Devising a new way to teach science

Fort Worth, TX

4/16/2007

How can a teacher schooled in 20th-century science prepare today’s high school students for stem cells, avian flu and other biological issues of the 21st century? TCU biology Professor Ray Drenner and education Associate Professor Molly Weinburgh believe they have the answer. Adapted from a course Drenner designed to make biology palatable to undergraduate non-science majors, the colleagues’ grant-funded Contemporary Issues in Biology professional development program may be changing the way Texas teachers teach science.

A recent study conducted by Weinburgh and three other TCU researchers suggests that the program is responsible for improving teachers’ classical and contemporary knowledge of biology.

“There is definitive data that the curriculum we offer improves teachers’ understanding of classic issues, contemporary issues and the nature of science,” Weinburgh said. “And we have growing evidence they use it in the classroom.”

The program, now in its fourth year, began after the state issued a request for proposals for a teacher development program. Drenner thought his Contemporary Issues course could be adapted, and he convinced Weinburgh they could win the bid. They did that and have received renewal grants each year since, for a total of $500,000.

Drenner, Weinburgh and TCU biology Instructor Mark Bloom have now conducted two-week workshops for 60 teachers, who receive a course load of PowerPoint lectures with detailed diagrams and other visuals, plus news magazine articles on each topic. The Contemporary Issues lesson plans are an eye-opener, as many of the teachers know little about AIDS or climate change or the latest work on diabetes.

“Our teachers aren’t unknowing, untrained people; their old knowledge is sufficient to teach biology,” Weinburgh said. “But there’s no doubt that teachers who trained 10 years ago, 15 years ago, simply don’t have the new knowledge.

“The teachers don’t need minutiae,” she added. “They need the big picture.”

After completing the workshop, the teachers seem to know considerably more than when they started. At an Association of Science Teacher Educators conference in January, Weinburgh presented the results of a study she co-authored with Bloom, biology Instructor Judy Groulx and education doctoral student April Sawey.

The team conducted pre- and post-tests to assess 17 teachers’ understanding of stem cells, the human genome, cloning, gene therapy, the digestive system, the immune system, vaccines, HIV/AIDS and evolution. Half of the questions covered classic knowledge - traditional biological concepts - and the other half addressed contemporary knowledge - findings reported over the past five years.

In the pre-test, the teachers showed “an above average, but not excellent, classical understanding of biology,” Weinburgh said, and a low understanding of contemporary issues. “Yes, they knew that the DNA molecule has four bases, but they didn’t know anything about the Human Genome Project.”

The understanding of contemporary issues increased dramatically in the post-test. The teachers also made slight gains in their mastery of classic biology. The gap between their classic and contemporary knowledge decreased. And for every topic except HIV/AIDS, the confidence in their knowledge showed gains.

“It is interesting to note that the teachers’ weakest performance was on the topic of evolution and the strongest was on stem cells and the digestive system,” the researchers wrote. “They appeared to have gained relatively more understanding on the topics of stem cells and the immune system. They actually showed a slight negative gain on HIV/AIDS. However, closer inspection of the specific test items has led us to reconsider the degree to which we should interpret these data too stringently.”

Another benefit of the workshops seems to be that teachers acquire a better understanding of the tenets of the nature of science. The tenets are seven commonly accepted characteristics of credible scientific research:
1. Findings are tentative and subject to change after new observations and interpretations are made
2. Scientific knowledge has a basis in empirical observations
3. Subjectivity does influence the direction of science, scientific interpretations and theories
4. Scientists employ creativity in their observations of the natural world
5. Cultural values and expectations influence the direction science proceeds and how society accepts the findings
6. Scientists make observations of the natural world and inferences to explain their observations
7. Laws are descriptive, while theories are inferential. Scientific hypotheses may lead to either laws or theories, but they are different types of scientific knowledge.

“If a major goal of science classes today is to convey [the nature of science] to the students, then it follows that the teachers, themselves, should be well educated on the issue,” the researchers wrote. Although Weinburgh’s team did not rigorously examine the teachers’ understanding of the nature of science, the researchers noted that the teachers initially could discuss the tenets but did not understand fully what they mean. In the post-test, the teachers were slightly better at identifying examples illustrative of the tenets.

Weinburgh, who is working on an academic journal article about this research, said her team will be following the teachers to study how they incorporate the Contemporary Issues curriculum into the classroom.

“We definitely have evidence that the teachers are using in their classrooms material picked up in the professional development. We see things on their walls. We hear them utter things. We hear that students respond back in ways that show us that is happening. All the indications are there that suggest teachers are really using the curriculum, and they are really using the pedagogical hints embedded in the curriculum.”

What the researchers have not studied yet is whether the Contemporary Issues curriculum actually boosts student learning. The state would like them to study the influence of Contemporary Issues training on student scores on the science portion of the TAKS standardized test, but the colleagues have declined, saying it would not be an apples-to-apples comparison.

“If we looked at TAKS scores of kids before the teachers come to our workshop, we’re not looking at the same kids’ TAKS scores after the teachers come out of our workshop,” Weinburgh said. “We would be looking at the teachers’ 10th-graders this year and comparing it to their 10th-graders next year. It’s a whole different set of kids.”

Like the teachers, Drenner and Weinburgh believe they, too, have become better teachers because of the Contemporary Issues program.
“It has helped us think through our own lectures and labs in a profound way that we would not have done if we didn’t have the challenge of developing this for teachers around the state,” Drenner said. “I think our own course has improved significantly.

“Molly has used this to establish wonderful relationships between TCU and schools all around the state. That’s a great benefit to TCU in terms of contacts and what that means in terms of our reputation in education and science.”

Contact:
Weinburgh at m.weinburgh@tcu.edu
Drenner at r.drenner@tcu.edu