Science Inquiry in the NYC classroom

1. Show first two minutes of video:
https://www.learner.org/resources/
series26.html
Where does this gap in science
education stem from?

2. A Framework
for K-12
Science
Education:
Practices,
Crosscutting
Concepts, and
Core Ideas

3. High Stakes Testing
• “Science standardized testing prevents
students from learning material
thoroughly and instead encourages test
taking skills and memorization.”
• Out of sixty-five students I surveyed
about their goals in taking regents
physics, forty-five responded with goals
strictly about grades.
• “Learning in our schools has become a matter of
meeting static, arbitrary and superficial ‘standards’
rather than engaging in the dynamic, endlessly
creative process of discovery that children come into
the world eager to embark on” (Samtani).

4. • ELL students
• Stereotype threat
• Epistemological bias
• Balance content and inquiry
• Team Learning
• Other options for assessment: tests to only
certain students each year, stealth
assessments, portfolios
Reconstructing High Stakes Testing

5. Teacher and Textbook: Dispensers of
Knowledge
• “How am I supposed to do it if you don’t tell
me? Hey Phil (across the room), go build a
rocket but I’m not going to tell you how”
(Steinberg 61).
• Transition toward more student-directed
classrooms earlier in education.
• Textbook as a supplemental source and
differentiate sources for the different needs of
students

6. Teacher Expectations
• There are also noticeable trends between a student’s “first
language, ethnicity, and migration status” and their success
in school.
• Predisposition toward creating less challenging classrooms
• Classroom
management in
denser classrooms
creates stricter
classrooms

7. Setting a Higher Bar for our Students
• Project-Based Science: extended authentic
investigations, driving questions, collaborative
work, learning technologies, artifacts

8. Teacher Understanding of Inquiry
• 78% believed they “were either proficient or
accomplished in their level of understanding of
what science inquiry means”
• 62% percent believed they were proficient in
using science inquiry in their classrooms
(Osisioma 97).
• Once these teachers were questioned about the
key elements of inquiry only thirty-nine percent
“correctly identified some elements of inquiry”
(98).

9. Improving Teacher Understanding of Inquiry
• Professional Development
– Bridge the gap between the science education
research community and the community of
teachers
– Continuous process
– Experience learning science through inquiry

10. Disconnection to Science
• One study found that
African American third
graders pictured
scientists as “A mature,
intelligent,
hardworking, White
male, wearing glasses,
formally dressed or in a
lab coat, who also
teaches as a part of
work they do” (Walls pg
15).

11. Connecting Students to Science
• Culturally responsive teaching
• Science that matters
• Student Discourse
• Simulations
• Virtual fieldwork
It made me feel smart. ‘Cause. . .I
made my own question up, and I
never did that before. I felt like a
genius when I made my own
question. And then I did my own
project. I did it by myself, just me
and my partner. We were making
our own thing. That made me
feel like a genius, like a scientist.
(Mallucci 1135)

12. Resources in NYC
Bridge Golf Foundation
https://bridgegolffoundation.org/blog/