relevance of what they are learning. Many students need to know when they are going to use what they are learning again, so if they can see those connections for themselves they can understand the relevance more. 

Experimenting is also an important part of science as it is one tool that can be used to see the theories in practice. It was mentioned that when experiments are done in a way of graded labs they can lose their purpose. The students will be more focused on doing everything correctly, opposed to observing and analyzing what is occurring. Educators must find a balance between having students be able to experiment as a mode of discovery, and experimenting as a mode of assessment. In my personal experience, when I was able to watch, or perform experiments it gave me a better understanding of the concepts we were learning. These concepts are also the ones I remember to this day, because I was fascinated by the results of seeing these theories in practice. 

The Scientific method is a good starting point for students to understand how topics are presented in science and what processes other scientists used to develop their theories. The Scientific method needs to be presented in a non-linear way though too because inquiry is not linear, it is messy and all over the place. Students need to be able to challenge any theories they hear. They need to be taught the skills to research, investigate, experiment, analyze, theorize and conclude based on their findings. The students need to be allowed to tackle new ideas, even without the previous knowledge as that is how new ideas are discovered. If the world of science was organized in such a way that made people first understand everything about the topic, then develop theories, the world of science would be at a freezing point. The questioning of the world to develop an understanding is the forefront of science and needs to be taught in such a matter. 

One of my teachable subjects is Science, and I want to be able to create my classroom in a way that everyone learns from everyone. If the students discover something I have never heard of, I want them to tell me all about it. I will want to teach them all the skills required to back up their discovery, but I want them to share their thoughts. That way we can all learn from each other and gain confidence in our understanding. This will also call the students to bring in their previous knowledge, and make connections to new material that they can in turn take to another subject. 

I hope everyone continues to join me on my learning adventure!