PROJECT DISCOVERY AT OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY MARION

Gordon J. Aubrecht, II, Department of Physics, Ohio State University at Marion, Marion, OH 43302-5695 USA, (614) 389-6786 ext. 6250, aubrecht@mps.ohio-state.edu

ABSTRACT

Project Discovery is the National Science Foundation-funded State Systemic Initiative for Ohio aimed at middle school teachers (pupil ages 10 to 13). Several years ago, an Institute was developed to help middle school teachers give their students more exposure to active learning. The Institute consists of a summer workshop (5-6 weeks) and a yearlong followup. I describe our experience offering the physical science version of the Institute at a small campus of a large university.

BACKGROUND

In 1991, Project Discovery was funded by the National Science Foundation as a State Systemic Initiative (SSI). It is the one SSI most focused on improving science and mathematics skills for teachers. While the State of Ohio currently ranks sixth among the states in science and technology-based industry and ninth in the number of small firms active in high technology, Ohio's schools rank in the mid-twenties in mathematics, science and technology education.[1] Citizens are concerned that without an educated workforce, the surge of innovation will move somewhere else, taking future jobs. Test scores in the state are only slightly above the national average. In a 1990 sampling administered by the National Assessment of Educational Progress, Ohio ranked 19th out of 40 states participating. As a demographically diverse state, Ohio is attempting to strengthen mathematics and science education in all its schools for all its students, especially for students from "minority" groups who will become the majority of the next century's workforce.

In order to facilitate the change, Ohio's Department of Education issued standards calling for less rote learning and more reasoning based on evidence. This provides some pressure for teachers to change. Local teachers, because of varied backgrounds, lack of self-confidence, low pay scales compared to the state mean, and extremely large work loads, may be teaching about ideas for which they feel inadequately prepared. They rely far too heavily on textbooks and teach science and mathematics through rote memorization rather than as living realms of processes for sifting knowledge through model-building, experimentation, and search for falsification followed by renewed model-building. Schools and even individual teachers have felt pressure for change from voters and students as a result of constant unfavorable newspaper coverage. This has helped create a desire to have more training available that would allow their students to perform better. The professional development for teachers in science and mathematics has been met in part by the Project Discovery Summer Institutes in mathematics, physics, and life science for middle school and elementary teachers given at various locations across the State.

THE INSTITUTE

Project Discovery professional development, at least in the physics institutes, concentrates on three elements:

1. an inquiry-based science content curriculum for teachers, incorporating use of technology where appropriate;
2. instruction in inquiry-based teaching and cooperative learning with emphasis on the process of science rather than viewing science as a disparate collection of facts;
3. sustained professional development and continued support.

Another extremely important part of the institute is the creation of inquiry lessons--adaptations of lessons (e.g., based on AIMS or FOSS materials) the teachers give or creation of new lessons. The lessons are carried through with students from the Marion City Schools (Figs. 6--8). Lessons are graded by both staff and by fellow participants.

The participants evaluate each other on the flow and pacing, the logical sequencing of ideas, involvement of all students, and evidence of inquiry seen in the lesson.

The staff focused on (a) evaluation of the new materials written, citation of others' materials used, coherence of written materials, focus of written materials, readability of materials, and so on, and (b) reflection by the student, a written reconsideration of the lesson, what worked and what did not, incorporation of advice from peers and staff (what advice was taken and why; what was not and why), and submission of revision of written lesson if applicable. Even this part is responsible for less than 10% of their grade, participants work quite hard on their inquiry lessons.

Midterm tests on content make up 30% of the Summer course grade, quizzes on content 15%, journals (which demand reflection on the students' experiences--see Fig. 9) 10%, and homework 15%. The physics institute has a reputation for demanding more work of the students than the other institutes, but all are rigorous in content and demanding in lesson creation.

THE FOLLOWUP

The participants followed up their Summer experiences with a full-year followup of occasional meetings, creation of a portfolio, and various professional development activities. The portfolio is meant to express their experiences through the school year in implementing inquiry in their classes. Here is an excerpt from one participant's portfolio: "Here are a few things this [Project Discovery experience] has meant for my classroom in the past couple of months: I'm having students write more about the activities they've done, gradually moving them to look for patterns in what they see; I'm requiring that they provide more support for the answers they give, both in writing and orally, so that I'm challenging them more to use or apply the new ideas they're discovering, which I hope leads to a better understanding; because both of the above are hard for students, I'm also pushing them to talk to each other more about what they did, so when they finally write it down or talk to the class about it they're integrating their own ideas with those of others (this also tends to help students build confidence in their own ideas); finally, I try to work to make my hands-on activities less 'canned' in terms of how much structure or instruction I give, so I'm gradually trying to incorporate into each lesson a little more opportunity for the students to talk over and come up with how they might design a part of each activity (how to test something, how to lay out the data table, etc.)."

SUMMARY

We believe we are giving teachers support in their content and in their adoption of a new approach to helping students learn science. The staff, teachers themselves, believe that the participants' experiences will lead to lasting change in their classrooms.

REFERENCES

1. National Science Board study, 1989.
2. L. McDermott, Physics by Inquiry (2 vols.) (New York: J. Wiley and Sons, 1995).

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