Course assignment - Reflection 3

Summary of the reading

The reading this week, The BSCS 5E instructional model:  Origins and effectiveness. A report prepared for the Office of Science Education National Institutes of Health, provides a summary on modern research regarding the sequencing of science based instruction.  The report targets research supporting the idea that the manner of sequencing for teacher instruction in science education aids in teachers’ ability to target instruction in order to better facilitate student learning. Specifically, the report provides a rationale and empirical support for the BSCS 5E Instructional Model (Bybee, Taylor, Gardner, Van Scotter, Powell, Westbrook, & Landes, 2006). The summary of the 5E Instructional model targets 5 phases that take place in sequential order. Those phases are, engage, explore, explanation, elaboration, and evaluation.  In the engage phase of the instructional model, teachers target inquiry based learning that utilizes the students prior knowledge in order to build upon their learning.   The explore phase of the instructional model provides students with the opportunity to discover more about the specific concepts being taught or the concepts that was targeted during the engage phase of this model.  The explanation phase allows students to continue to build upon their conceptual knowledge and provide a logical explanation of their findings based on what they have learned in the first two phases.  The elaboration phase provides students with an opportunity to be challenged by the teacher while enhancing their understanding and building upon their content knowledge.  In the evaluation phase of the model, students are evaluated by the teacher which allows for the teacher to ensure that students have met the specific learning objectives established at the beginning of the lesson.  The evaluation phase also allows for students to exhibit their own individual understanding of concepts.  The report takes an overall historical view of the development and implementation of the 5E model due to the overwhelming widespread curriculum based implementation, research, and development that has occurred with increasing interest throughout the years.  The report then provides a summary of the acquired research in order to substantiate the effectiveness of this model using contemporary views.  (Bybee, Taylor, Gardner, Van Scotter, Powell, Westbrook, & Landes, 2006)

                 

Ideas for possible proposals

Under the 5E instructional model, a possible proposal might be surrounded around types of energy and the transfer of energy.  This proposal would be aligned to the Texas Essential Knowledge Standards (TEKS) for 5^th grade science.  Specifically, TEKS 5.6(A) explore the uses of energy, including mechanical, sound, electrical, light, and heat/thermal, and 5.3 (A-C) Uses critical thinking and problem solving would be addressed in this proposal. In this possible proposal, students would explore the different forms of energy around them and learn how energy cannot be created nor destroyed. To engage students, the teacher could lead a class discussion by asking students to express their opinion as to what energy is. Students could make their own list of the different forms of energy and illustrate their ideas by creating a poster and sharing their posters. To explore, students could explore real world examples of where we use the different types of energies. For the explanation portion of the proposal, students might conduct research to be presented with an educational video on the 7 forms of energy. The elaboration portion of the proposal would allow students to find a real world situations where energy is being transferred using every day examples.  Students could then create a flowchart that shows the origins of the energy. Finally for the evaluation portion of the 5E model, students could design and create a Rube Goldberg and label each of energy transfers ensuring that all 7 forms of energy are utilized within the Rube Goldberg design.   One collaborator in this proposal could be the Physical Science department at the University of Texas at El Paso.  The Physical Science department could allow students to take a tour of the department as well as allowing students to take part in some activities that enhance their understanding of types of energy and the transfer of energy.

Concerns and questions for the readings or proposals

Hırça Çalık, & Seven (2011) state, the classical conceptual change approach involves the teacher designing an approach to teaching that is consistent with the types of ideas that fit the students’ existing ideas in order to promoting student fulfilment and successfully facilitate learning. Therefore, my question about the reading is, what are the best practices for teachers to gain insight into students’ existing ideas on a variety of content based topics in order to best implement the 5E instructional model?

References

Bybee, R. W., Taylor, J. A., Gardner, A., Van Scotter, P., Powell, J. C., Westbrook, A., &             Landes, N. (2006). The BSCS 5E instructional model: Origins and effectiveness. A report         prepared for the Office of Science Education National Institutes of Health. BSCS. org.    

Hırça, N., Çalık, M., & Seven, S. (2011). Effects of guide materials based on 5E model on              students’ conceptual change and their attitudes towards physics: A case for ‘work, power     and      energy’unit. Journal of Turkish Science Education,8(1), 139-152.