The philosophy of the elementary science program is designed to meet the learning styles, interests, and capabilities of children between the ages of 5 and 12 years. Research on how children of these ages learn strongly indicates a need for concrete experiences as a prerequisite for understanding scientific concepts. As children learn and grown, they develop toward the ability to reason abstractly. This ability, however, is not usually attained until at least the age of 13 and, often, much later. SCIS, Science Curriculum Improvement Study, which is the core of the elementary science program, is based on this philosophy and provides a wealth of concrete experiences for the elementary student's learning needs.
Implementation of this philosophy is accomplished through a three stage learning cycle: exploration, invention, and discovery. In the exploration phase children learn through their own handling and experimenting with objects to see what happens. The use of these materials is designed to create a cognitive discrepancy within the mind of the young learner. This learner is motivated to want to know why something happened. The teacher provides minimal guidance during this phase. The teacher's primary responsibility is to ask questions and make comments that encourage further student involvement.
The invention phase of the learning cycle is the phase in which vocabulary and concepts are developed. Following a constructivist approach, the teacher assists students to assimilate these concepts into their existing cognitive schema. Students work to resolve the cognitive discrepancy of the exploration phase. By challenging students to make this learning fit with their previous concepts and ideas, the students become responsible for their own learning. The teacher is a facilitator of knowledge - not a dispenser of knowledge.
In the discovery phase the student finds a new application of the concept through experience. Discovery activities strengthen the original concept and enlarge its meaning. Mastery and retention of concepts are aided by practice and repeated application in the variety of situations provided in the activities. The teacher's role in this phase is to assist the students with their activities and help them apply the concepts. The teacher can spend time with individuals or small groups to observe their work, review when necessary, and ask questions that may lead to further investigation. Further investigation leads to the beginning of a new learning cycle.
As children accumulate experiences and ideas, their thinking advances from the concrete to the abstract. They develop more effective techniques for observing and testing nature - they become scientifically literate. Scientific literacy derives from basic knowledge, investigative experience, and curiosity. In the SCIS program, these three factors are integrated, balanced, and developed through the children's involvement with basic scientific concepts, process-oriented concepts, and challenging problems for investigation.
Both the SCIS units and the locally developed earth/space science units lend themselves well to teaching from a constructivist perspective.
We know that what is in the learner's mind matters. The constructivist approach builds on this important understanding by paying attention to the prior knowledge that students bring to each learning experience. It is important that we probe this prior knowledge before introducing new material to students.
Constructivism includes the important hands-on part of science instruction but enriches learning by promoting concept development and higher order thinking skills through ample opportunities to engage in dialogue with the teacher and peers. It is of special importance that this dialoguing occur during the "invention" phase of the learning cycle. Instead of the teacher "giving" concepts and vocabulary to the students, the students should dialogue amongst themselves and with their teacher to "actively construct" concepts and operational definitions. This is an important constructivist modification to the "invention" phase of the learning cycle.
The role of students shifts from "passive sponges" to "active players" where they are responsible for their own learning by developing theories, comparing their theories with those of other classmates, and summarizing and displaying their theories. It is essential to allow adequate time for this activity. When students are forced to move ahead faster than they can accommodate new information, they resort to memorizing the information and forcing it into their conceptual frameworks - which are left unchanged. Our goal is for students to make sense of their world by actively constructing meaning out of natural phenomena and their everyday experiences. This process will result in the emergence or enhancement of their cognitive maps of the world. This, in turn, results in deep understanding.
The end product of constructivist learning is much more than rote memorization. Instead, it is understanding how processes work, and why that information is useful. This leads the children to ask, wonder, and answer, and then to ask again in a way that is meaningful to them. It is this same type of understanding that eventually leads the scientist to describe and explain a new set of phenomena and the engineer to develop a new and useful application.