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Review of Middle School Physical Science Texts (part 4)



Final Report: The David and Lucile Packard Foundation, Grant #1998-4248
The full report (about 100 pages) is at
<http://www.psrc-online.org/curriculum/book.html>

Excerpts: REVIEW OF MIDDLE SCHOOL PHYSICAL SCIENCE TEXTS (part 4)
John L. Hubisz, Ph.D., Hubisz@unity.ncsu.edu, (919)515-2515


OTHER THINGS CONSIDERED:
I. Paul Hickman (p.hickman@nunet.neu.edu) has been evaluating several new
efforts at developing new elementary school curricula using criteria
described at
http://projects.terc.edu/impact/template/resources/msthtml.cfm. These
materials are not yet competitors for the texts that we have been looking
at.

II. The UMass Physics Education Research Group is developing a program
MINDS ON PHYSICS published by Kendall/Hunt at about the 8th or 9th grade
level. The first three volumes already published will provide an excellent
resource for Middle School teachers. The authors are using the latest
results from the efforts of the Physics Education Research (PER) community.

III. A more traditional but highly accurate and acceptable approach is
contained in the Robinson Self-Teaching Home-School Curriculum Version 2.0
which is designed for grades K-12 and is contained on 22 CDs available for
just under $200 available from the Oregon Institute of Science and
Medicine, P.O. Box 1279, Cave Junction, OR 97523.

IV. Integrated Science, Book One & Book Two, published by J.M. LeBel
Enterprises in 1994, while not a big seller is quite good. Each volume has
fewer than 250 pages.


CONCLUSIONS:
I. Scientific Accuracy: Not one of the books we reviewed reached a level
that we could call "scientifically accurate" as far as the physical science
contained therein. The sheer number of errors precludes such a
designation....

II. Adherence to an Accurate Portrayal of the Scientific Approach: There
were many instances where there were hints that there is an approach to
solving problems that could be labeled "scientific," but no text emphasized
and reminded the reader that the scientific approach was something to be
learned and applied, perhaps even outside the science classroom. There
were a few disconnected instances where it was suggested that students
"design an experiment." Some texts had many activities and in many
instances, they were good ones, but there was no clear-cut point to the
activity. Follow-up questions tended to be trivial and were not incisive
and geared to encourage further thinking and coming up with an improved
experiment. At the core of Middle School science there should be material
dealing with how to ask good questions, how to design ways to get answers
to the questions, how to gather equipment needed to carry out an
experiment, how to record results, and how to interpret them. Measurement
is very important and there were few instances where students were taught
how to use instruments. Orienting and reading a meter stick properly is an
important skill. Most college students have to be taught this skill
because introductory exercises show that they do not know how.

III. Appropriateness and Pedagogic Effectiveness of the Material: Without
a thorough grounding in measurement making and scaling and some simple
mathematics, introducing atoms and molecules (including DNA) into the
Middle Schools is a mistake. The diagrams that appear in the texts are
quite confusing. The nucleus is drawn large and the electron very small,
but nowhere is it pointed out that, this is mass representation and not a
volume representation. Students are then surprised to learn that nuclei,
even very massive ones, are very small. Astronomy is very difficult (but
easy to make simple questions for students to memorize answers to) to do
well, but there are excellent exercises having to do with the Sun and Moon
over extended periods for this level of student. Why Daylight Savings
Time? What does it do for us? What can be observed at the equinoxes and
the solstices? Measuring and plotting are what is needed, but none of the
books reviewed suggest this. Very little of the mathematics (ratio and
proportion, graphing, even addition and subtraction) that they have been
learning is being put to use. The Periodic Table has a wealth of material
already laid out, but instead of looking at boiling points and freezing
points, color, texture, phase at room temperature, etc., the texts worry
about electronic configurations and whether they have the latest number of
atoms on their chart. The net result is that students come away memorizing
a great deal of material that they regurgitate on tests that emphasize
recall and think that they know science.

IV. Readability: We generally are not experts at determining reading
levels, however, we felt that generally the reading level was simple (short
sentences and easy vocabulary.) As a check we scanned several randomly (in
some cases the first one or two choices were ignored as there was too much
non-textual material) pages and read them into Microsoft Word” and ran the
Spelling and Grammar checker to get the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level. Most
of the pages including those of the books that were designed at the 8th and
9th grade level came out at less than Grade 6.0.

V. Attractiveness and Quality of Illustrations: The books are beautifully
done. Most of the budget must have gone into color, photographs, graphic
artists, archive searches, and the like. Rarely does a page not have
something in color and often five or six color photographs or drawings or
diagrams appear on a page. The quality of the illustrations is excellent,
even though not always appropriate. An adult, not conversant with science,
picking up one of these books would be very impressed. On hearing that the
latest nuclei forged in laboratories are mentioned in the book, that the
latest results of experiments carried out in space are mentioned in the
book, that the latest pictures from space are in the book, and that
"hundreds" of scientists have taken part in producing the book, most
reviewers would want this book for their children.

VI. Laboratory Activities and Suggested Home Activities: Most suggested
activities were good ones and appropriate, but lacked the necessary
follow-up for testing what had been learned from the experience. The
theory or principle being tested was not obvious. During the course of
this effort, we came across quite a few activity books that suffered in the
same way - good experiments, but answers to "Why did we do it?" and "What
does it illustrate?" go unanswered. Students come through school with a
strong dose of mystical thinking. They believe that everything is
possible. There are no bounds to what can be accomplished. Science says,
"No!" There are bounds and science adds to our knowledge by showing what
can't be.

VII. Exercises to Test Understanding: For the most part these were trivial
from a physical science perspective. If one is trying to get answers from
nature, one does experiments. One does not read a section of a text and
then get quiz questions that only require remembering what was read.
Granted some of that is appropriate, but too much gives the student the
wrong idea about what science is about. Science is not history or social
studies. It's different, and these exercises typically do not emphasize
that.

Resource Suggestions: Most books gave quite a few references to resource
material for the teacher and the student. Teachers could get materials
lists and suppliers from addenda to the texts. Usually this material was
included in the Teacher's Edition of the student text. A couple had a
tremendous amount of material coming close to providing a course for the
teacher in teaching techniques, highlights of the various philosophies used
in preparing the text, and several course outlines for the slowest students
to the most gifted. The reviews mention some of these.
-----------------------------------
(In my final post next time: John Hubisz' suggestions for middle school
teachers, and a final paragraph on actions that he would take if he were an
enlightened principal. - Jane)

Jane Jackson, Co-Director, Modeling Instruction Program
Box 871504, Dept.of Physics & Astronomy,ASU,Tempe,AZ 85287
480-965-8438/fax:965-7331 <http://modeling.asu.edu>