I would say that scientific literacy is having the ability
to understand how to read, present, and interpret science. Being literate in science makes communication
possible between others. Just as there
are different levels of proficiency when it comes to language literacy, there
are different levels of scientific literacy.
Scientific literacy is not something that should be exclusive to
scientists. Scientific literacy is also
important for people in other professions to have. Everyone should be able to see a graph or
representation in a newspaper and understand what information is being
presented (and hopefully know if it is reliable).
Media and representations are a huge part of scientific
literacy. Media and representations
allow for people to understand the summation of the phenomena being
investigated visually. Charts and graphs
are seen in everyday life in newspapers/TV as well as research papers. Interpreting these figures is essential to
understanding what data is being communicated.
Modeling will play a huge role in my classroom. I really hope to make it central to my
students learning experience. I will
definitely encourage students to make representations and revise them. I will also encourage students to use multiple forms
of representations. Physical,
representational, computational, and mental models all have different
affordances and drawbacks. However they
can all be revised and revision is a key part in the modeling process. Having different model types will allow for
rich discussion about concepts and let students explore science in unique ways. Although in the traditional approach of
teaching students can still acquire knowledge, modeling really lets students
engage in actual scientific practices and I feel they will get a lot more out
of it.
How many revisions are necessary to make before you move on
to new content?
If everyone creates individual unique models for every
concept, how will you as a teacher address all of them?
I think your second question is really interesting, and my answer would be: you don't specifically have to! You as the teacher are the facilitator for your students to address each other's work. You may need to initially model what good critique looks like (what questions to ask, how to ask them, what a good scientific model should be able to do), but your students should be able to take that up on their own and then have those discussions among themselves! The articles we read for last week talked a little about doing this when the authors specifically mentioned that they needed to stop talking and let the students talk.
ReplyDeleteI like your first question. I think it probably varies from topic to topic. For example, with something like speed and acceleration like we did with oneturtle, you could probably have everyone revise until they basically have it right. there would be some obvious end where there model was correct for the concept you wanted them to get. Other topics would be harder to call though like the predator prey model. You could make that endlessly more complicated. Maybe checkpoint quizzes could tell you when kids knew all the stuff you wanted them to know.
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