Middle school science critiqued
Too much learning science, not doing science
California has the capacity to provide middle school students with an excellent science education.
The vast majority of its science teachers majored in the subjects they teach. Most classrooms are equipped with the basics for science instruction. One prominent think tank rated the state’s science standards the best in the nation. And even amid budget cuts, most science teachers have continued to pursue and receive additional training.
That’s all good. And yet science instruction in middle school is flagging or, in the judiciously worded title of a new study, has “Untapped Potential.”
“Students do not have the opportunities they need to participate in high-quality science learning experiences because the conditions that would support such learning are rarely in place,” concludes a two-year analysis of middle school science education in the state by the Center for the Future of Teaching and Learning at WestEd, with research by SRI International and the Lawrence Hall of Science at UC Berkeley.
Based on an extensive two-year survey of district administrators, principals, and teachers, researchers estimate that “just 14 percent of middle school teachers provide a pattern of classroom practices that supports regular engagement in the practices of science” – in other words, offer the challenging and memorable experience in science learning that will inspire students to pursue science in high school, college, and their careers. These practices, which are in short supply, are engaging in hands-on activities, recording and analyzing data, designing investigations, and conducting fieldwork.
Principals of middle schools with a high percentage of poor children were far more likely to say that the lack of science preparation in elementary school is a problem. Click to enlarge. (Source: Untapped Potential: The Status of Middle School Science Education in California)
The reasons for subpar science education are numerous yet, in many cases, remediable. They are a function of instruction time that’s too short and disjointed, classes that are too large, an accountability system that de-emphasizes science, and students who often arrive in middle school with little or no knowledge of or appreciation for science.
Then there’s state standards themselves. The Fordham Institute this year gave California and one other state highest marks for clarity, rigor, and content, but many teachers will tell you that there are too many disconnected standards at each grade. So most of the time is spent learning facts and reading about concepts, with little time to explore them as a scientist would. As one teacher told researchers, we “really need to change the state standards – they have way too much to cover. This leaves little time for inquiry and deeper investigation.”
The worry is that students will turn off to science before they get to high school – and see it as just another boring subject. The study didn’t survey students for their attitude toward science, but 40 percent of teachers cited a lack of student interest and nearly 50 percent cited maintaining discipline as a moderate or major challenge to science instruction.
Teachers (striped bar), more so than principals, attributed large class sizes, a lack of funding for equipment and supplies, and overemphasis on math and English language arts as factors holding back science instruction. Click to enlarge. (Source: Untapped Potential: The Status of Middle School Science Education in California)
(Large class sizes and limited funds for equipment and supplies – often paid for by teachers themselves – were bigger obstacles. See chart.)
Last fall, the Center for the Future of Teaching and Learning released a report on the abysmal state of science education in California elementary schools. The survey found that teachers felt unprepared to teach science and unsupported by their districts and principals consumed by standardized tests’ focus on math and English language arts. As a result, four out of ten elementary teachers reported teaching science less than an hour per week.
The picture is not nearly as bleak in middle school, where 75 percent of teachers have a background in science. (That still leaves one out of four without it, and, contrary to what one might expect, they are not disproportionately in poor and minority districts.) However, time is a problem: 55-minute periods are not conducive to hands-on projects. And, with standardized tests comprising only 7 percent of a school’s API score, it remains a low priority. Ardice Hartry, deputy director of The Research Group at the Lawrence Hall of Science, said that teachers report pressure to use science instruction to boost literacy and improve math skills to read about science instead of doing science. As a result, they feel frustrated because of inability to do high-quality scientific practices.
At the same time, the report intentionally does not call for giving the science standardized tests more weight in the API – at least in their current form with multiple-choice questions, Hartry said. There must be better assessments to measure core concepts and scientific reasoning.
Recommendations
- California is proof that good standards alone will not ensure quality instruction. However, the Center for the Future of Teaching and Learning, many science advocates, and the California Science Teachers Association are putting faith in Next Generation Science Standards that the National Academy of Science developed last year. California is one of 20 states that is further developing the standards. The Center urges districts to begin preparing now for implementing the new standards, with the promise of more in-depth learning that is better integrated from elementary school to high school.
- The report notes the erosion of support for science, with districts cutting back or eliminating science curriculum and training positions due to budget cuts. The Center emphasizes the critical need for more teacher training.
- The Center urges districts to examine school scheduling, to lengthen science classes to better accommodate labs and hands-on projects.
I’m watching two sets of kids of my own, a decade apart, educated in different California school districts, and I am drawing some conclusions on this issue.
My older kids had 55 minute lessons in middle school in San Diego, with large classes, and really flourished in science. One felt there was too much emphasis on Life Sciences (I agree), but the skill and knowledge of the teachers, along with Science Fairs, the annual school competitions, etc, were examples of good practice. At their feeder elementary school, science was integrated into the curriculum, and there was a part-time science teacher as well. (Really a wonderful lady.) I wonder if part of the problem is the number of teachers who are not science majors primarily, and whose subject matter is too weak to really communicate it to students in a way that developmentally works for them. Unenthusiastic teachers, lacking in confidence, also really have an impact on student interested and learning. Perhaps that could be observed and studied more.
My younger kids are in another elementary school where few of the teachers have any interest in science. It’s very poorly taught in a couple of grades, and often in a confusing manner with too much textbook and “fill in the blanks” type assignments. As parents we work with them at home, as needed, but not all kids have that back up – and shouldn’t have to. So, same standards, similar textbooks, but very different teachers. I don’t think that changing the standards is the solution! A lack of teachers in K -12 with physics and chemistry as majors strength could also be an issue. Since reading and writing and math are integral to science, encourage teachers to better integrate them. This is not new! I would guess that in the stronger science education countries there are larger classes and fewer resources, and a lot more languages!
I taught ‘Literacy Across the Content Areas’ to beginning teachers, and the biggest issue they confronted was the mass of students with weak reading comprehension, and poor vocabulary skills. Maybe moving away from endless short stories and Scholastic “dumbed down for schools” novels in K-8 would provide middle grade science teachers with stronger readers so that they could focus on content. There are so many wonderful novels, short stories, poems, and picture books for elementary age students that communicate science content that then can be specifically developed in “science” class. I learn a lot from reading such books to my kids! I have my own kids read articles from Natural History (amazing photos), Audubon Magazine, National Geographic, and anything else we find.
I did the same for my high school language arts students. I would use articles as the basis to teach Standards. I also had students read science books instead of novels as part of differentiated instruction. (My class numbers were around 35 students.) So many kids are so bored with English by middle school (let alone five hours a week through high school) because it is “contentless” – so get the teachers to work together to integrate content and skills in projects. Why does ‘Education’ keep thinking that problems are new – most of them aren’t. It’s just that the solutions require continuous hard work! I am old enough that I read studies and remember earlier similar studies/or read them – - from twenty of thirty years ago at least. Maybe we just have too many studies!
Looking forwards to reading the report.
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One great solution implemented at my local elementary school is that teachers at each grade level team up. Each teacher becomes an expert on two of six science units and supervises the labs for all three classrooms at the grade level. The same teacher takes responsibility for all aspects of her two units, from supplies to supplements and follow-through, making sure the kits are resupplied at the end of the unit, ready for the next teacher to use. (The same kits are rotated around several schools.)
As Sue notes above, the challenges and solutions of good science education have not changed for generations. And the solutions require continuous hard work. What has changed is the resources available. Ready-made lab kits (I know of the Foss kits) make the job somewhat easier to organize (assuming that the teacher takes responsibility for checking the supplies ahead of time and replenishing them afterward), and creative team teaching helps make the prep and follow-through more manageable. But it all comes down to the hard work for students of actually do the learning.
We rarely emphasize the students responsibility in the learning equation. Students need to put in the effort to learn: attend to instruction, ask questions, listen to answers, follow through, attend to teacher feedback and make corrections. Learning science–or any subject for that matter–requires as much hard work on the learner’s part as on the teacher’s.
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If our students are arriving in middle school with little to no science, middle school teachers have too much to make up to get them to a place where they can do and understand what’s expected in middle school. There is a CST component for 5th grade, but that’s it, so due to mandates minutes for language arts, ELD, etc. in so many schools, science content is covered in something like ELD where the content is focused on specific academic vocabulary, on non-fiction text, on so many things, but get-hands-and-everything-else-dirty science would not be considered productive use of that time. So much of the script formulas of the day, the emphasis on direct instruction and this idea that students must have the same outcome, not the same opportunities, boils all the curiousity-building right out of any science instruction that remains, because the benefits of this are seen in the years in the future, and teachers are being judged- indeed, now in several places in this country- fired based on the results of the test.
I find the greatest objections to how our standards are written when it comes to science, they all begin with “Students will know…” How will students know anything? How can we KNOW anything for sure? That’s where the beauty in science is, where the frustration and consternation that force us to think out of the box develop, and how the history of everything important ever discovered that we “generally believe to be true” came from. It may not always be as radical as the earth revolves around the sun instead of the other way around, but… real science is messy and slow to produce results (how many failures did Edison have that contributed as much to his knowledge as any of his successes?) and does not fit neatly into the box we now demand our students learn and purge in, in so many formulatic ways.
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@ Sue Moore and Christine, I agree with Christine’s observation that “We rarely emphasize the students['] responsibility in the learning equation. Students need to put in the effort to learn: attend to instruction, ask questions, listen to answers, follow through, attend to teacher feedback and make corrections.”
I can’t see that “weak” subject matter knowledge would be a systemic problem. Any teacher who earned her credential in the last ten years passed a rigorous content exam (the CSET Multiple Subjects for K-8 teachers includes a substantial science component, and 6-12 specialists must pass the CSET Single Subject Science), or completed a major equivalent (32 semester units). Moreover, before the AP level, the science content is quite basic.
I don’t see many “unenthusiastic” teachers, either. I couldn’t fault a teacher for being unenthusiastic, though. Teacher workload has mushroomed as average class sizes have increased, support positions (aides, secretaries, assistant principals, etc.) have been cut, and new technological demands (e.g. daily updating of online gradebooks, with e-mail communication to parents and students) have been introduced. Each day we confront unrealistic expectations. The public has agreed to fund a bare-bones, assembly-line educational system but still expects warm, personalized service.
As a math teacher, I have the same fear about math education as I do about science education: that students don’t really practice these subjects. For example, I am expected to teach geometry without measurement tools, let alone drawing tools. Before I arrived, most of my (9th- to 12th-grade) students could not use a protractor to measure an angle. Some were not even able to use a ruler! (This is not to say that our expensive curriculum includes a single scale drawing that would call for measurement.) This is the consequence of years of textbook-based instruction. Unfortunately, breaking away from pencil and paper math and science requires preparation time, instructional time, and supplies that are simply no longer provided.
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Paul: When I moved to the US from UK I passed the science component of the CSET without having taken a single college science course. I have 8th grade Chem and Bio (UK grades – so not equiv. curriculum), and ‘O’ level physics. I like science, I read about it, I married a physicist and had scientist friends, but that should not have allowed me to pass that exam. I also hadn’t ‘taken’ math beyond ‘O’ level, but I passed the math section. I am sorry, but the content bar is so low that most of the elementary school teachers do not have the knowledge, or interest (can’t tell you how many tell me they don’t like teaching science). Many 6-8 teachers do not have the science units. They teach the course because the credential system permits it. This has been documented over and over in JER, US and State reports, etc.
Christine: I think the model at your school is so productive. I will make that suggestion at our school.
pamzella: I agree, the language in the Standards makes me cringe. I watched someone take three years to perfect the experiment that led to a breakthrough in physics … and that was a long three years! Part of the beauty of science is the hands on and the messy stuff. Yet, that is not communicated.
Yes, students need to take responsibility, but many don’t get their work corrected well. I know that, I’ve done it as a parent and then found that instead of having the students redo the experiment/resolve mis-understanding, the papers just got turned back and sent home. I may have really disliked my science teachers’ pickiness at the time, but I benefited. I am not a science major, but I enjoy science, and that was 100% because of school. Maybe we need more community based science programs to provide the opportunities for curiosity.
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Hello, Sue.
Your mentioning the science “component” and math “section” of the CSET makes me think that you are talking about CSET Multiple Subjects Subtest II. If this is so, you are talking about a test aimed primarily at elementary school teachers. It is natural that someone who was successful in O-level (end of high school) science and math exams should be successful on a science and math test for elementary school teachers.
Districts of any quality rely on Single Subject Science credential holders in (departmentalized) middle and high schools. The test to consider is the CSET Single Subjects Science. It is quite rigorous.
Frequent, rapid and thorough correction is one of the unrealistic expectations I was alluding to. In my district, middle school teachers (6 periods of teaching + 1 period of preparation) have 210 student contacts per day against 45 minutes of paid preparation time. The preparation time is already not sufficient for lesson planning, photocopying, physical setup, parent contact, or other basic duties; it is not available for grading. Thus, devoting one minute to each student paper consumes 3.5 hours beyond the school day. The “working for free” dilemma notwithstanding, there are not enough waking hours in the day to correct a brief assignment from 210 students more than once every week or two.
I suppose I’m lucky to be a high school teacher. With 5 periods of teaching and one period of preparation, I see a maximum of only 175 students a day (the actual count fluctuates with enrollment) and enjoy a full hour of preparation time.
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You cannot ignore the points made by Peter Schrag in this discussion:
http://toped.svefoundation.org/2011/10/25/ignoring-science-in-schools-starts-with-ignorance-of-science-by-the-electorate/
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Paul: I absolutely believe in correction. I did it as a teacher with massive high school class numbers. My teachers did it for me. I also don’t see many middle schools with 6×45 minutes daily.
Elem Teachers are teaching science with poor background knowledge.
Too few middle school science teachers have a single subject credential. There have been 20 years and more of similar conclusions.
These same elem teachers then become principals – the cycle continues.
Too many years of reports and no action for the children. That’s my issue.
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Hello, Sue.
I quite agree that science gets short shrift in elementary school and in some middle schools. Given labor market conditions, this is a matter of choice on the part of school districts. There is currently no shortage of teachers in any specialty field, here in California. Even math, science and special education teachers were laid off last year. Very few districts pay a premium for particular credentials, so it becomes a matter of choosing to retain/recruit K-8 Multiple Subjects teachers or to recruit available Single Subject Science teachers. Districts of quality make the second choice. Let’s hope more districts take advantage of the glut of teachers and start hiring Single Subject Science people!
I also agree with you on the subject of ascension to administration, but my biggest fear has to do with the promotion of what the CTC used to call “non-academic” teachers. Physical education has historically been a big source of principals — a recipe for disaster.
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It absolutely galls me that this is still a topic of discussion. When will we realize that doing science raises test scores – you don’t even have to cover all of the content. If students are taught how to think scientifically and have opportunities to apply that knowledge in doing science, they learn to deduce the best ways to answer multiple choice, standardized assessments. Teachers and administrators cannot use the “we have too many standards to cover” as an excuse for not teaching science effectively. Middle school science (I taught it for 9 years) is not for teaching students as much as you can. It’s to teach them to think like a scientist, read and write like scientists, and most importantly – love science.
By the way – high school science instruction is no better.
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Doing science certainly raises science literacy, but IME standardized science exams of the type in question tend to penalize thinking too deeply or too much realization about Stuff We Don’t Really Know. I recall one sample question in particular about the geologic processes involved in forming a coastal arch. They were looking for erosion as their answer, but if you’re thorough about the meaning of “forming,” the other answers, like earthquakes, volcanic activity, and sedimentation were certainly all in play as well… for there would have been nothing to erode without volcanism and sedimentation creating the rock and earthquakes and plate tectonics pushing it out of the sea floor.
If you loosely follow test results, for the most part you will get an accurate read, and most students who know the topic will figure out the “best” answer even understanding the question in more rigor than the questioners. But it’s another source of noise in the data.
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