Science+Research

 ** __Science Research__** In the interpretive study //Writing an Ecological Mystery in Class: Merging genres and learning science// Ritchie, Rigano, and Duane sought to explore what would happen when fourth grade students co-wrote a fiction/non-fiction eco-mystery in conjunction with their teacher. The researchers like others before them believe that story writing is a way to make science more fun. In addition to enjoying story writing and increasing their interest in science, students will be able to show their knowledge and understanding of science while engaged in the writing process.

The researchers began the study by reading and discussing //The Hidden Secrets of Skull Island// in both whole class and small group settings. The class then set out to co-write their own eco-mystery entitled //Ocean Action: An Adventure in Beachtown.// The classroom teacher decided on the types of habitats and animals that would be featured in the book, planned appropriate lessons, and reference books to support their work. She decided their book would be a chapter book for a young audience, that the storylines would be realistic, and where actual science needed to be included. Class votes decided storylines and characters, whole class brainstorming sessions took place, and students contributed to book individually as well as in small groups. She reviewed each contribution and in the end the class had a ten chapter book.

The researchers found that the students remained engaged throughout the narrative and scientific writing aspects of creating their chapter book. They found that students enjoyed using “big” science words in their story and were excited to express what they had learned in their story. Also students were able to further explain their scientific information contributions when prompted.

Next, with the help of their teacher and appropriately planned science lessons, the students’ science learning was scaffolded and they were successful in incorporating accurate scientific information into their chapter book. There children benefited from sharing their ideas, collaborative writing, and taking part in the overall writing experience.

In the study //Writing-to-Learn in the Inquiry-Science Classroom: Effective Strategies from Middle School Science and Writing Teachers// by Baker et al support the research that writing skills are especially important in an inquiry-based science activities. Past research has shown that writing allows students to reflect on existing knowledge and experiences as well as enabling them to form new scientific understandings. As with other studies I have cited, writing is also known to increase metacognition.

The authors of this story sought to find the problems middle school teachers encounter when trying to incorporate the write-to-learn strategy in their classrooms and possible solutions for these problems. Some of the problems included scheduling and time constraints (serious problem), teacher and student interest in writing (moderate problem), and evaluation and feedback (serious problem). The solutions were then proposed. In regard to scheduling constraints, teachers need chances to plan lessons that were directly related to writing instruction. They also focused on organization, flexibility, and frequently adjusted and readjusted activities. Teachers should not have difficulty incorporating write-to-learn activities any more than they would have difficulty incorporating regular science activities.

As far as teacher interest is concerned, the authors felt that like many unfamiliar teaching techniques, teachers are often disinterested out of lack of background and experience. For this reason, a great strategy is for writing and science teachers to work to create projects together. It is also recommended that science teachers possibly teach their planned science activities to language arts teachers before students in order to receive feedback ideas. They also suggested developing a collection of exemplary inquiry lessons that can be used as models for new activities based on thematic units or school resources.

In response to student disinterest, the authors felt that students need to be exposed to appropriate writing tasks and see modeled writing tasks on a regular basis so that writing is seen as part of the normal components of inquiry based science classrooms. Also, the critical thinking and writing skills internalized from this type of writing can carry over into all other content areas. Lastly, the solution for problems with evaluation and feedback can be fixed by first ensuring through examples and teacher modeling what the end product should look like. The authors also recommend providing students with a writing heuristic in order to guide their writing and problem-solving activities. Research has shown that the incorporation of these guides can increase achievement in inquiry-based classrooms. Students need to receive feedback, encouragement, and opportunities for multiple revisions. Teachers should incorporate many of the writing process elements such as peer conferences, written reviews, large group discussions of sample student papers, and teacher face-to-face conferences.

Evaluation should focus on both process and content skills. Portfolio research notebooks are an excellent way to collect data to evaluate. This data can include lab worksheets, journals of observations, drawings, self-evaluations, and answers to teacher assigned questions. Other teachers consulted also had students write journal entries about their learning, write reflective and analytical essays, and use discussion boards to discuss class experiments.

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