A Science Education Curriculum That Supports High Quality Learning
Strategies and techniques are presented along with examples of how to apply each strategy in teaching gifted and talented learners in science at all grade levels.
Teaching science through a balance of content and process considerations is essential for gifted learners. This emphasis must include original student investigations, concept development, and interdisciplinary applications. This emphasis on gifted and talented learning must include laboratory-based science as a central tenet for providing high-quality learning opportunities in science education at all levels.
Collaborative teaching science opportunities work well with gifted and talented learners, and structured collaborative opportunities are needed for these learners. Teaching strategies must challenge gifted learners through problem-based learning activities that create critical thinking situations. Professionals from https://essaywriter.com/, a free AI essay writer, state that science education curriculum elements essential for high-ability learners include the following tips.
Teaching Strategies
Students learn deeper than just fundamental ideas by structuring the science curriculum to emphasize science learning designed for gifted and talented learners. Concepts such as systems, change, and scale all provide an important scaffolding of learning regarding core ideas of science.
One teaching science example involves gifted learners working on a project in the classroom.
Ask them how fast they are traveling. Suppose they are sitting on the North Pole. Now, how fast are they traveling? Answers to both questions require understanding the concepts of the Earth’s rotational speed and orbital speed. Suppose students have special suits that allow them to stand in the sun. How fast are they traveling now? Learners need to understand the rotational speed of the Milky Way.
Accommodations and Learning Styles
Teaching techniques include graphic organizers, scaffolding, extra practice, extra time, large-print, and electronic materials. Examples include:
Direct and Explicit Instruction: Ensure that students are given clear directions for tasks and explanations of what they are expected to learn from a science activity.
One example is reading the procedural steps of a science investigation, discussing expected observations, and describing how the data collected will be recorded on the laboratory report.
Hands-On Activities: Use science laboratory equipment and materials for experiments.
One example is when students follow a teacher’s directions to investigate the states of matter using various materials. Students read with their teacher about supporting resources regarding the properties of matter and perform a hands-on activity related to the states of matter.
Science Vocabulary: Use a variety of strategies and techniques for modeling vocabulary.
One example is teaching students how to create flashcards or develop concept maps to learn science vocabulary definitions.
Classroom Learning Center: The center includes reading materials, hands-on materials, and technology resources to allow students to review information about science concepts. If appropriate assistive technologies are available, they must be in the learning center to support science learning.
One example is providing access to an online interactive science activity focusing on the composition of the Earth’s atmosphere.
Science and Society
Gifted and talented learners must learn to connect science concepts to their world. They must analyze the relationship between real-world problems and implications for understanding connections between science and society. Experiments, surveys, role-playing, case studies, and debates are some of the processes gifted learners can use to address issues.
One teaching science example focuses on gifted learners studying the impact of food technology and its long-term impact on humans.
Students need to make connections between diseases caused by technological advances in growing food, the impact of food shortages worldwide, the impact of genetic alteration of foods, and the impact of fertilizers on the environment.
Problem-Based Learning
The more gifted and talented learners construct an understanding of science, the better they can solve problems by applying scientific processes in problem-based learning activities. Teacher-guided questions, collaborative dialogue and discussions, and individual exploration allow students to develop scientists’ habits of mind, which include skepticism, objectivity, and curiosity.
One teaching science example focuses on air quality from a local, national, and international perspective.
Gifted learners focus on real-world solutions for controlling carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, and all the other pollutants that cause air pollution.
Science and Technology
Using technology to teach science offers exciting possibilities for connecting students to real-world opportunities. Internet access provides students with connections to real-time databases for teaching using online science projects. Also, the use of e-mail, Twitter, and Skype provides learners with the tools to communicate directly with scientists and other students around the world.
One example of a teaching strategy using technology is using a virtual chemistry lab to conduct experiments with resources that are not typically available in a gifted and talented classroom.
Science Projects
Science projects must focus on experimental design and its related processes. Typically, texts only offer canned experiments where students follow the steps to a preordained conclusion. Designing their work in science requires gifted and talented learners to read and discuss a particular topic of interest, then they must:
- Come up with a problem to test
- Design an experiment to test the problem
- follow through with appropriate procedures
- conduct further discussion
- Reanalyze the problem
- communicate findings to a relevant audience
One example is based on designing an experiment to test how a plant’s growth is impacted when subjected to only red, orange, yellow, green, or blue light.
Learning Assessment: Focusing on Student Achievement against Benchmarks
Using learning assessments, both formative and informal, to measure students’ understanding of science concepts provides useful information for providing direction for assisting students. Examples include:
Rubrics: Provide students with grading criteria that describe the levels of quality for each criterion, normally using a point scale.
One example describes the quality levels required to complete a mousetrap car science project. The rubric provides descriptors of excellent, adequate, partial, or poor for each grading component of the project.
Frequent Assessments: Do not rely on unit tests or exams as the only means of assessment.
One example is using a quiz to assess learning about the parts of a plant instead of including the quiz elements within a unit test on plants.
Variety of Assessments: Use a variety of assessments such as quizzes, homework, notebook grades, class participation, projects, graphic organizers, group work, written assignments, and presentations. Some of this variety capitalizes on learning students’ strengths or preferences.
One example is allowing students to select from a graphic organizer, a PowerPoint presentation, or a written paper to explain why the Earth has seasons.
Student Access to Grades: Regularly providing each student with online or offline access to updated grade reports.
One example is using a science class, which provides a list of categories in which students are assessed during a grading period and the current grade for each category. Students are provided with a password to access their grades only.
Provide Personalized Feedback: Conduct periodic one-on-one meetings or give personal feedback on class work with students. This feedback focuses on their progress in learning science concepts and achieving course or assignment objectives.
One example is writing specific comments on a science project rubric, providing additional feedback on success or how to achieve expectations.
Making Connections with Gifted and Talented Learners and Science Education
An appropriate science education curriculum that promotes high-quality learning is desirable for gifted and talented learners and all other learners. Access to such learning is mandatory for all learners demonstrating a strong desire for a challenging science curriculum in schools.
Gifted and talented learners must be challenged using teaching strategies that cause these students to use critical thinking skills, focus on resolving science problems that impact society, and use technology as a focal point to resolve science issues that require inquiry into science systems, change, and scale.
