How does having hands on experiences in science classes make the learning deeper? What is it about "traditional" science classes that make it seem so dreadful?
Sitting, memorizing information and regurgitating it is pretty awful. But who doesn't love a good science experiment or a true hands on activity? Suddenly you are engaged. You want to know what is happening and why. Now you have a context for what you are learning and your brain will not only have a special file for it, you will also be able to access that file more easily when you need it.
It is extremely important to have authentic, hands on science experiences for students because it keeps them engaged. If they are interested in the experiment or excited to observe and discuss they will be more likely to learn and remember the information. Science is seen as boring due to the presentation; memorizing,reading out of a book, taking tests. Its boring even for people who love science. By creating experiments and having them be involved, students become intrigued and interested causing them to deepen their learning. I loved your student questions and also the discussion with colleagues. It is an extremely important question and teachers should be aware and able to answer it!
I think that hands on experiences are crucial in science. To me science is all about exploring, to come up with our own hypothesises and its hard to do that if we dont have hands on experiences. I think when we dont give our students the oppurtunity to explore or make our classrooms fun it can be dreadful. So where i am really going with this is science + lecture = dreadful science class. but on the oppisite hands on experiments+ science= fun interesting science class.
Tradition science is not hands on which means it does not give students a real life feel. Without a real life application the students do not remember the material as well as it is not authentic. Tradition science is a lot of memorization of science studies that have been done, by allowing students to discover for themselves it becomes more real and exciting to them.
I think that because science is doing rather than listening, it makes or breaks your class to have hands on experiments. One class that was so dreadful for me was my 11th grade chemistry class. Instead of doing chemistry, the class was filled with her lectures about chemicals and the periodic table of elements. I think the class could have benefited from some cool experiments.
I remember more about science classes than just about any other class simply for the times that the class went out to conduct hands-on "investigations" with the nearby river or garden, to include lectures and discussions held outside as well. That is how I would rather be remembered as an educator...
Hands-on activities come much closer to authentic science than learning fact from textbooks, that's true! However, it is important to remember that hands-on does not equal minds-on. The same is true with technology: mouse-on does not equal minds-on. It is important to support deep student thinking, even with hands-on activities in order to promote meaningful, long-lasting learning.
Sitting, memorizing information and regurgitating it is pretty awful. But who doesn't love a good science experiment or a true hands on activity? Suddenly you are engaged. You want to know what is happening and why. Now you have a context for what you are learning and your brain will not only have a special file for it, you will also be able to access that file more easily when you need it.
ReplyDeleteIt is extremely important to have authentic, hands on science experiences for students because it keeps them engaged. If they are interested in the experiment or excited to observe and discuss they will be more likely to learn and remember the information. Science is seen as boring due to the presentation; memorizing,reading out of a book, taking tests. Its boring even for people who love science. By creating experiments and having them be involved, students become intrigued and interested causing them to deepen their learning.
ReplyDeleteI loved your student questions and also the discussion with colleagues. It is an extremely important question and teachers should be aware and able to answer it!
I think that hands on experiences are crucial in science. To me science is all about exploring, to come up with our own hypothesises and its hard to do that if we dont have hands on experiences. I think when we dont give our students the oppurtunity to explore or make our classrooms fun it can be dreadful. So where i am really going with this is science + lecture = dreadful science class. but on the oppisite hands on experiments+ science= fun interesting science class.
ReplyDeleteTradition science is not hands on which means it does not give students a real life feel. Without a real life application the students do not remember the material as well as it is not authentic. Tradition science is a lot of memorization of science studies that have been done, by allowing students to discover for themselves it becomes more real and exciting to them.
ReplyDeleteI think that because science is doing rather than listening, it makes or breaks your class to have hands on experiments. One class that was so dreadful for me was my 11th grade chemistry class. Instead of doing chemistry, the class was filled with her lectures about chemicals and the periodic table of elements. I think the class could have benefited from some cool experiments.
ReplyDeleteI remember more about science classes than just about any other class simply for the times that the class went out to conduct hands-on "investigations" with the nearby river or garden, to include lectures and discussions held outside as well. That is how I would rather be remembered as an educator...
ReplyDeleteHands-on activities come much closer to authentic science than learning fact from textbooks, that's true! However, it is important to remember that hands-on does not equal minds-on. The same is true with technology: mouse-on does not equal minds-on. It is important to support deep student thinking, even with hands-on activities in order to promote meaningful, long-lasting learning.
ReplyDelete