Communicating In School Science

Front matter

Groups, Tasks and Problem Solving 5—16

Di Bentley and Mike Watts

Routledge

Contents

About the Authors Preface

2 3 4 5 6

Creating a Climate for Communication Communication and Group Work

Preface

Most of us have been assured in times gone by that school days are the happiest days of our lives — a notion that generally throws a distinct pall over any future prospects. But then, in those days we were not blessed with the National Curriculum. The late-eighties will be an educational benchmark in the UK for many generations to come — the 1988 Education Act is clearly twice as far-reaching as the 1944 Act so that we can only wait in awe for the year 2032. The 1988 Act has re-written many aspects of teachers’ professional lives, explicitly and implicitly, and many of those changes are yet to become apparent.

In science education we have the pleasing prospect of seeing some cherished ideals and ideas brought within the ambit of all children from 5 to 16. Children into the next century will be provided with opportunities in science which were once the privilege of the very few. There are not all of the ideals all would wish for but — arguably — there are now included in school science many of the ideals most of us would want. For ourselves, one of these is a due emphasis on — and recognition of — the role of communicating in science. It has long been one of the central aims of science education that youngsters should attain a basic understanding of the world we live in, and be able to communicate that understanding to others. The role of communication in science has increasingly become an integral part of school science syllabuses. Perhaps teachers have always been aware of the need to feed children the opportunity to write, talk and act science. If so, the current emphasis will be due reward for their efforts. If not, and we suspect not, then the moment has arrived when we can begin to draw attention to a need.

Our intention in the book is to examine communication in classroom processes as it relates to both individual learning and group work, and to consider this against the requirements of the National Curriculum in science. The framework for science requires teachers to examine traditional teaching techniques within classrooms and laboratories. They need to explore new strategies through projects, investigations, group work, games, simulations, videos, educational drama and role play — and ubiquitous coursework. This

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Preface in turn raises a series of important questions about the nature of individual learning, participation in group work, and the act of communication. For example, è Can classroom tasks be chosen which allow pupils to demonstrate their understanding?

è Is it possible to encourage pupils to feel that they own the tasks they undertake sufficiently to want to communicate the results to others?

è Within group work, can all the participants be encouraged to own a single task? and

è Can individual contributions be gauged from the outcomes of the group?

The Science in the National Curriculum continues to undergo changes even as we write. We have taken care to use the latest versions whenever we have them. We are pleased that ‘communication’ retains its place at the head of each programme of study.

If the act of communication could be taken for granted there would be no need for this book at all, so our answers must be yes, yes, yes and yes. The book, then, is our attempt to flesh out the ‘how’ of communicating in the classroom.

Some of us are good at it, others are appallingly bad. No doubt readers and reviewers will have their opinions of our own efforts within. In writing, we have traded heavily on our communications — written and verbal — with many others and we would like to acknowledge our gratitude for their communing here.

We are very appreciative of friends, colleagues and students in Buckinghamshire (and before that the ILEA), and at Roehampton Institute who have helped. In particular we are grateful to British Educational Research Journal for permission to reproduce, in Chapter 2, parts of an article: ‘Constructivism in the classroom: enabling conceptual change through word and deed’, in BER] 13, 2, 1987; Community Languages Support Services: Hounslow, for permission to use Figures 2.3, 2.4, 2.5 and 2.6 in Chapter 2; Warwickshire Education Department for permission to use Figure 6.8 in Chapter 6; Buckinghamshire Education Department to use Figures 6.5, 6.6, 6.7 and 6.10 and the Association for Science Education for permission to use Figures 4.1 and 4.2 in Chapter 4 and Figures 6.9 and 6.12 in Chapter 6.

We thank Samantha Waite for helping with the typescript.

Di Bentley Mike Watts August 1991 vüi

Chapter 1

This book is really about a model of learning, a model that relies almost entirely on acts of communication. Communicating is not exclusive to science of course, though there are many distinctive features about communication in science classrooms. School science does provide us with a very clear context in which to operate, hence the title of the book. We hope that the continued reference to ‘science’ is not too off-putting for teachers who are interested non-scientists.

The book is also really about groupwork in classrooms, how it operates, how it can be organized and what the benefits can be. Again, groupwork is not exclusive to science, it is often to be found in other parts of school life. In science we have a lot to learn from good practice elsewhere in the system.

We use the word ‘communication’ quite liberally and recognize that communication can mean many things to many people. ‘To communicate’, says the dictionary, is to ‘pass on, share or exchange ideas’. While it is possible to communicate alone (most of us have little conversations with ourselves from time to time) we are more interested in the communications that take place between individuals, and between groups of people. Groups, that is, bigger than one but of finite size — say, between two and twenty. We are not too interested in mass communication, the general media, political rallies, television or newspapers, semaphore systems or morse code. Our brief is the communication that takes place in school classrooms: within what happens as teachers and children tackle aspects of school science. Beyond that, we are not too fussy — we intend the term ‘communication’ to cover a wide variety of behaviours and activities in what we take to be schools and science — and to cover the activities of a wide range of people. So, for example, we want to look at pupils communicating with pupils, pupils with teachers, and — in some cases — pupils communicating with adults other than teachers in the school context. In some situations, the term ‘adults other than teachers’ has earned the acronym AOTs.

The book is based on several premises and we feel it wise to set these out early. First, we work on the assumption that learning is a basic human activity: people learn as a matter of course simply through the act of living and, therefore, of accruing experience. We learn not only through experience, of course, but also through a variety of other modes as well, many of which we discuss in future chapters. Nor is learning just what happens in classrooms with teachers — indeed sometimes learning there can be quite minimal. Learning can take many forms — we learn how to walk, talk, how to be selfish, bigoted, play golf, be gregarious, have good table manners, know our twelve-times tables, understand Newton’s Laws and a myriad of other acts in life. Second, learning is inextricably linked with communication. By communication we mean a sharing or exchange of ideas. This is essentially a two-way (or multi-way) process. That is, communication requires some response from the people at the receiving end; communication is not a one-way transfer. To have someone communicate at you is not communication at all, hence the truth in the kind of expression ‘I can’t communicate with Chris, it’s like talking to a brick wall’.

This is allied to our third major assumption, that both learning and communicating are commonly group and social activities. That is, individual acts are commonly subservient to social requirements and not the other way round. Learning can take place through individual perceptions, conceptualizations, attitudes and actions but the expression of these is usually within a setting where other people are asked to note, comment upon or share some of the meanings involved. Within this we recognize the paradox at the heart of all schooling, as teachers we teach groups but assess individuals. More (much more) of this later.

Our fourth assumption is based on the theory that people interpret things in life in different ways. By ‘things in life’ we mean common everyday events, phenomena, situations, other people’s words, their motives, TV programmes, films, lessons, conversations, drawings, actions and so on. As communication takes place, different people reach different interpretations simply because we are all different, even if only in a small way. We all have different life experiences, learn different things, think different thoughts, say different sets of words. This makes the act of communicating more difficult, and so we have to work at it.

Our fifth assumption is that we have a lot to learn from each other. Common practice in one part of the education system is innovatory in another. Well worn techniques in health education or active tutorial work have not yet been assimilated in other parts of school life; a well planned science practical is a model of ‘heads-on’ and ‘hands-on’ learning; good primary practice is to be revered by all.

About the Book

Throughout the book we try to tread several careful tight-ropes all at once: to devise a text that is both thoughtful and pragmatic; to cater for many kinds of teachers in a variety of classroom situations; and both adhere to, and move beyond the requirements of the National Curriculum (DES, 1989 and NCC, 1991). While the book is clearly a response to the National Curriculum, it is also about good classroom practice — how to promote discussion, to manage children’s questions and feedback, to organize children into groups, to plan and resource talk and writing. We hope each chapter provides a fund of practical plans and procedures. We are as ambivalent as most about the spirit and content of the National Curriculum: we have welcomed its innovation and — at the same time — tired rapidly of its insistent pressure. To readers outside the UK, or those who have been hibernating over the last few years, Britain (England and Wales in particular) now has a centralized curriculum as part of its legislation. This move is one that is happening elsewhere in the world (as described, for example, by Watts and Gilbert, 1989) and encompasses the compulsory years of schooling, from 5 to 16.

Some Terms Before we move on, though, some terms:

e teachers of science — here we include any teacher for whom some aspect of science falls within their brief, that is, all primary school teachers; members of secondary science departments, teachers of technology in all its forms; geography, and teachers whose role lies outside schools in teachers’ centres, advisory posts, university departments, institutes of higher education and so on;

e themes and courses — by ‘themes’ we mean the usual organizing structure for many primary and junior school teachers, the way they normally plan their topics of work over a period of time. By ‘course’ we mean the usual units of planning in secondary schools, a ‘first year course’, the GCSE course for the fourth years, and so on. There may be a large amount of overlap between ‘theme’, ‘course’ and ‘programme of study’ but we do not take this as given.

We do not intend to rehearse all the terminology or structure of the National Curriculum. Throughout, we refer to something called e ‘the Document’, by which we mean an amalgam of both the documents Science in the National Curriculum (The Standing Orders) (DES, 1989) and the Science Non-Statutory Guidance (NCC, 1989) and the latest proposals (NCC, 1991). Elsewhere we refer similarly to the ‘maths document’ and the ‘English document’ and similar orders and guidelines. |

e Activity boxes — which we hope are useful directions towards class activities and exemplars of what is in the text. In addition, Chapter 4 uses a set of è classroom tasks — where we try to bring together many of the themes that dominate Chapters 1, 2 and 3 in a set of practical tasks.

In summary, then, the remainder of Chapter 1 considers some of the background to the current emphases on communication in the science curriculum. In particular it takes a general constructivist view which equates communication with linguistic and conceptual development.

In Chapter 2 we look at ways in which teachers can create a climate for effective communication in the classroom. This is partly through how they use the physical environment, their own actions and behaviour and their expectations of young people. Chapter 3 follows by dealing with many of the mechanisms for setting up small groups and developing good groupwork practice in the classroom. This is a ‘how-to-do-it’ chapter — or, at least, ‘how at times it has been done well by ourselves and others’. It is not entirely pragmatic since some of our theoretical assumptions keep seeping through. Here, for instance, we expand on the notion that classroom learning can most effectively operate by individuals maximizing the operation of the group.

Chapter 4 ties a few knots in a series of arguments. It consists almost entirely of a nine ‘Tasks’. These are examples of how many of the themes addressed in the book to that point are brought together. They are studies in the musical sense — practice pieces which incorporate a series of technical moves to illustrate how a number of routines and techniques can be employed in a single, rounded, context. They are also highly practical and form a bridge between the short highlighted activities and the broad arguments embedded in the text.

Chapter 5 tackles what we see to be one of the most difficult of teaching tasks to accomplish — the structuring of learning through open-ended problem-solving tasks. Here, groupwork, communication and individual contributions to group outcomes bear the biggest challenge of all — it is in this sort of context we feel that communicative skills are at a premium.

Youngsters’ own evaluation of learning outcomes leads us into Chapter 6 which focuses on assessment issues. In this day and age, there is no communication (or curriculum for that matter) without assessment. We continue here in Chapter 1 with four main issues. First we explore a rationale for communication in school science. Second, we set out more clearly the model of learning which informs our work. Third, we consider the communicative needs of the National Curriculum and, fourth, we begin to suggest some pragmatic activities for teachers in their work.

School Science

School science has undergone dramatic change in the last few years. Here we want to focus on just some parts of that change. There will always be communication in science classrooms and so, in one sense, the subject matter we discuss in the book is fairly timeless. That said, the communicative acts that take place in science lessons have not always been the central focus of teachers’ concern. To some extent that has changed with the introduction of the National Curriculum.

The publication in 1975 of ‘A Language for Life’ (The Bullock Report) fostered a flurry of activity. There was, of course, interest in issues of language, the readability of text, classroom talk and discussion before 1975, but the Bullock report brought it all to the fore. It raised the profile of all forms of ‘language across the curriculum’ in most schools and subject areas. Numerous projects were developed and teachers’ books written — Barnes, 1976; Martin et al., 1976; Carre, 1981; Sutton, 1981, to note just a few which focused on science. The Association for Science Education, for instance, has always been a strong influence on the direction of science education in the UK, and the ASE developed a line which built on its forward looking documents ‘Alternatives for Science Education’ (ASE, 1979) and its statement of policy (ASE, 1981). For example, the latter said:

We are aware that (...) we have not made any firm recommendations as to teaching style and the organisation of teaching and learning. Basically we have argued that teachers and learners should share their perceptions of the educational process, and have therefore placed a high premium on teacher flexibility, the process of self-evaluation, and a substantive plea that pupils should be encouraged to explore their understanding of scientific knowledge and experience through the medium of their own language. The key role (our emphasis) for the teacher of science is that of enabling each pupil to relate his or her own perception of scientific understanding to the wider community of scientific ideas. Whilst such a process involves moving the pupil closer to the ‘accepted truth’, all concerned should accept the absolute legitimacy of the ‘perceived truth’ — the right of the individual to interpret his or her experience in his or her own words.

This statement was an early declaration of intent which, in some ways, now bears fruit within the National Curriculum.

While these influences had some effect before the National Curriculum, with the publication of the first efforts of the National Curriculum Science Working Party came the first hint of a new, stronger, emphasis. From that point, ‘communication’ in science was to fall within the purvue of all teachers of science — like it or not.

In those early days of the drafting of the National Curriculum for science (in 1988), science was to be structured in terms of twenty-two attainment targets in four profile components. One of these was called ‘Communication’ and comprised two attainment targets called ‘Reporting and Responding’ and

‘Using Secondary Sources’. It was intended for pupils right across the age range from 5 to 16, and the report said:

Central to our view of communication are the notions of range and match. Range in the sense that pupils will, in their reporting and explorations, make use of a variety of styles, media and devices: talking, listening, writing, drawing, modelling, using texts, journals and newspapers, audio and video recorders, data-bases and computer programmes. By match we see pupils varying style and mode of communication to suit audience and purpose; for example, exploring ideas and issues through writing and discussion and, where appropriate, role play and drama, preparing material for ‘publication’ or presentation to different audiences (for example, teachers, other pupils, and parents), using formal scientific language and symbolism on a variety of occasions, but also utilizing less formal styles and language, where these better serve function and intention. (....) ‘Communication’ in the context of science studies then, is active, varied, targeted (to audience and purpose), skill-enhancing and central to effective learning and development.

This is a neat expression of our own feelings and approach. It represented, though, a bridge too far for the impressarios of our National Curriculum because, by the final parliamentary orders of ‘the Document’ a year later (in 1989), much of the spirit and fire had been lost. Communication is no longer a profile component in its own right and is simply ‘written through’ the attainment targets that remain. While we are resigned to the fact that this is better than nothing at all, and represents a positive move forward from what (cynically) might have been the worst possible case, we certainly rue the loss of what might have been a much better route and higher profile for communication in science.

So, while ‘communication’ has not quite moved to centre-stage in the statutory requirements of the Science National Curriculum, it has certainly moved onto an apron spotlight. It clearly permeates the attainment targets and the programmes of study in ways impossible to ignore. What teachers might once have thought to be an additional chore, or a touch of luxury, in their science teaching is now there as a matter of legal compulsion.

For example? The summary of the programme of study for Key Stage 3 in 1989 says ‘the abilities to communicate, to apply scientific and technological knowledge and ideas are essential elements of a developing experience of science’. Prior to ‘the Document’ many teachers of science would have thought children’s communicative acts to be important, and something to be encouraged within classwork. Now, however, they are seen to be ‘essential’ and something to be formally assessed within the attainment targets. Moreover, it is the programmes of study which are law — it is these that schools must deliver within the appropriate key stages.

The Communication Gap

One of the major changes in science education brought about by the 1988 Education Act is the part-resolution of a long debate about the accessibility of science. For many years the Association for Science Education (ASE) and the Secondary Science Curriculum Review (SSCR) (among many other bodies) have been arguing that science should be part of the ‘minimum entitlement’ for every pupil from 5 to 16 (see, for example, ASE, 1981; and SSCR, 1984). Moreover, that science should be as broad, balanced and relevant as possible. In many ways the 1988 Act has brought that about: all pupils must be taught science for the whole of their period of compulsory education. Some pupils (20 per cent or less) may be taught less science, but every pupil will be given the opportunity to participate in a broad and balanced education in science.

This is a very significant change for the processes of communication in school science. First, in making science compulsory, pupils will no longer have the chance to choose only those parts of science which they enjoy the most — or dislike the least. Previously they could opt out of ‘difficult’ incomprehensible ideas, now they will have to struggle to understand, come to terms with, and even use them. Second, compulsion means that the (almost) full ability range of pupils is now expected to do science. Consequently, teachers may well have to re-assess the ways in which they communicate with youngsters, and how they encourage pupils in turn to communicate in science. That is, how to work with the lower-attainer and the less-thanhighly-motivated young scientist throughout their school careers.

There is an assumption in all this that all groups will benefit equally if the communication of information and knowledge is increased and made available to all groups in society. Research in communication theory indicates, however, that increasing the total flow of information and knowledge often has the reverse effect: it increases knowledge for certain groups far more than for others. In this way an ever expanding ‘information gap’ can develop between different groups (see Figure 1.1, from Mcquail and Windahl, 1981, p. 72).

If there is any substance in this, it could have an important implication for science teaching within the National Curriculum. For example, let us assume that the more fortunate in Figure 1.1 are those pupils who, pre- National Curriculum were good at science. They may have opted for science, or may have been those pupils who had access to extra resources at home. In this case, as more information and knowledge of science is made available to them, the greater is their potential for increasing their knowledge and understanding. The ‘less fortunate’ — those pupils who were unsuccessful — found science difficult, believed themselves incapable of understanding (a very large

Effects of mass communication on culture and society

Access to information and knowledge

Less privileged

Time

Figure 1.1: Closing information gap, in which the less privileged group ‘catches up‘ with the more privileged one (after Thunberg et al., 1979).

number of girls for example) and who previously opted away from science — cannot capitalize on the increased flow. Like the illiterate caught in an explosion of print, access to more scientific knowledge does not necessarily help. Rather, it can serve to widen the gap between themselves and the ‘more fortunate’. This is an important issue: simply making more science available for more pupils may not result in greater scientific literacy and awareness. Science must be tailored to suit the needs of the individual: it cannot be ‘O-level physics for all’.

Communicating in Science

The skills of communicating, it might be argued are cross-curricular skills and so there is no need to emphasize the science in the acts of communication. This would be true if scientists, over time, had not become their own worst enemies. Once upon an age, in the days that reached up to the early twentieth century, scientists wrote beautifully, talked elegantly and worked persuasively. As Mermin (1990) points out, some point after that, the art of communicating science suffered a reverse in style so as to reach the point when, he says, the best scientific prose sounds like a ‘non-human author addressing a mechanical reader’. He continues:

The insistence on bland impersonality and the widespread indifference to anything like a display of a unique human author in scientific exposition, have not only transformed the reading of most scientific papers into an act of tedious drudgery, but have also deprived scientists of some powerful tools for enhancing their clarity in communicating matters of great complexity.

Somehow scientists, possibly because of the recent explosion and the resultant huge quantity and detail in scientific research, have contrived to hide controversy, anger, irritation, pleasure, ecstasy behind an authoritative grey surety.

So what does this have to do with school science? Well, science need not be this way. That is, there is a sense in which science once again needs to communicate its humanity, and scientists’ their glee, as the business of science goes through its everyday cycles. There is no doubt that behind the scenes science is as tumultuous, divergent and full of conflicting voices (see Gilbert and Mulkay (1984) ‘Opening Pandora’s Box’, and, more lately, Holt’s (1990) work) as ever. This is clearly a public issue as scientists face television audiences and contradict each other on the nature of ‘mad-cow disease’, ‘lysteria hysteria’, ‘the greenhouse effect and the ozone layer’, ‘food irradiation’ et cetera, and where major law cases and possible gruesome miscarriages of justice hang on the threads of forensic science.

Language in Science

We mentioned earlier some important work which has already provided us with a backdrop against which to discuss communication in school science. Much of this has taken the form of ‘language studies’ and has considered the nature and use of scientific language in the school laboratory. This work is important here on two counts:

e it allows us to begin discussion of communication between teacher and taught; and

@ it provides an entrée to the particular views we have on learning and school science.

Through both text books and teachers, school science has inherited much of the ‘bland impersonality’ and lack of clarity Mermin regrets. This in turn has exacerbated a problem: many of the difficulties experienced by youngsters in science classes arise from both the technical language used and the non-technical but supportive language that surrounds it. Let us begin with the technical.

A technical term in science is one for which we (as scientists) reserve a fairly guarded definition and set of implications. Some very common examples from physics are ‘energy’, ‘force’, ‘work’, ‘pressure’, ‘power’; from biology: ‘living’, ‘animal’, ‘cell’, ‘reproduce’; from chemistry: ‘reaction’, ‘bond’, ‘matter’, ‘solution’, ‘suspension’ and so on. These may, at first glance, seem very un-technical terms — words like electromagnetism, photosynthesis and polymerization seem much more redolent of school science. However, we have chosen the first list precisely because they have dual (at least) meanings in both science and everyday life. There is a wealth of research which has explored the difficulties youngsters experience when trying to ‘come to terms’ with the words of science — Kingdon and Critchley (1982), Watts and Gilbert (1983), Wellington (1983), Bell and Fryberg (1985) are but a few. Driver, Watts et al. (1990) provide a very comprehensive bibliography of the field. It is commonly the case that teachers of science make strenuous efforts to define technical terms as soon as the class is likely to encounter them. This is not always successful — Richards’ (1979) work is still a cogent reminder of the complex language registers used in science education:

Characteristically such language shows increased formality of style, makes use of a specialised vocabulary and contains certain repetitive patterns of syntactic structure which are often more complex than would occur in the language normally employed by the pupil.... Specialised language forms appear more frequently in science subjects than in arts subjects, while increased formality and language outside the pupils’ range are more evenly distributed throughout the subjects. In this respect biology clusters with physics, mathematics and chemistry, although the features are more strongly represented in physics and chemistry.

In short, this simply means that youngsters are prone to confusion and misinterpretation when deciding on what, exactly, is force, energy, radiation and so on.

And if the technical terms present problems, hold hard! There are also the non-technical words. Marshall, Gilmour and Lewis (1990) are but some of the latest to point out that although pupils may appear to understand the words being used, it is often the case that their understanding is not congruent with that of their teachers. Over a decade earlier, Cassels and Johnstone (1980) noted that the problem lay, not so much in the technical language of science, but in the vocabulary and usage of normal English in a science context. Pupils and teachers saw familiar words and phrases which both ‘understood’, but the assumption that both understandings were identical was just not tenable.

Clearly there has not been much change taking place. What sort of words are we talking about? Well: accumulate; agent; consistent; contribute; device; component; control; initial; source; crude; devise; estimate; diagnose; evacuate; exert; influence; limit; random, are but a few to have been explored. Cassels and Johnstones’ (1985) list is much longer.