Exploring Emergent Scientific Skills; Key skills in early childhood.
Jane Johnston
BishopGrossetesteCollege, Newport, Lincoln, UK, LN1 3DY
Paper presented at the British Educational Research Association Annual Conference, University of Glamorgan, 14-17 September 2005
Abstract
Skills are recognized as crucial in scientific development, as is the importance of practical experience in cognitive, affective as well as skill development. The curriculum for young children (QCA, 2000) is designed to develop skills which are the foundation of future learning, whilst the curriculum for older children involves the application of these skills.
The importance of practical exploration in scientific development is well recognized through learning models in science, for example, Renner’s (1982) ‘experiences’ provided by the teacher, Karplus’s (1977) ‘exploration’ with minimal guidance, Erikson’s (1979) ‘experimental manoeuvres’ and Cosgrove and Osborne’s (1985) ‘generative learning’. It is also a crucially important aspect of the constructivist approach (Scott, 1987), popular in primary science education, although recent developments in education have reduced the practical component of much science teaching (ASE, 1999).
This research explores the development of young children’s scientific skills and the impact of teaching on their development. It uses observations of children and specific incidences in early years’ science activities, to analyse the children’s emerging scientific skills and attempts to understand what these skills are and how we can aid their development. It aims to answer the following questions,
- What scientific skills are evident in young children?
- What pedagogical approaches are affective in supporting the development of emergent scientific skills?
The research uses four case studies of classroom observations involving children aged between 3 and 8 years of age, engaged in scientific exploration and play. Joint observation of the children was used and photographs, together with triangulation of analysis with early years practitioners, student and child participants, which has helped to ensure reliability.
The research identifies the nature of emergent science skills and endorses the need to adapt pedagogical approaches to support the development of these early skills. Pedagogical approaches appear to be most effective where they respond to the individual child, being flexible enough to enable children to choose how to explore and discover things about the world around them, provide sufficient and appropriate challenge to develop their thinking skills,alongside scientific skills, but with supportive adult interaction. Discussion concerns the impact of a teaching climate which limits practical experience on the development of emergent skills and future scientific development.
Exploring Emergent Scientific Skills; Key skills in early childhood.
Jane Johnston
BishopGrossetesteCollege, Newport, Lincoln, UK, LN1 3DY
Paper presented to BERA 2005
Introduction
Skills are recognized as a crucial aspect of scientific development as is the importance of practical experience in cognitive, affective as well as skill development.The curriculum for young children (QCA, 2000) is designed to develop skills which are the foundation of future learning, whilst the curriculum for older children involves the application of these skills.
The importance of practical exploration in scientific development is well recognized through learning models in science, for example, Renner’s (1982) ‘experiences’ provided by the teacher, Karplus’s (1977) ‘exploration’ with minimal guidance, Erikson’s (1979) ‘experimental manoeuvres’ and Cosgrove and Osborne’s (1985) ‘generative learning’. It is also a crucially important aspect of the constructivist approach (Scott, 1987), popular in primary science education, although the introduction of primary strategies (DfEE, 1998 & 1999) and changes in primary practice have affected pedagogical practice (Cullingford, 1996; Johnston, 2002) and reduced the practical component of much science teaching (ASE, 1999). The typical science lesson now bears strong resemblance to a literacy or numeracy lesson, with a whole class introduction, sometimes including a demonstration, followed by structured group activities and a whole class plenary. This creates pedagogical difficulties, as structured practical science activities are difficult to manage with a class of 30 young children, especially where the practitioner is a generalist rather than a science specialist. Individual problem-solving and exploration are replaced by more didactic approaches to the detriment of learning. Indeed many supporting pedagogical resources, such as published schemes, CD ROMs and schemes of work (QCA, 2000a) appear to advocate more passive learning approaches. Despite the acknowledged importance of practical science in the development of skills, practice alone will not develop skills unless the context is supportive (Jenkins, 2000).
Within the early years, more practical pedagogical approaches such as exploratory play are designed to support the development of skills and their pedagogical value isacknowledged (Moyles, 1994; Bennett, et. al., 1997; QCA, 2000: Lindon 2001: Riley 2003). Understanding of the nature of how these experiences support the development of skills, or indeed any other development is not secure and certainly not always seen in practice (Moyles, et.al., 2002). Exploratory early years science is likely to support holistic development, seeing cognitive, social and emotional development as complementary (Siraj-Blatchford et. al 2002), especially where pedagogical practices support thinking skills (Schwienhart, et. al., 1993) and children are given full feedback about their learning needs (Gipps et. al., 2000).
There are difficulties in researching pedagogy in the early years, not only because the term ‘early years’ has different meanings; the international definition being 0 to 8 years of age and the QCA (2000) definition being 3 to 5 years of age. The distinct and diverse nature of the curriculum and accompanying pedagogy in each stage of development (Aubrey, 2004) creates difficulties in practice and research. For children there areaccompanying problems of transition betweenthe foundation stage and key stage 1; from a skills based curriculum (QCA, 2000) to an increasingly knowledge based curriculum (DfES, 1999a), with a complex and tense relationship between skills and knowledge. Surprisingly, although the importance of skills in science is well recognized, it is less clear how what these skills look like in our youngest children, how they develop and what factors support their development.
This research uses observations of children and specific incidences in early years science activities, to analyse the children’s emerging scientific skills and aims to develop understanding of what these skills are and how we can aid their development.
Research Questions
The research aims to answer the following questions,
- What scientific skills are evident in young children?
- What pedagogical approaches are affective in supporting the development of emergent scientific skills?
Methods
The research uses four classroom observations involving children aged between 4 and 7 years of age, engaged in scientific exploration and play. The observations were undertaken during normal teaching situations and specific incidents were photographedand analysed. These particular observations were chosen for deeper analysis because they were considered to be significant by the teacher-researcher and participant practitioners; that they provided information about early scientific skills and the pedagogical support for their development. Observing young children can tell us a great deal about their emerging skills and the effectiveness of pedagogical approaches and is an important way of collecting evidence in young children (QCA, 2003). Planned and incidental observation can add to our understanding of early learning, although this is dependent on usage (Hutchin, 2003). Specific incidents from these observations, captured with photographs are used to illustrate what emerging scientific skills look like in practice and the effectiveness ofpedagogical approaches on their development. Each incident involved joint observation with classroom practitioners, followed by discussion and triangulation of analysis with early years practitioners, student as well as child participants. This triangulation has helped to ensure reliability and enables deeper understanding (Moyles et. al., 2003). Names of children have been changed to maintain anonymity.
Data Analysis
Observation 1
A small group of pre-school children aged 4 years, part of a reception class, attending school two afternoons a week prior to entry to school, were playing in a Garden Centre role play area. One child was observing seeds by picking up individual seeds and observing them closely using a computer microscope attached to a multimedia, thus projecting the image on a large screen.
Picture 1. 4 year old child observing small details of seeds using a computer microscope
She was very solitary in her observations, having no communications with either her peers or adult practitioners. However, she showed evidence of observation of small details, working her way through the pile of seeds, from the smallest upwards. She also showed evidence of recognizing similarities and differences of size between the seeds.
Observation is one of the most important skills for both the scientist and in the early years. For the emergent scientist, observation is probably the most important skill (QCS, 2000) and involves the observer in observing large and small details, similarities and differences, patterns and interpretation as well as begin to use observational aids (Harlen, 2000). As this child demonstrated young children can be very good observers (Johnston, 2001) and her lack of communication with others prevented her from distraction and the need to be refocused more common in young children (Keogh & Naylor, 2003). Her good observation skill is in contrast to expectations of children who are withdrawn and less sociable, who often lack curiosity and do not allow themselves the same opportunities to observe (Harlen, 1977a; 1977b). However, her lack of communication did not enable more creative and imaginative observations to be displayed (Dale Tunnicliffe & Litson, 2002), as would be more expected of the social child.
Triangulation and analysis of this observation highlighted possible differences in practitioner expectation of observational development in young children as a result of different teaching and learning styles. One teacher, who identified herself as a very visual learner felt that, like the child in this observation, the emergent skill developed from close observation and attention to detail, as well as the use of observational aids. Another practitioner, who acknowledged herself as a kinaesthetic learner felt that observation began by use of all senses before focusing on close observations of small details and that observational aids should not be given until later in the child’s development. This questions some assumptions about the development of observational skills (Johnston, 2001; 2005) and suggests that practitioner learning style could possibly affect practitioner perception of the skill of observation and the way it develops.The importance of the observational context has been stressed (de Bóo, 1999; Harlen and Qualter, 2004) as ‘what is seen depends on many factors, including who is looking and what is being sought’ (Jenkins, 2000:213), as well as who is supporting that development.
Observation 2
A class of 5 year old (Year 1) childrenwere sitting in a circle playing and sorting toys during a plenary part of a lesson. Conceptually the collection involved the concept of forces, as some toys used electricity, were held together by or moved because of magnetism, were spinners orwind–up toys etc.The learning objectives also involved developing classification skills. The collection of toys was shared amongst the class, so that each child had one toy. They were encouraged to play with it for a few minutes and then show the child sitting next to them how it worked. A few children shared this with the whole class and then all were encouraged to sort the toys according to their properties, putting them into sorting hoops.
Picture 2. Group of 5 year old children classifying toys according to their own criteria
The children were challenged to sort the toys according to their own categories. One child said that we should put all the spinning toys in one hoop, whilst another child suggested a collection of magnetic toys. Other categories suggested were electrical and wind-up toys and so there were fours categories for sorting. Having put the hoops on the floor, each child had to decide whether their toy should be placed in the spinning, magnetic, wind-up or electrical hoops. When faced with a toy that fitted into more than one category, the child had to decide what to do with it. The children identified three possible solutions to this problem,
- a toy could be placed between two hoops so that it touched each;
- some toys ( a magnetic gyroscope for example) could be divided up so that part could go in one hoop (the spinning part of the gyroscope in the spinning hoop) and the other could go in another hoop (the metal frame in the magnetic hoop).
- a toy could be placed in the section where two hoops overlapped.
The photographic data in Observation 2 shows one child making a decision as to where to place a toy that ‘jumped’ (one of the children’s chosen criteria) and needed to be ‘squeezed’ or ‘pushed’ (another chosen criteria). His decision was to place it in the overlapping section between the two hoops.
Discussion with the classroom practitioners identified that they were unsure what the skill of classification was and how it develops. They were also surprised at the children’s thinking skills. Classification is an important skill in the early years and a pre-requisite to handling variables in later scientific development, for if children cannot see the similarities and differences between objects and phenomena, they will be unable to identify and handle variables (Johnston, 2005). In order to be able to carry out an investigation successfully children need to be able to see similarities and differences between objects and events and to rearrange them according to features they have in common, reducing the number of different impressions and allowing children to learn from experiences. Classification for these children involvedthe development of important thinking skills (Bruner, 1968), although the pedagogical approach is likely to have influenced this, for asde Bóo, (1999) says the approach used can limit the opportunities children have to generalise and develop important skills.
In order to support classification, practitioners need to recognize the stages in the development of children’s classificatory ideas. At an early stage of their development, children will put objects into groups, but will be unable to give reasons for the groupings which make sense of their actions. They then go on to make decisions based on criteria and as well as developing important thinking skills, children will also develop language skills as naming and labelling objects is considered a classificatory act (Vygotsky, 1962).
Observation 3
This observation involved 5 and 6 year old children (Year 1) who were problem solving by making a climbing man who climbs up strings, having been shown a completed toy but not shown how to make it. The man climbs up the string if made correctly and the straws on his arm are angled outwards.A number of children quickly made the climbers but most did not work properly and so they were encouraged to see how their toy differed from the one shown. Afew children used large amounts of plasticine, long strings and didnot angle the straws correctly. The child observed decided to make David Beckham, jumping for joy because he had scored a goal. He looked carefully at the pre-made climbing man and was able to see the differences between his first attempt and the successful one and successfully made his.
Picture 3. 6 year old child having successfully solved the problem of how to make his climbing man ascend the string.
He was then asked to try to work out how the climbing man could climb down the string rather than up and he came up withideas without trying these ideas out and clearly showed the beginnings of some mental models of how the toy works. He first turned the man upside down, then added more plasticine and finally suggested that we might alter the straws (the correct solution).
The photograph captures his first success of making the climbing man ascend the string and indicates the importance of motivation and creativity in successful problem solving and the development of the skill of hypothesizing. Piaget’s (1929) theories about young children’s inability for abstract thought, mental modelling and hypothesis have been modified by further research (Bruner et. al. 1976) and understanding of children’s differing abilities (Gardner1983). There is awareness of young children’s capabilities and the way they construct scientific understandings (Driver 1983, Scott 1987), through experience, play, social interaction and by observing phenomena (e.g. Moyles et. al., 2002). However, despite this research the classroom practitioners involved in this observation and subsequent discussion were unaware of the nature of children’s thinking and under-estimated the children’s abilities. Some practitioners had very little knowledge of child development, especially teachers educated at a time when child development issues were not explicitly taught in initial teacher education.
As with the child in this observation, initial hypotheses are unlikely to be scientifically correctly, may not be obviously based on evidence or experience(de Bóo, 1999) and may involve a creative leap of thinking (Johnston, 2005a).Practitioners need pedagogical skills to support the development of problem solving skills, such as providing a learning atmosphere is thought to be critical to the development of hypothesizing (de Bóo, 1999).
Observation 4
This observation involved a class of 7 year old children (Year 2) who were undertaking a Harry Potter potions lessons, where the learning objectives were to develop understanding of changes to materials and prediction skills. The children were asked to predict what would happens when small amounts of different substances were added to water and to try out their predictions. The materials used were solids (salt, sugar, cornflour, talcum powder, bicarbonate of soda and plaster of Paris) and liquids (white vinegar, detergent, lemonade, cooking oil, lemon juice and colour change bubble bath), which will dissolve, go into solutions, float andchange colour. The context allowed for a highly structured pedagogical approach initially, although later the children worked independently to produce potions of their own.