Many of us were “taught” this way, so we remember how little these practices contributed to conceptual development. These traditional strategies stem from the assumption that students absorb the meanings of many science terms simply by writing the words and their definitions.
The job of science education is to teach students how to use thematic patterns of science to communicate meanings, “talking science” to solve problems in writing or speaking about issues in which science is relevant.
As science educators, we not only teach science but we may communicate a “mystique of science” attitude, promoting the idea that science is authoritative, impersonal and humorless, lacking creativity or values. This communicates a view that scientists are “experts” or “them,” rather than seeing ourselves as scientists.
Scientific writing and talk often project science as a description of the way the world works rather than as a human social activity that tries to make sense of the world. We instead should help our students learn that science is all around us, influenced by human uncertainties, judgments, values, and interests. It’s important that we emphasize the human side of science. These well-established ideas about the nature of science have a lasting effect on students, so we need to be sensitive about the messages we communicate. Science is creative and science is tentative, which means that scientists recognize that we understand things based on current research.
. By using these strategies, teachers can begin to help all students engage in the language of science.
Time to talk
It is important to promote students’ dialogue as they have instructional conversations. We need to provide students with opportunities to use their colloquial language and translate back and forth with scientific and technical terms. We can use this strategy, called interlanguage, to discuss the different explanations of the students’ experiences in the classroom. For example:- Student: “We put this smooth powder in the bag along with the crunchy powder and the bag blew up and got hot.”
- Teacher: “We mixed baking soda and calcium chloride with water resulting in a gas, and heat was released.”
- Scientist: “The combination of baking soda and calcium chloride is an exothermic reaction with the products of sodium choloride, calcium carbonate, and carbon dioxide.”
Giving instructions
We can support students’ information processing by supplementing auditory information with visual clues. When we can provide students with multi-sensory experiences observing and communicating, it helps all students, especially emerging readers and English language learners. Instructions should be given using a variety of visual or aural support materials.Reading science text cards
Text cards help students interact with words and their meanings. Teachers can create science text cards by writing statements about science concepts on index cards. Working individually or in small groups, students discuss the statements before sorting.Word games
Traditional games can be adapted to help students experience the language of science. For advanced students, making their own games using science vocabulary promotes in-depth understanding of words and their meanings.- Hangman
- Odd One Out
- Charades
- Bingo
- Scrabble
- Trivial Pursuit
- Pictionary
- Dingbats
- Twenty questions, Who am I?
- Breaking words down into smaller words. For example:
- invertebrate — in, brat, tea, tear, rate, vertebrae…
- photosynthesis — sit, sin, thesis, photos…
- temperature — rate, temper, rut, tear, ate…
