Using historical reconstruction to implement inquiry-based teaching in primary school

Using historical reconstruction to implement inquiry-based teaching

in primary school Cécile de Hosson, Paris7-Diderot University

(France)

Belgrade, october 20072

Teachers in primary school and science education

“I’m afraid of teaching science because I don’t know about science”

The use of history of science in training sessions can be a way to reconcile the teachers with the scientific contents.


QuestionChildren’s ideas Scientific content

Answers’attempt : Discussion

Problem to be solved

Experiment based process Model based approach

Technological processActivity of documentation

Share

Conclusion

Inquiry process for active learning

History of

science


Provides the teachers with the students’ difficulties

Provides the students with a more comprehensive view of science

Gives turning-points that can inspire the teachers with pedagogical strategy

History of science in science education


History of science

Tool for a learning pathway

?

Questions to be solved

Similarities between ideas in the past and children’s reasoning : What can we do ?

Rediscovering scientific contents : Reality or illusion ?

First example : Following the footsteps of Eratosthenes

http://www.mapmonde.org/eratos/pdf/moduleen.pdf


In Egypt, about 2200 years ago, a papyrus drew attention of a certain Eratosthenes, then Director of the Great Library of Alexandria (a town located on the side of the Mediterranean Sea): it was about a vertical stick which, on the first day of summer (that is to say on June the 21st) and at noon local solar time, did not cast any shadow on the ground. This happened very far from Alexandria, straight to the South, in a town called Syene (now Aswan). However, Eratosthenes noticed from his side that in Alexandria, on June the 21rst also and at the same time, a stick vertically driven in the ground did cast a shadow, even if such a shadow was relatively short. What the hell was this mystery?

We invite you to discover it by yourselves. This will lead you pretty far since, as Eratosthenes showed, the key of this mystery will allow you to measure the circumference of the Earth, nothing less!

Following the footsteps of Eratosthenes


Even if they know about the circular shape of the Earth, the pupils use a flat local space in their reasonning.Most of the pupils will draw the Sun on their sheet with divergent rays.






The line between Aswan and Alexandria is a curve one !


Some pupils use a spherical Earth for their explanation, BUT...They still draw the propagation of the sunlight with divergent rays.



The model of the divergent rays is not operational to explain both situations : it has to be changed !

This does not square with

their observations



The stake of the learning-sequence is :

The parallelism of the solar rays




Eratosthenes hypothesis : The parallelism of the solar rays

Eratosthenes discovery : The sphericity of the Earth

Children’s hypothesis : The sphericity of the Earth

Children’s discovery : The parallelism of the solar rays

≠

The use of the Eratosthenes discovery involves an pedagogical orientated reading of the history of science.This reading is guided by what one knows about children’s ideas about light, about the shape of the Earth, etc.

Do child

ren fo

llow th

e

footst

eps o

f

Eratos

thene

s ?

Seconde example : How did light became the stimulus of the

eye ?


Vision is mostly explained in an eyeobject direction.The role played by light is often limited to lighting.The entry of the light into the eye is solely associated with dazzle and pain The light stays on the objects when it is not strong enough to bounce

Children’s ideas about light and vision


Prof : Can you see the wall ?

Clara : No.

Prof : Why not ?

Clara : Because of the light. It lights my eyes, It comes into my eyes, and it hurts.

Prof : What could I do for you to see the wall ?

Clara : You put less light on the wall. It will just stay on the wall and won’t come into my eyes…

Clara, 5 years-old

• 45 min

• Experiment

• 25 children (5 years-old)

• Interviews tape-recordedThe lig

ht coming into th

e

eyes prevents v

ision !!.

..

Children’s ideas about light and vision


History of science

Science education

Science education enables the researchers to explore the history of science in a different way…

… In order to favour the children’s learning process

« Part of what I know about how to question dead scientists has been learned by examining Piaget’s interrogations of living children »

Kuhn, The Essential tension, 1977.


What can be the role played by science education (SE) in apprehending the history of science (HS) ?

How a didactically-orientated reading of the HS can be used in order to help the children admit that vision occurs through the light passing from a lit object to the eyes ?

Questions


Every lit object sends out some of the light it receivesIt is the property of sight to be affected by light (Dazzle)This affection can be compared with pain

Exploring Ibn al-Haytham’s work


“The effects of light in the eye vary only by more or less. But owing to the mild effect on the eye of weak and moderate lights they are not felt as pain”.

Ibn al-Haytham, Kitab al manazir, book 1, chap. 6

Light treated in a quantitative way


Not enough lightToo much light Just enough light

…sent out into the eyes

Light treated in a quantitative way


Dazzle : –Obstacle for the children, considering

the role played by the light in the mechanism of vision.

–Starting point for a revolutionary theory of vision in Ibn al-Haytham’s work (Kitab al Manazir, chap. 4)

What about th

e

analogies ?

Promote a learning pathway which appears to be spontaneously stopped by the children’s interpretation of vision and dazzle.

SE ofr another reading of the HS


HS for a teaching-learning sequence (TLS) in elementary optics

« Dialogue on the way that vision operates »

•1h30 planned teaching learning sequence

•12 children (12-13 years-old)

• Binomial interviews tape-recorded and transcribed


Is reasoning with quantity of light operational in other situations ?

« This part on the wall is less lit, it sends out less light… »

« …and this part sends more light »

Kevin, 13 years-old

HS for a teaching-learning sequence (TLS) in elementary optics


Elements of the history of science as a motivational factor : “It’s interesting to talk about people, what they did and what they thought before” (Julie).

Identification with the characters portrayed in the sequence as a positive aspect : “ What I said earlier (The eye sends a vision) was like the beginning of the text so I think it’s reassuring to see that some people had the same idea” (Océane).

HS and children ’s opinion


Conclusion

There is a difference between introducing HS into a science course and organizing a science course on historical grounds.

When a science educator uses HS as a guidelines for his course, he emphazises some aspects of HS sometimes ignored (or reduced) by historians and philosophers of science > historical reconstruction

Documents

Using historical reconstruction to implement inquiry-based teaching in primary school