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Schools

Lab or lecture? That's question for teachers

Speed is of the essence as this teacher bounces from class to class helping to close the science gap.

By TOM MARSHALL
Published January 3, 2007

SPRING HILL - Patrick Kirchman teaches like a man on fire.

From the moment students enter his science room at J.D. Floyd Elementary School, he's calling them into focused action. Balls are rolling, eggs are cracking, data is being calculated and duly recorded.

"Start talking," he urged a class last fall, as students began brainstorming a problem. "You have 30 seconds."

It's a good thing he's rushing: Starting next month, his students' score on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test will count in Floyd's overall school grade for the first time.

Kirchman is the only elementary science specialist at the nearly 1,500-student Floyd. As a "resource" teacher, he not only teaches science to students but also makes sure regular classroom teachers are up to snuff on their atoms and volts.

It's a time of national worrying, as experts bemoan the United States' slipping competitive edge in the sciences and call for tougher standards.

According to one oft-cited comparison, the Trends in International Science and Math Study, U.S. fourth-graders rank fifth in scientific prowess, behind Singapore, Japan, Hong Kong and England.

Each student sees Kirchman only 20 times a year, one week each quarter.

He doesn't have a moment to spare.

"Let me introduce you to Isaac the Egg," Kirchman told a group of fifth-graders last fall.

The raw egg, named for gravity theorist Isaac Newton, was perched on a plate atop a cup of water at the edge of a table.

Kirchman carefully wedged a rake against the table, pulled it back, and released it with a "thwack!" The plate flew in one direction, the unbroken egg tumbled into the water, and the teacher laughed with glee.

Gradually, students unpacked the forces at work - the rake pushing the plate sideways, gravity pulling the egg downward - until they figured it out.

By week's end, they'd be deep into Newton's discovery that force equals mass times acceleration. There would be plenty of rolling balls and falling eggs, but also a heavy dose of math.

There's evidence that Kirchman's approach works.

Last year, 43 percent of fifth-graders at Floyd met or exceeded the "proficient" standard on the science FCAT, compared with a statewide average of 35 percent.

Only one school in Hernando County, Challenger K-8 School of Science and Mathematics, did better at that grade level, with 53 percent, while 21 percent of Moton Elementary students and 13 percent of Eastside fifth-graders met that standard.

Different approaches

Many Florida teachers say science has been de-emphasized in recent years, as schools respond to state pressure to raise math and reading scores. Kirchman said the science FCAT could help shift that balance.

In science-teaching circles, there's an active debate about how much time to devote to hands-on activities.

The National Science Teachers Association has pushed for more laboratory time for every child. But the Fordham Foundation has been highly critical of states that push "discovery learning" over focused teaching of scientific concepts and last year gave Florida's science standards an "F" for vagueness and lack of rigor.

The respected National Research Council has come down somewhere in the middle, arguing for focused, "strategic encounters" that include labs, direct teaching and a continual emphasis on the scientific method.

At Challenger, sixth-grade science teachers Colleen Doulk and Jennifer Dill see students four times a week: twice for 78-minute periods and twice for 45 minutes.

"All of us try to at least do a lab activity with every concept we're teaching," Doulk said.

But there's also a heavy dose of subjects like genetics that typically appear on the FCAT.

"Teaching to the FCAT is a good thing," Dill said, as her colleague nodded. "To be honest, we don't even use the textbook that much. It's more of a guideline."

Over at Gulf Coast Academy of Science and Technology - a public charter school that topped Hernando County's middle schools with 54 percent in science - there are no textbooks.

Science teacher Shawn Walker advised the 120-student school instead to buy the best microscopes it could afford. He sees students four times per week, with two extended periods for lab work.

"When they're actually doing it, and seeing it, they retain it," Walker said.

On one afternoon last fall, students were eyeballing microscopic remnants from Walker's refrigerator - whey, moldy chip dip, blue cheese, raw egg, yogurt and ricotta cheese - and making drawings of cell development in their lab books.

"They're not teaching for FCATs; they're just teaching for knowledge," student Jordan Cleinman said afterward.

"I'm not really worried about it," said classmate Tyler Pierson, agreeing. "We're being taught pretty well."

[Last modified January 3, 2007, 08:24:30]