Transferring and Constructing Knowledge: Designing an STC Based Teacher Workshop

Journal of Geoscience Education, Nov 2003 by Uyeda, Steven M, Luft, Julie A, Madden, John, Washburne, Jim, Brigham, Lindy A

ABSTRACT

The National Science Foundation Science and Technology Center at the University of Arizona sponsored a two-week workshop for science teachers. The overall goal of the workshop was to increase participants' hydrologic literacy by teaching issues and concepts concerning semi-arid hydrology in the Southwest, as defined by educators and scientists associated with Sustainability of semi-Arid Hydrology and Riparian Areas (SAHRA). It was designed to show teachers how to teach science content using a "science as inquiry" approach.There were three phases to the workshop: developing a need to know, acquiring conceptual knowledge, and applying newly acquired knowledge. Evaluations showed that teachers felt the pedagogical discussions following each activity were as important as the content they learned, and they recommended that more workshop time be spent for these conversations. These findings support the efficacy of the workshop design and they suggest revisions for future workshops.

Keywords: Education - workshops; education -teachers, inquiry, problem-based learning, hydrology.

INTRODUCTION

The goal of the Benchmarks for Scientific Literacy (Benchmarks) (American Association for the Advancement of Science [AAAS], 1993) and the National Science Education Standards (NSES) (National Research Council [NRC], 1996) is to increase the scientific literacy of students. Both documents stress that students must learn scientific content knowledge, the nature and characteristics of scientific knowledge, and the skills needed to acquire and evaluate scientific knowledge. This knowledge is used to make informed personal and professional decisions, to participate in civic and cultural matters, and to increase economic productivity. Both sets of standards exist as guidelines for teachers that describe what science content to teach to students and how to teach that content. One way teachers can develop a deeper comprehension of science content is through workshops sponsored by universities and other science-based institutions.

A National Science Foundation funded Science-Technology Center (STC) at the University of Arizona known as Sustainability of semi-Arid Hydrology and Riparian Areas (SAHRA) has the main goal of acquiring new knowledge about semi-arid hydrology and disseminating that knowledge to diverse stakeholders, such as policy makers and the general public. The educational component of the STC has the additional goal of building an "understanding of key water issues into K-16 science education and to promote hydrologie literacy throughout the population that makes water-use and related political decisions" (SAHRA, 2000). With schools being held accountable to state mandated science education standards, the faculty and staff in SAHRA needed to develop a set of hydrologie literacy standards that were in alignment with state and national standards. These hydrologic literacy standards (See Table 1) originated from a survey of SAHRA hydrologists who were asked to determine what hydrology content knowledge they considered important for K-12 students to learn. The identified concepts were further developed through a review and comment process with educators, science educators, water educators, scientists and hydrologists, and refined through consensus and then cross referenced with the Arizona State Science Academic Standards (Arizona Department of Education [ADE], 1997), the Benchmarks and the NSES (See Table 2).

One of the programs to disseminate and educate teachers about hydrologic literacy was a two-week long professional development workshop for science teachers called "Hydrologic Literacy in the Secondary Classroom", which is the subject of this article. The purpose of the workshop was for teachers to learn and apply hydrological concepts through inquiry and Problem-Based Learning (PBL) teaching techniques (Uyeda, et al., 2002). Workshop instructors designed, introduced, and modeled inquiry and PBL methods to participants through activities where teachers assumed the role of students. The activities were followed by discussions focused on adaptation and implementation of these techniques in the teachers' classrooms. This routine ensured that the workshop focused on science content knowledge and pedagogical knowledge.

TWO KEY CONSIDERATIONS TO WORKSHOP DESIGN

Knowledge acquisition through constructivism is a key element of effective professional development workshop design (Loucks-Horsley, et al., 1998). Constructivism refers to the process in which a person makes sense of incoming information. Specifically, a learner encounters a new experience, which causes disequilibrium in their current knowledge base. The learner then compares the new experience to prior knowledge, and if the new concept is plausible, intelligible, and fruitful, the new concept may be accommodated into the learner's knowledge base (Posner, et al., 1982). More recently, the role of dialogue and conversation have been viewed as an important component in the construction of knowledge (Fosnot, 1996). Teachers, like students, construct their science knowledge and pedagogical knowledge. Recognizing that teachers do construct their knowledge is essential in the design and implementation of a workshop, institute, lesson study or other professional development endeavor (Loucks-Horsley, et al., 1998)