Spring 2004

Talking Science

Leaving the Primary Comfort Zone

Problem-based learning can be a rewarding way to teach science to primary children. JULIE CLARK outlines how to put the strategy into classroom use.

Most units of work begin by developing skills and concepts and then apply this new learning at the end. Problem-based learning (PBL) is a teaching/learning strategy that begins with a realistic problem to be solved.

Active inquiry for student learning

Approaches to teaching using PBL can take many forms, including projects, case studies, integrated learning and inquiry-based learning. However, all PBL approaches emphasise student learning through active inquiry about a problem and in all variations the problem itself drives the learning. It is not just an application of what is already learnt. One of the main aims of PBL is to equip students with a set of self-directed learning strategies.

Is this strategy useful for teaching science at primary school level? Torp and Sage (1998) give examples of PBL scenarios at primary school level and describe the positive impact PBL has on student achievement. However, it seems that few teachers have given this strategy a fair trial.

What does it look like?

The strategy begins with the teacher describing a real-life scenario (or a fantasy situation which relates to real life), which includes some basic information and a problem to be solved. The scenario should be engaging and relevant to students and, most importantly, should serve as the vehicle for learning. As well as problem-solving skills, the scenario should lead the learner to develop content knowledge related to specific learning outcomes. The best science scenarios are those that lead to investigation of aspects of the big ideas of science such as time and space, energy and ecological sustainability.

For example, the teacher might start with the following scenario: Jenny’s birthday is next month. She will turn ten. She has always wanted a bicycle but her parents have always said she was too young and the streets were too dangerous. This year her parents have said they will consider letting her have a bicycle. She has to convince them. She decides to learn how bicycles work, what size and type is best for her and all about bicycle safety. What do you think Jenny should do?

The teacher has chosen this context to guide the students’ learning about difficult concepts such as forces, friction, gears, speed, distance and energy, as well as the skills of measuring, analysing information and fair testing.

The scenario is followed by a loosely structured series of steps. Learning occurs in cooperative groups and involves group decision making about the kinds of information required to solve the problem and the best ways to find this information. The group’s best solution to the problem is then presented and evaluated. The acronym CAUSE can be used to make this procedure obvious to the students.

The first information collected is that which is embedded in the scenario itself. The teacher might start with a worksheet titled ‘What we know about the problem’ and students can identify the information contained in the scenario as a class.

The role of the student

Students could then suggest what other information they require to solve the problem. Students might suggest questions such as ‘How big is Jenny?’ and ‘What size bike is best for her?’ This may lead to further questions, such as whether larger bikes go faster than smaller ones. These questions can be summarised on a class record sheet (see example below). For problems based in the science KLA, it is important to structure the scenario so that firsthand observation and experiment becomes one of the major sources of information. Students could suggest various ways of finding out. For example, they might measure the heights of the ten-year-old girls in the class, compare how far small and large bikes go for one turn of the pedals or ask a bike shop owner about choosing a bike.

Class record sheet

As the answers to their questions start to accumulate, students will start to analyse which information is most important in their opinion and formulate ideas about the problem and possible solutions; that is, understand the implications. The solution itself may also be presented in a number of ways, such as group talks, pamphlets, posters, models or procedures.

The process is not necessarily linear, as information may be collected several times throughout the process and the implications of the new information added to what is known already. There are obvious parallels in the above process to the methods used in science inquiry.

Planning successful scenarios

At primary school level, scenarios can be drawn from various content strands of the science curriculum. For example, the book There’s an Emu in the Sky uses this approach to motivate learning in its unit of work about energy. The unit called ‘Energy in this Old House’ begins with a story about some students who spend the weekend in a house where the electricity is not working. The class is given the task of solving this problem. The class proposes ideas about why the electricity may not be working and then collects further information by investigating circuits and researching how electricity is delivered to houses.

Scenarios related to local environmental problems, such as what to do about conserving water at home and at school during current drought situations, work well. The teacher may need to encourage students to gain more information before jumping straight to a solution. To solve the water conservation problem, students can, for example, design ways of measuring the amount of water used in a shower, compare washing a car with a bucket versus a hose and inspect how a toilet cistern works.

Scenarios which lead to ‘design and make’ activities can also work particularly well using a PBL approach. For example, the problem of cockatoos scattering rubbish from playground rubbish bins could lead to a task to design and make a better rubbish bin lid. Similarly, a class task of making a model of the solar system could lead not only to research about the planets, but also to the development of mathematical skills associated with ratio and proportion, and concepts of size and space.

Two things that successful scenarios have in common are their relevance and their limited nature. Global problems, such as conserving the rainforest, do not work as well in this approach.

One of the difficulties for teachers is knowing how much guidance to give. If too little guidance is given the activity loses direction, takes too long and avoids tackling new information. If too much guidance is given the activity loses its integrity as a PBL exercise and takes away the decision making that is part of the development of students’ problem-solving skills.

Putting it to the test

A small group of Sydney primary school teachers trialled the strategy recently. They found that PBL worked very well with years 3–6 and less well with very young students. Some teachers reported a degree of discomfort in themselves and their students. The teachers were worried about having less control over the inquiry process. The students on the other hand sometimes felt overwhelmed by a sense of being given more responsibility for their learning than they would like. Using this approach was more time consuming, less predictable and led to some unintended outcomes, but the major finding of our small group of teachers was that these disadvantages were compensated for by the enthusiasm and high levels of achievement of the students.

References

Malcolm, C (1995). There's an Emu in the Sky, Curriculum Corporation, Carlton.

Torp, L & Sage, S (1998). Problems as Possibilities: Problem Based Learning for K–12 Education, ASCD, Alexandria, VA.

Julie Clark is a senior lecturer at the Australian Catholic University in Sydney. She lectures in science and environmental education and works with teachers in Catholic primary schools.

The author owns the copyright in this article. For information related to the reuse of this work in any form please contact the publisher denise.quinn@curriculum.edu.au