Spring 2002
A Discussion by Joe Bustillos and Christine Lorenz
“Despite widespread concern, there is a disconnection between what goes on in school and what goes on outside of the classroom. This disconnection is particularly egregious in science, and in schools. A majority of students see science as mind-numbing equations, lists of facts, and recipes for finding out already-known facts.
“Research shows that many students have not mastered basic concepts and principles, cannot apply what they learn, and see school as irrelevent. Hence, sharp contrast exists between what research and theory have established about effective learning and the teaching practices seen in a vast majority of classrooms.”
Sissy and I agree that this chapter felt amazingly like her “uncoverage” TI session with it’s emphasis on discovery in teaching science. We also felt like there was a bit of Gardner (my TI session) with it’s emphasis on understanding versus memorization.
For Sissy’s session, she had worked with her science teacher, Mr. Harlan, to demonstrate how he would use “uncoverage.” In his example, “Bromothymol Blue and SuperGreen,” students are presented with “SuperGreen” (which is Bromothymol Blue that has been exposed to carbon dioxide) and asked to experiment with “SuperGreen” to determine what things (ice) will effect it and hypothesize how it will be effected. After several experiments (and several days) it is hoped that students determine the relationship between Bromothymol Blue and SuperGreen and have a chance at “real” scientific discovery. Click here to jump to the Uncoverage TI Webpage [webpage no longer posted]
With regards to “technological support” aspect of the process, Sissy and I agreed that the students (and teacher) could use a web-cam to monitor the experiment overnight (and make sure that someone didn’t just pull a switch) with Internet access or time-elapsed still capture. The students could also use the Internet to see if there were other references to studies to determine the nature of SuperGreen and its relationship with Bromothymol Blue.
Whereas Sissy’s example focuses entirely on the technique of discovery, the authors of our chapter eventually revealed that they were interested in promoting a tool for discovery, an application called PiVit. When I went to their website I was a bit concerned because it was hosted by PSI-Net, a long defunct ISP, and on the bottom of the page:
“This page was last modified on July 29, 1995”
Sissy and I agreed that the application looked a lot like “Inspiration” but with journaling, calendaring and some room for media embedding. I plan to look into this application a bit further at a later date. JBB
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