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OCR for page 171
Pasadena, California
Pasadena Develops a Mode' for
Teacher-Scientist Partnerships
The Pasadena Unif ed School Distr~ct's 23 elementary schools (K-6) have
570 teachers and a student enrollment of 12,500. Forty-three percent of stu-
dents are Hispanic/Latino, 35 percent are Afracan American, and 17 per-
cent are Euro-Amer~can. Inquiry-centered science is taught in both English
and Spanish. Pasadena 's science program is a joint effort of the Pasadena
Unified SchoolDistr~ct and the California Institute of Technology. The pro-
gram is based on the premise that scientists can contribute much to profes-
sional development activities for elementary school teachers.
r ~
. he Pasadena Unified School
District Science Program (formerly known as Project SEED) is the
brainchild of Jerry Pine and Jim Bowers, scientists at the Califor-
nia Institute of Technology (CalTech). Pine is a physicist who has
been active in elementary school science education reform since
the 1960s; Bowers is a neurobiologist. In the mid-l98Os, both men
had children in the Pasadena schools. They knew that science ed-
ucation in the elementary schools could be better. On their own
time, they began to visit exemplary elementary science programs
such as the one established in Mesa, Arizona. Experience told
them that a good deal of progress haci already been made in ele-
mentary school science reform. They wanted to move forward;
they didn't want to reinvent the wheel. So the two scientists
formed an alliance with Michael Klentschy, then associate super-
intenclent for instruction in the Pasadena Unified School District,
and formulated a plan to introduce inquiry-centered science units
into the district's elementary schools.
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Inquiry-Centered
Science
in Practice
Scientists: The Heart of It At'
The involvement of CalTech scientists is at the heart of Pasadena's
science education program. At the beginning, the watchwords
were "think small." They approached Klentschy and secured his
enthusiastic endorsement. Having gotten the district's permission
to begin a pilot program in one school, Bowers and Pine then met
Jennifer Yure, a science teacher at the Eugene Field Elementary
School. During the next five years, Yure recalls, they "just tried
things out," as they sought to determine the best way to introduce
teachers to hands-on science. 'We finally came up with what we
thought was the best model," she says. "It's teachers and scientists
working together."
It's "working together" that makes the Pasadena program
unique. Many programs use scientists as expert consultants; at
Pasadena, scientists and teachers work side by sicle. Rather than
lecture, the scientists work as co-facilitators with resource teachers
as they train teachers in the use of the science modules that make
up the program. The unique training mode! was supported by a
five-year grant from the National Science Foundation.
CalTech's Leila Gonzalez first heard about the program from
Bowers, then her professor, when she was a postdoctoral fellow in
biology in 1989. The affiniyv was immediate. "Something inside me
saicl, 'Yes. This is the way science should be taught,"' she recalls.
Today, she works for the program full-time as a liaison be-
tween the scientific and educational communities. The recruit-
ment and training of scientists are her major responsibilities.
Recruitment, Gonzalez admits, is not a hurdle, given the de-
gree of local support for the program. Volunteers include not only
CalTech faculty but also students, alumni, retirees, en cl parents.
Aware of the need for female role models in science, Gonzalez has
made a special effort to recruit volunteers from organizations such
as the American Association of University Women. About 150 sci-
entists currently participate in the Pasadena program.
All new recruits undergo an orientation at CalTech. They be-
come acquainted with the science kits en cl the structure of Pasatle-
na's program. The inquiry-basec3 learning process itself, however,
needs no introduction. "This is the way you learn science as a grad-
uate student," Gonzalez notes. After the orientation, they can also
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-art
Pasadena,
California
~:*
check out kits from the science materials center; in acIdition, pro-
gram staff are always available for guidance.
Once the scientists are on board, their major responsibility is
to participate in the teacher training programs. Approximately 10
teachers attend each of the day-Ion" sessions, which are facilitated
by a teacher-scientist team. The teachers break into small groups,
anct the scientist circulates informally among them. The scientists
have two main responsibilities. One is to build the teachers' confi-
dence and make them feel comfortable with the subject. "Our
thrust is to support the teacher," Gonzalez emphasizes. "Science is
a natural process, and you don't need to be a scientist to teach sci-
ence." All 570 elementary school teachers in the district eventual-
ly underwent the training.
The other responsibility of the scientists is to mode] the sci-
entific process. "Sometimes teachers have difficulty believing that
involvement in the scientific process is more important than just
knowing the facts," notes Yure, who is now coordinator of the
Pasadena Unified School District Science Program. "Teachers tell
us that they have difficulty, for example, asking open-endecI ques-
tions. Thus, we ask the scientist to mode] this process." Scientists
also help the teachers keep the "big picture" in mincl. Teachers
learn to focus on the purpose of experiments and the connection
between them rather than on the details.
After they've taught their first module, teachers return for a
second training session. These sessions are again facilitated by a
teacher-scientist team. At this point, qualms about classroom man-
agement have passed. Together, the groups discuss topics such as as-
sessment of student learning or a particular activity within the unit.
It "Just Clicked"
In some cases, the teacher-scientist relationship goes further. A sci-
entist may begin to visit the classroom of a teacher he or she met
during a staff development session.
Such was the case with Barbara Bray, a thircl-grade lead
teacher at the Field School, and scientist resee Morissette, who is
completing her doctorate at CalTech. They met, Morissette recalls,
by "pure luck" as co-trainers of a module callecl CIay Boats. The re-
lationship 'dust clicked." Bray emphasizes how easily Morissette has
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Inquiry-Centered
Science
in Practice
become a part of her classes. Before Morissette's visits, Bray recalls,
the children had a "whole stereotypical view of what a scientist was
and what they do. Josee changed that. The children feel comfort-
able having her in the room."
Exactly what happens when a teacher en c! a scientist get to-
gether? Each learns from the other, and learning horizons widen.
"Barbara knows what third-graders will find appropriate," Moris-
sette notes. "She's also open to brainstorming icleas about how to
do things better." Having discovered, for example, that Clay Boats
dicl not include student activities that involved liquids of different
densities, Bray and Morissette clecided to enrich the unit by
Hilling activities that involved such liquids as glycerin, alcohol,
vinegar, and oil. Moreover, the next time Bray presented the mod-
ule at a staff clevelopment session, she incluclecI information on
the activities that she and Morissette had jointly cleveloped.
The advantages of the teamwork are obvious. Having a scien-
tist in the classroom, Bray believes, strengthens curricular integra-
tion. 'We can use science as a vehicle or catalyst for other things,"
she explains. Morissette points to shifts in student attitudes. Stu-
dents seem more confident. They are more willing to try new
things out, and they are more comfortable with "not always know-
ing the right answer," she believes.
~ Focusing on Assessment
Opportunities for growth remain, even for a mature program such
as Pasaclena's. One current focus of staff development activities is
assessment.
Assessment study groups have been formed for each grade
level. Members include a resource teacher from the Pasadena Uni-
fied School District Science Program, a scientist, and three teach-
ers who have extensive experience with the kit for which assess-
ments are being developed. Gail Baxter, a research investigator
from the University of Michigan, is a consultant to this grant-sup-
ported program.
Assessments are needed for a variety of reasons. Some-mod-
uTes use traditional paper-and-pencil tests, which do not adequate-
ly reflect inquiry-based learning. In other cases, the teachers have
enhanced the module, and active assessments are needed to doc
174
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Pasadena,
California
ument student performance in these new areas. Equally impor-
tant, Gonzalez observes, is that "in creating an assessment, teach-
ers really get a fee] for what's important in the unit."
The study group meetings, Yure explains, give teachers a
chance to ask basic questions: What do we want the kids to learn?
What are they learning? How are we teaching it? Morissette adcis,
"Once teachers get comfortable with the units, they don't neces-
sarily focus on the scientific principles. Designing an assessment
helps them get a grasp of the four or five key principles presenter!
in a kit."
The study groups have found that embedcled assessments (as-
sessments that are woven into a class activity) are especially helpful,
because they can give teachers feedback about student learning
while the module is still in progress. This allows the teacher to mod-
ify the activities or teaching approach to meet learners' needs. All
assessment instruments are pilot-testec3 in the classroom. Moris-
sette, for example, has a key role both in the thirckgrade assessment
study group and in testing the assessments in Bray's classroom.
Scientists are an integral part of the district's science program.
They are present at the beginning, when new teachers open their
first kits. They also continue to be involved as teachers become
more skilled at teaching science, contributing their unique per-
spective to the clevelopment of performance-based assessment
tools. "The scientists are unbelievably cledicated to making a dip
ference in children's learning," says Bray. The program, she be-
lieves, is "not turning students into scientists; it's letting them learn
in a vital new way. An cl it's a wonclerfu] opportunity for teachers."
175
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Inquiry-centered
Science
in Practice
.,.
Scientists and engineers can become involved in all phases of planning
and implementing an inquiry-based elementary science program.
Pairing teachers and scientists in the classroom can be a mutually
satisfying learning experience. Such relationships, however, cannot
be forced.They work best when they develop naturally over the
course of working together.
Teachers can benefit from the opportunity to work in small groups
to develop assessment tools. Many teachers find that focusing on
assessment enables them to better understand the scientific princi-
ples in a curriculum module.
176
Representative terms from entire chapter:
elementary school
