Bruce+Libonn

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Various Assessment Resources BL
== = = =Bruce Libonn's Reflection for The Ensworth School Math Science Committee= My position: Lower School Head

The teaching of math and science must be done well if we want our students to be prepared for the world of the 21st century, which is already different from the world in which all but the youngest teachers were educated. My basic educational philosophy regarding these, and all, subjects is that “less is more.” This is especially true regarding science, where it is very easy to interest or dazzle students with information that makes no significant difference to their actual development as thoughtful, educated people. Students should have their observational skills and thinking processes developed and challenged through their experience of both science and math.

In order to do this, experts in science and math education agree that “inquiry-based” learning is essential. In such a program, attention must be paid to the fundamentals undergirding our understanding of math and our practice of the scientific method. How does a mathematician, how does a scientist think? How does he or she approach an area to be studied, or a problem to be solved or a question to be developed? Too often in the past, math and science teaching has consisted of giving children answers to questions they haven’t asked, or processes to be applied by rote. The information supplied to children ought to be just enough to get the inquiry process started, not so much that any further thinking is unnecessary. Teaching to children’s memory capacity, rather than to their thinking processes, is the easy way for a school to deal with the content of math and science. But such teaching is useless for encouraging the type of thinking that the future already requires.

Inquiry-based teaching can be difficult. Patience, determination and perseverance are all required if students are to be exposed to experiments and demonstrations that actually engage their thinking processes. Guiding the inquiry of novices can be tedious, but thoughtful, careful guidance through legitimate experiences that replicate the actual thinking and work of mathematicians and scientists is essential if education in math and science is intended to be more than information storage and retrieval.

The Ensworth lower and middle school science programs already incorporate much healthy and effective math and science teaching. Children develop important basic skills, which are extended through lively experiments, demonstrations and thinking challenges. Though not all of the teaching can be characterized as “inquiry-based” at this time, there is an excellent understanding of principles and practices that would make it relatively easy to move fully in that direction. Specific and intentional professional development about inquiry-based teaching and learning for all math and science teachers should be the next step for the school to take. Within that process, it will be important to align all content and skills with the expectations of the math and science departments at the high school level.

The research about inquiry-based teaching, learning and assessment found below gives a good overview of the strengths and challenges of this method. There is a great deal of information available, through publications, websites and conferences if the school undertakes a more focused development of math and science programs along these lines. I believe that our math and science education will not achieve the highest levels if we do not continue and even accelerate our use of an inquiry-based approach.