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Field based learning in science:Animating a museum experienceDon Metza Education Program , University of Winnipeg , CanadaPublished online: 22 Aug 2006.

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Teaching EducationVol. 16, No. 2, June 2005, pp. 165–173

ISSN 1047-6210 (print)/ISSN 1470-1286 (online)/05/020165–09© 2005 School of Education, The University of QueenslandDOI 10.1080/10476210500122733

Field Based Learning in Science: Animating a museum experience

Don Metz*Education Program, University of Winnipeg, CanadaTaylor and Francis LtdCTED112256.sgm10.1080/10476210500122733Teaching Education1047-6210 (print)/1470-1286 (online)Original Article2005School of Education, University of Queensland162000000June 2005DonMetzEducation ProgramUniversity of Winnipeg515 Portage Ave.WinnipegMBR3B 2E9Canadad.metz@uwinnipeg.ca

Although most students view science through a positive lens they often have difficulty connectingthe science that they study in school with the practice of science in general, and their personalexperience with science in their everyday lives. In an attempt to mediate “school science” with amore authentic view of science a contextual model is advanced as a framework for field basedlearning experiences. To model this perspective for prospective science teachers a unique collabo-ration between an education pre-service program and a local museum is described. During anormally closed period the museum opened their galleries for the pre-service student teachers.Prior to visiting the galleries, each student was assigned a role to play that matched an exhibit in agallery walk. As the group proceeded through the gallery each student played their role and deliv-ered a “hidden” science lesson. Entering into and experiencing the activities of real persons in sucha historical context provided the students with a much more authentic learning experience. Thepre-service teachers in the course reported that the experience was not only worthwhile as a learn-ing strategy, but also that the role playing was beneficial in practicing their teacher presentationskills.

Introduction

Frequently, learning in science is dominated by a routine of decontextualizedinstruction. That is, students are exposed to the principles, laws, and theories ofscience without regard to the historical, philosophical, social, and personal contextsin which these principles are embedded. Standardized testing, mandated curricu-lum, and textbooks reinforce this approach with a focus on content standards ratherthan on questions drawn from relevant experiences. The result is that scientific studybecomes disassociated from our world rather than being a part of it.

In an extensive survey of students’ views of science, Osborne and Collins (2000)found that most students usually expressed very positive attitudes to science.

*Education Program, University of Winnipeg, 515 Portage Ave., Winnipeg, MB, R3B 2E9,Canada. Email: d.metz@uwinnipeg.ca

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Ironically, the same students possessed a rather naive understanding of scientistsand complained that their science classes were irrelevant and boring. The sameresearch also indicated that students preferred science subjects, such as biology,which are embedded within a human context. Generally, they found the physicalsciences to be more abstract, factual, and represented by views of science prescribedby textbooks.

These points of view illustrate that students make an implicit distinction betweenscience and “school science”. School science is best characterized by its textbooksand is described by students as disconnected from society, studied for its own sake,and lacking a human perspective. However, despite this concern on the part of thelearner, textbooks continue to be the prime resource for science teaching. Aikenhead(2003) contends that textbooks mostly determine how teachers teach the curricu-lum, a view confirmed by the recent TIMSS survey, and an earlier report by Yager(1992), who claims that 98% of the teachers use the textbook 98% of the time. Suchdecontextualized textbook-centered teaching is based on the mistaken assumptionthat learning facts through a set of exemplars (standard problems) is adequate forobtaining an understanding of science.

However, in any pragmatic sense, a lasting understanding of science must persistbeyond the memorization of facts and their application through common exemplars.We should expect our students to develop deeper understandings and to be able togeneralize across diverse and relevant connections. The unrealistic expectation oftextbooks is that students will be able to extend their understanding of exemplars tothe real world in which they live. To mediate such views of everyday science and“school science”, I would advocate that teaching science become more contextualsuch that students can find more personal relevance.

There are several ways to foster a more contextual approach to teaching science.Stinner, MacMillan, Metz, Klassen, and Jilek (2003) advocate the integration of thehistory and philosophy of science (HPS) through units of historical presentation thatincludes such diverse activities as dialogue, dramatization, and thematic narratives.An STS approach (Science, Technology, Society) has also been advocated (Aiken-head, 2003), and more contemporary, relevant issues, such as space exploration, arebeginning to find their way into curriculum documents (Metz, 2004).

Nevertheless, several problems persist with such instruction. A tension alwaysseems to exist between the content necessary to understand the context and the timespent within the context. Importantly for this paper, the confines of the classroomare seen as not very conducive to creating the authentic environments necessary forcontextual teaching. Quite simply, to maximize the contextual approach, studentsneed to get out of the classroom and participate in genuine field-based experiences.In this paper, I will describe the field experience as we find it today, what researchsays about it, and I will advance Falk and Dierking’s (1992, 2000) model of contex-tual learning as a framework for teachers and informal educators to plan moresuccessful learning experiences. Finally, I will include an example of an innovativeapproach to contextual teaching which incorporates the history of science in a fieldexperience for pre-service science teachers. Throughout the paper I will use the term

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“informal educators” to mean persons in field environments who plan and imple-ment educational school visits. Specifically, for this paper my illustration of an infor-mal learning environment is a museum, although the ideas represented here caneasily be extended to other informal venues.

Museums and Museum Education

Most communities in Canada have museums which chronicle the natural history ofthe local region, or which focus on a particular theme relevant to the community.Often, the modern museum emerged from collections of rarities, specimens, and“curiosities” preserved and displayed for small groups of enthusiasts. A typicalexample is evidenced by William Logan, the first director of the Geological Survey ofCanada who initially assembled a large personal inventory of geological specimens.After the collection was briefly exhibited in London, Ontario in 1851, he acquiredgovernment assistance for the maintenance of his collection. This collection laterbecame part of the Geological Survey of Canada and ultimately part of Canada’snational museum. The popularization of such exhibits can be found internationallyand has led to a large number of institutions worldwide whose mandate was toacquire, preserve, and exhibit their artifacts for the education and enjoyment of thegeneral public. In the last several decades museums have begun to transformthemselves from that of an archival culture to one more concerned with the visitors’experience. Eventually, museums began to adopt more of a pedagogical approachthrough interactive, multimedia exhibits, websites, and the promotion of schoolvisits.

As museums design more educational programs, it is natural to reflect on theirrole in education, and specifically for this paper, science education. Additionally, myinterest lies in mediating students’ views of “school science” and science by creatingenvironments which are more contextual. Today, many museums are putting signif-icant amounts of resources into their education programs, and in turn researchersare beginning to ask if museum visits are any more effective than in class instruction.

Most science centers and museum exhibits are based on a phenomenologicalapproach (Livingston, Pedretti, & Soren, 2001) in what McManus (1992) calls a“decontextualized scattering of interactive exhibits”. Combined with the usual textlabeling that “explains” the exhibit, one is easily left with the impression thatinformal settings are no more adept at representing science than the textbook. Inwhat is hardly a ringing endorsement for museum educators, Lederman & Neiss(1998) claim

No matter how interactive exhibits are made, they remain relatively static and sterilewhen compared to instruction by experienced teachers, in or out of the classroom.(p. 2)

Further, they emphasize that exhibits are not replacements for experienced teachersand that recent efforts of informal educators “have not been informed by volumes ofresearch on teaching and learning in mathematics and science”. Lederman and

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Neiss believe that there has been little effort to capture the resources found atinformal settings in a meaningful integration with formal school curricula and heappeals to informal educators to become involved in instruction prior to and follow-ing students’ visits.

Oddly, Lederman and Neiss do not assign any responsibility to the teachingprofession to assume leadership for such integration. Arguably, it remains an openquestion whether we should expect informal sites to adapt to the curriculum andnot the other way around, that is, modify the curriculum to utilize the localresources. Lederman and Neiss do recognize that particular exhibits and resourcesare unique to informal settings. However, they seem to suggest that the responsi-bility for curriculum fit and integration, pre- and post-activities, lies solely with theinformal educators and not the classroom teachers. The research seems to supportthis position. Griffin and Symington (1997) reported that visiting teachers felt thatany lack of fit between the school and museum work was the fault of the institu-tion. Anderson and Zhuang (2003) also found that even though teachers believedcurriculum fit was an important feature of a field experience, a large number ofteachers felt it was fully the museum’s responsibility. Anderson and Zhuang alsonoted that there is evidence that teachers needed to justify curriculum fit to theiradministrators for approval of the field excursion but that is as far as their concernextended as few teachers could cite curriculum goals and objectives for the onsiteexperience.

Although Lederman and Neiss point the finger at informal educators who ignorethe volumes of research in science teaching and learning, it appears that teachers areat least equally guilty of the same transgression. Despite considerable evidence thatorientation and pre-visit activities are critical to the success of a field experience,there is even more evidence that there are few goals, preparation, or follow-up on thepart of the classroom teacher (Falk & Balling, 1982; Kisiel, 2003; Kubota & Olstad,1991, Lucas, 1991; Storksdieck, 2001). Griffin and Symington (1997) describe therole of the teachers in their study:

Individual teachers rarely saw a need to even participate in the planning of the visit. Inschools where several teachers and classes attended, normally one teacher organized thevisit and printed off the sheets for the students. The other teachers effectively followed,doing whatever had been planned or prepared for them. (p. 773)

Astonishingly, in one case, the students never even knew where they were going asthey boarded the bus. Additionally, Griffin and Symington found that teachers usedmainly task-oriented teaching practices, exemplified by a fill in the blank style ofworksheet and that little effort was made to integrate topics being studied in theclassroom with the resources at the museum.

What the research suggests is that informal educators need to recognize that theproblems inherent with decontextualized teaching and learning also extend to infor-mal site. Additionally, teachers need to recognize that if the field experience is to bea genuine learning experience, some attention needs to be paid to pre- and post-visitpreparation beyond just organizational details.

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Field Based Learning in Science 169

As a result, informal educators must become more aware of creating a meaningfulcontext and using experiences grounded in learning theory. One way to address thislack of context within museum displays would be to alter the design of the display.While initially this may seem unlikely, there are cases where learning outcomesclearly influence the design of the display. Commenting on the typical exhibit,Livingston, Pedretti, and Soren (2001) noted that:

little attention has been paid to the applications of science and their ethical implicationsfor society, while even less consideration has been given to science as the outcome ofparticular social processes and contexts. (p 5)

As a more fair representation of science, they developed an exhibit called “A Ques-tion of Truth” intended to demonstrate how science is influenced by cultural,personal, and political points of view by examining episodes in the history of science.

On the other hand, teachers need to find innovative ways to use field experiencesin a more authentic context to enhance the classroom experience, not to replace it.Given the lack of a tradition, there is a role for education programs through pre-service and in-service assistance to provide opportunities for teachers to develop andfield test strategies which can be successfully implemented in a combined in-schooland field experience learning cycle.

Field Based Learning in Science is a new course for education students at theUniversity of Winnipeg which attempts to address teaching in context. This course,intended for students interested in K-12 science teaching, examines the principles,planning, and implementation of field-based learning resources in science education.Field-based learning involves any activity or event that takes place, in real or virtualtime, outside of the classroom. Topics include organizing an educational field expe-rience for museums, planetariums, zoos, nature centers, and natural environments,developing a webquest to implement a virtual field experience, using resources inindustry and commerce, and pursuing authentic research in science. The broadgoals of the course are to teach and think outside of the box, to liberate pre-serviceteachers’ thinking from the textbook, to promote teaching in context, to improvepersonal presentation skills, to find science in everyday life, and to present science ina more humanizing manner. Falk and Dierking’s (2000) contextual model oflearning serves as the framework for understanding and planning the educationalcomponents of the field experience.

The Contextual Model of Learning

The Contextual Model of Learning (Falk & Dierking, 2000) establishes three over-lapping contexts, the personal context, the sociocultural context, and the physicalcontext, to guide the field-based learning experience. The personal context embod-ies personal interests and motivations, learning style preferences, prior knowledge,and experience of the learner. The sociocultural context includes factors thatacknowledge learning as an individual and group experience within a social, cultural,and historical context. Finally, the contextual model of learning recognizes that field

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experiences occur in a physical environment. Falk and Dierking summarize theircontextual model by suggesting that learning begins with the individual, involvesothers, and is situated somewhere. The contextual model of learning is a usefulframework for educators in both informal and formal settings when designing field-based learning experiences. Specifically the contextual model acts as a guide helpingeducators make a transition from a task-oriented approach to a learner-centeredapproach for field-based experiences.

While the organizational aspects of planning an effective learning experienceoutside the classroom form part of the course content in the Field Based Learningcourse, several field experiences are implemented to model innovative teaching strat-egies. Integration is promoted across the curriculum as well as across different fieldexperiences. For example, students build an astrolabe in a class activity and thenmake azimuth and altitude observations of the moon each night with a familymember. Art (cover design), language arts (writing poetry about the moon), andculture (what is the significance of the moon in other societies) are integrated into amoon journal. On the last day of classes the professor arranged for an eclipse of themoon1 and a visit to the planetarium, for a special program designed to enhance ourunderstanding of eclipses, completed our study of the moon.

Another successful field experience in the Field Based Learning course was ourinteractive museum gallery walk. Research in museum education indicates that moststudents do not want to learn by reading exhibit labels at a visit site (Falk, Koran, &Dierking, 1986). Museum educators have responded to the learner’s needs bymaking exhibits more interactive through the use of hands-on specimens, multime-dia kiosks, demonstrations, and interpretation or guidance by a docent. In somecases, role-playing interpreters provide a realistic experience for the learner. Ourinteractive gallery walk is an extension of this role playing. However, instead of theinterpreter, the student assumes the role.

In a unique collaboration between the education program at the University ofWinnipeg and the Manitoba Museum, the museum opened their galleries for the pre-service student teachers during a normally closed period. Prior to visiting the galler-ies, each student was assigned a role to play that matched an exhibit in a gallery walk.Students could be explorers, settlers, elders, merchants, and business persons. Eachstudent researched their role and designed a costume. As the group weaved throughthe galleries the “actor” would step forward at his or her exhibit to describe their lifeand environment as depicted in the scene. Additionally, the presentation included a“hidden” science lesson. For example, the ship’s captain described how to use apulley system to set the sails, the coal seller outlined the production of coal, and thehardware merchant explained the “new” invention of radio. Entering into and expe-riencing the activities of real persons in such a historical context provided the studentswith a much more authentic learning experience than the common gallery walk.

Moreover, the science was embedded within the personal, social, and physicalcontexts advocated by Falk and Dierking. Such an alternative approach helpspromote a more authentic learning environment in contrast to the “school science”as typically found in most instruction. Conversations, encounters with objects,

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“real” persons, and context generated interest in the participants and resulted inmemorable experiences. Morrissey (2002) reminds us that “interactions betweenindividuals, in the presence of objects, are the foundation of learning”. She furtherchallenges us to use objects not only to see the special attributes of the object butalso to increase and strengthen the pathway between ourselves and our community.The marriage between the historical setting and the hidden science lessons provedan effective means to this end.

The history of science highlights the nature of the scientific enterprise. Above all,the historical context serves as a reminder of the ways in which cultural and intellec-tual traditions have influenced the questions and methodologies of science, and howscience in turn has influenced the wider world of ideas. Science as a human activityin a historical perspective can be viewed by students as interesting and relevant,permitting students to connect with real people, situations, events, and ideas. Addi-tionally, much research has been done which indicates that students’ initial ideas inscience are often reflected in a historical perspective. In our deliberations we shouldreflect on the students in Tobias’ (1990) classic study who pointed to the isolation ofthe learner and the “absence of history or context” as prime reasons for their discon-tinuing in science despite being quality students.

Typically, history of science is often told through stories of “the heroes of science”and great discoveries and not as an everyday view of science. The interactive gallerywalk was intended to view the history of science in a more personal context and toemphasize the point that we find science in our everyday lives, even historically. Theactivity was also designed to move learning in a museum environment from a task-centered mode (such as completing a worksheet) to a learner-oriented strategy.DeNeve and Heppner (1997) reported that learning in such a setting is retained at ahigher rate than through reading or attending a lecture. The pre-service teachers inthe course also reported that the experience was not only worthwhile as a learningstrategy, but that the role playing was beneficial in practicing their teacher presenta-tion skills. Additionally, a more authentic view of science literacy in which we under-stand science in a relevant, social context as advocated by recent curriculum reformswas presented (Council of Ministers of Education, Canada, 1997, Pan-CanadianFramework).

Conclusion

Bain and Ellenbogen (2002) point out that the disciplinary toolkit of the educatormay have pedagogical strengths that contrast with the visual explanation strengths ofan exhibit designer. In a collaboration, such a contrast should be viewed as a positiveforce for developing new and innovative approaches to teaching science in a histori-cal, social, and cultural context. One aspect of the field-based learning approachpresented here suggests that a collaborative planning model may be useful in bridg-ing the gap between the classroom education and the informal educator.

Additionally, as we prepare a new generation of science teachers we need to exploredifferent ways to advance a more authentic view of science connected to a more relevant

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context. Field-based learning holds the promise of untapped potential for integratingclassroom instruction with informal learning. However, much needs to be done toensure that field-based learning becomes a genuine learning experience and not merelyan allocated field trip. In the future, pre-service teacher programs, informal educators,and teachers need to collaborate more carefully to identify best practices such that fieldexperiences can become more genuine and powerful learning adventures. Althoughinitial feedback from students is overwhelmingly positive, additional research stillneeds to be pursued to determine if introducing pre-service teachers to innovative strat-egies in informal settings is reflected in their future teaching practices.

Note

1. Ok, so it happened naturally.

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