The National curriculum makes the learning of scientific enquiry skills compulsory and the requirements include that children should be taught to ask questions and use first-hand experience to answer questions as well as make predictions. These are the sort of skills which making learning in science self led in the sense that it is aimed at finding out what children perceive of the world around them and getting them to question why they have those ideas and what they can do to find out if their ideas are right.
This leads them in to testing or experimenting, where they should be taught how to carry out a fair test and obtain and present evidence and then finally to evaluating and interpreting their findings where they should identify patterns and compare what happened to what they thought would happen (NC).
To make sense of their world children begin using enquiry skills from a very young age (Hollins and Whitby, 2009).
Curiosity is innate in children and therefore from the minute they open their eyes they begin to question and explore the world around them.
Babies often find everything in their sight interesting especially if it is new, they then feel the urge to touch, taste and even smell it. This is the beginning of the enquiry skills which come to be developed in the early years of school life. By the time children start nursery they already have considerable experience of interacting with the world in an investigative way (Hollins and Whitby, 2009).
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AUTISM Autism is a life-long developmental disability that usually appears in the first three years of a child's life. It interferes with normal development of the brain, preventing individuals with this rare disorder from understanding what they hear, sense, and observe. Although this severe disability is considered a child's disability, autism is found in adults, interfering with normal social ...
It is the role of he teacher to begin to nurture the curiosity that the children feel, encouraging them to become active “enquirers” and develop these skills by providing learning opportunities based around scientific contexts which relate to children’s personal experiences (Hollins and Whitby, 2009).
The EYFS states that children should “find out about, and identify, some features of living things, objects and events they observe,” “investigate objects and materials by using all of their senses as appropriate” and “ask questions about why things happen and how things work”.
From these crucial lessons in early school life children begin to develop their scientific thinking posing questions such as “why? ” and “how? ” primary science is the subject in which they are able to put these questions to work and begin learning through doing. A frame work for learning through investigation (Harlen, 2009:81) “Constructivism is a perception of the way learning takes place. Learning is an active process involving the selection and integration of information by the learner” (Hollins and Whitby, 2001:1).
Social constructivism is probably the most popular theory underpinning the teaching of primary science (Meadows).
Constructivist learning centres on the active participation of children in lessons which involve problem solving and experimentation (Guest, 2003).
The learning does not intend to fill children with brand new knowledge but instead aims at building upon knowledge and ideas that the children already hold. This is to be achieved through the children’s own investigation whereby they test ideas based on their own knowledge and experiences and apply them to new situations (Guest, 2003).
When this theory is applied to learning in primary science it aims at encouraging children to learn and discover or their own. The teacher is there to prompt the children and get them thinking but not to direct or dictate any part of the lesson. Setting the scene is an important part of constructivist science teaching. This is done in order to arouse interest and curiosity (Mckinney, 2011).
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" the task for the teacher (teaching science) is to find ways of helping children transform their own beliefs into ideas and explanations more consonant with the explanations accepted by conventional science." McGuigan and shilling p 26 The constructivist approach to teaching advocates that the teaching stems from the child's own beliefs and ideas. " Constructivist learning - That teachers should ...
Elicitation is the next stage in the lesson and it s a probably the most important part of the lesson, this is the part of the lesson where the teacher finds out what children already know and think.
This is done through questioning (Meadows).
A major part of a teacher’s role is to ascertain children’s current understanding and then structure new experiences to bring about learning. (Hollins and Whitby, 2001) Once the teacher has established what the children know they can then move on to the part of the lesson which allows the children to explore the validity of their ideas and use enquiry skills in order to link ideas to evidence. (Hollins and Whitby, 2001)
In constructivism teaching it would be the children who formulate the questions for their investigations and come up with their own predictions. The teacher’s role here would be to prompt the children to formulate questions and hypotheses. This is because “if children can be involved in planning their own investigations, they can be encouraged scientifically to conclude whether their ideas are valid, or if they should reformulate them” (Harlen et al, 2003).
Once the children have planned their own investigation they will then get to carry out their given investigation.
The teacher must provide the apparatus and tools to allow the children to carry out their investigations, this gives the teacher control over what the children can use and how they can work but the children can choose which variables they want to control in order to prove or disprove their hypothesis. Finally the children will be able to conclude their findings with respect to hypotheses and predictions and present their findings to each other and their teacher. This will then lead to more questioning.
Scientific enquiry skills are essential in primary science education as they are the means by which children learn to develop their ideas. Children’s ideas should not be ignored as these ideas make sense to the children and will not be replaced by just giving them scientific information. Children have to use enquiry skills in order to realise why their idea is or isn’t true or they may just memorise the fact you have given them without really believing it and still holding on to their own ideas.
A child needs to put their theories in question in order to realise that there may be a better explanation for what is going on. (Harlen, 2009) Another reason that learning science through enquiry is important is that it portrays to children the way that scientists work in order to advance their knowledge. (Harlen et al, 2003).
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As world populations continue to grow exponentially, teachers are facing a new problem in classrooms- the large number of children. With more children, it is more difficult to teach new subjects in a short amount of time. Teachers have little time to help individual students struggling because the rest of the class is already excelling on the subject and wants to learn something new. Not only do ...
Finally, learning through enquiry allows children to be active participants in their own learning, allowing them to understand through seeing and doing. At primary age children often learn a lot through seeing the way things work (Harlen et al, 2003).
