A (seemingly biased) constructivist view of science education
“Science education seems to fail to distinguish that scientific thinking methods differ from other intellectual thinking methods – as such, students of science fail to develop scientific thinking.” pvii (Cromer, 1997)
“There is an insepararable link betewen theory and experiment (observation and experiment) – science is knowledge that comes from connecting theory and experience. ” pvii. (Cromer, 1997)
Discusses a constructivist view of science education based on the work of Piaget (p10), that the learner will determine what knowledge is viable and true, based on the extent of their experience within their own traditions, culture and life experience. p 11. This viewpoint concerns me, as it opens what I feel is a very objective and logical field of knowledge and way of thinking, to a completely subjective and ever changing way of thinking. The author (Cromer, 1997) discusses the extent to which this theory has been applied to current science education. He gives the example of new zealand, in which lecture demonstration tables have been removed so the teacher cannot claim to have more knowledge than the student, thus preventing them from influencing the way the student may construct knowledge (p11.) Not only does this sound anti-scientific to me, but I think it raises some significant questions with regard to standardising content across a larger body of students such as state-wide.
Cromer (1997) also argues that a constructivist view of science education devalues science knowledge – this would allow an educator of science with no science background to be of equal footing to a science trained science educator – and in my opinion this could be deterimental to the students (p11).
In general, Cromer’s (1997) critique of constructivism is very harsh and pretty clearly contains a fair bit of personal bias, given his continual referencing of his own work to enhance teacher knowledge through experimentation and demonstration, which is a much stricter and less subjective method of approaching science. Out of curiosity I was interested in finding a less anti-constructionist view of science teaching and this website’s summary of constructivism and science has been useful as a comparison point.
Cromer (1997) suggests a systematic and structured way to building scientific knowledge, which he calls SEED (Science Education thorugh Experiments and Demonstrations). The program assumes that both student and teacher are concrete thinkers, (p15) though I can see that this would be problematic for any student who tends to think more towards the abstract.
On p22 he calls for science education to focus on the development of objective thinking and skepticism with a respect for the opinion of others. He contrasts this again to a contructivist view of science (p38) in which he likens science to a series of weakly interconnected blocks, connected for empiricism’s sake. However his own views of objective scientific thinking (p39) see science as a series of blocks which are strongly interconnected, each supporting the one above it, and if one were removed, the whole thing would collapse.
Ultimately, on p 182, Cromer claims that a universal education framework is necessary for the formation of consistent, coherant basic knowledge that the majority of individuals will have, but attacks of this frameowkr (such as constructivism in his view) have resulted in students needing to create their own frameworks, which he quotes could lead to “outlandish and dangerous interpretations of events.”
Overall I find this view very concerning. Perhaps I’m misinterpretting his cycnism for something else but to instill a framework as strict as the one he promotes is to remove all independent thought and learning and to disregard learning styles, in my opinion.
Reference:
Cromer, A. 1997. Connected Knowledge: Science, Philosophy and Education. Oxford University Press. New York.
