Research: Science & Education
Constructivism: The Implications for Laboratory Work
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Thomas W. Shiland* Saratoga Springs Senior High School, 186 West Ave., Saratoga Springs, NY 12866
This Journal has provided a forum to suggest many ways in which laboratory activities can be changed. These include activities described as open-ended (1 ) and activities that use a guided discovery approach: for example, the effect of aging on the mass of a penny (2), the Beer–Lambert law (3), and the law of specific heat (4 ). Laboratory activities have been proposed to introduce scientific reasoning ( 5 ), and as research projects to study industrial problems (6 ), or household chemicals (7 ). In general, these activities put more responsibility for learning on the learner, give less specific directions, and require more time to implement. Many of us as chemistry teachers have a set of laboratory activities that do not resemble the above examples. We feel our present lab activities are satisfactory because (i) they teach useful skills; (ii) they address the central concepts of the discipline; (iii) they are safe; and (iv) we have the necessary materials and equipment. In addition, specific examples such as those cited above may not fit our curriculum. We are also not sure what the general principles are for writing such activities, and we may not have the time to incorporate these more lengthy activities into our present curriculum. We are then reluctant to make sweeping changes to our laboratory program to move toward these activities, although numerous examples exist as described above. If we do not have the time or resources to make major changes in our laboratory program, can we modify our present laboratory activities in a smaller way to move toward improved science learning? Two general places where we can look for direction in how to modify our labs are the National Science Education Standards (NSES) (8 ) and the theory of constructivism. The purpose of this paper is to use these resources and their related literature to suggest specific ways laboratory activities might be modified (instead of completely changed) to increase understanding in science. Constructivism and the National Standards for Science Education The NSES contains no references to any particular theory of learning and makes a point of prescribing no specific teaching methodology. Although no single method is indicated, principles for lab modifications can be derived from several teaching examples throughout the document and from a document NSTA Pathways to the Science Standards (9) that gives additional teaching examples (secondary level) based on the material in the NSES. The generalizations from the laboratory activities in these documents are as follows. 1. The student is involved actively and assumes responsibility for his or her own learning. 2. The preconceptions of the students are obtained by various methods, for example, teacher asking questions material for this article is available on JCE Online at http://jchemed.chem.wisc.edu/Journal/issues/1999/ Jan/abs107.html. *Address for correspondence: 30 Fairway Blvd., Gansevoort, NY 12831; e-mail:
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after the students have a chance to explore with materials or consider a problem. Students are asked to generate questions, predictions, explanations. 3. Problems are posed by the teacher to create dissatisfaction with the learner’s present knowledge. 4. Work is performed in groups or teams. Discussion within the group is required. Teams report to class. Work is critiqued by other groups. Groups report out and make presentations to the class; the class may report out to the entire school. 5. Additional applications are sought by the students.
We will see that these principles are consistent with the theory of constructivism. As mentioned above, the NSES contains no references to any theory of learning, but the Pathways document mentions constructivism several times. Each of these principles can be seen to match a description of constructivism derived from articles in the literature. The Theory of Constructivism The single statement that captures the essence of constructivism is that knowledge is constructed in the mind of the learner (10) . This statement can be expanded to five other propositions or postulates of constructivism, from which implications for lab work will be derived. 1. Learning requires mental activity. The process of knowledge construction requires mental effort or activity (11); material cannot simply be presented to the learner and learned in a meaningful way (12). 2. Naive theories affect learning. New knowledge must be related to knowledge the learner already knows (13). The learner has preconceptions and misconceptions, which may interfere with the ability to learn new material (14 ). These personal theories also affect what the learner observes (15, 16 ). Personal theories must be made explicit to facilitate comparisons (17 ). 3. Learning occurs from dissatisfaction with present knowledge. For meaningful learning to occur, experiences must be provided that create dissatisfaction with one’s present conceptions (18). If one’s present conceptions make accurate predictions about an experience, restructuring (meaningful learning) will not occur (11). 4. Learning has a social component. Knowledge construction is primarily a social process in which meaning is constructed in the context of dialogue with others (12). Cognitive growth results from social interaction (19). Learning is aided by conversation that seeks and clarifies the ideas of learners (20). 5. Learning needs application. Applications must be provided which demonstrate the utility of the new conception (21 ).
The Implications of Constructivism for Laboratory Activities From each of these postulates, a corresponding generalization and specific implications for modifying laboratory activities follows.
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Research: Science and Education
Learning requires mental activity; therefore modify labs to increase the cognitive activity of the learner. 1. Have the students identify the relevant variables. Students can be asked to identify controlled and uncontrolled variables (22, 23). 2. Have the students design the procedure or reduce the procedure to the essential parts. The best labs to decookbook are those that have simple procedures that are easy to explain to the students. If the procedure cannot be designed safely, then the students might be asked to explain why certain steps in the procedure are done in a certain way (24 ). 3. Have the students design the data table. Designing data tables is an easy first step toward modifying your labs and has been mentioned as a way to move labs toward inquiry (24 ) . 4. Use a standard lab design worksheet. Have a standard format that uses the important concepts in experimental design (problem statement, hypothesis, variables, constants, data tables, summary, and conclusions). An excellent source of information on experimental design is in Cothron, Giese, and Rezba (25). 5. Have students suggest sources of error in the lab and modifications to eliminate these sources of error, and raise questions about the lab. Comparisons of data between groups in class and between classes may raise questions about sources of variation (26 ). Students can produce questions by substituting, eliminating, or increasing or decreasing a variable (27, 28 ).
Naive theories affect learning: therefore design labs to learn what these are. 6. Move the lab to the beginning of the chapter. Moving the lab to the beginning may create interest in the material to be learned and give the teacher a chance to diagnose misconceptions the student may have. Use the lab as the beginning of a learning cycle (29, 30). 7. Have students make predictions and explain them before the lab. Having students make predictions creates interest in the outcome. In addition, have students explain the basis for their predictions using their present ideas (31). Ideally, the problem presented will be one which creates dissatisfaction with their present understanding. Challenge students to come up with alternative hypotheses (29).
Learners must be dissatisfied with their present knowledge: therefore design labs as problems to challenge their present knowledge. 8. Rewrite the lab as a single problem whose solution is not obvious. Solutions to the problem cannot be obvious (32). Change your role in the lab to that of problem poser (33) and facilitator (34). Some possible topics for chemistry investigations have been given in the literature which essentially involve the statement of a given problem (9, 35, 36 ).
Learning has a social component: therefore design labs to include group and whole class activities. 9. Give the students an opportunity to discuss their predictions, explanations, procedures, and data table before doing the lab, and give them an opportunity to present their results after the lab. The process of formulating an opinion to express and share with a group promotes reflection (32).
Learning needs application: therefore design labs to require students to find or demonstrate applications. 108
10. Give students an opportunity to demonstrate applications after the lab. Students need opportunities to use new ideas in a wide range of contexts (37).
The Utility of an Articulated Theory The process of linking the implications of a theory back to the theory itself has been called the articulation of the theory (38). Articulating the theory of constructivism with respect to laboratory practice provides a road map based on research data for the classroom teacher to use in designing labs, a road map to increased learning. Laboratory practice with respect to constructivism is seen as being more than the acquisition of process skills; it is an essential ingredient in the understanding of science itself. The activities suggested in these modifications, such as formulating explicit theories (39) and making predictions and explanations (40), are seen as essential activities in science. Theories in education have been criticized as stifling creativity and misleading researchers (41). Without debating the value of an explicit theory to researchers, such a view overlooks the value of a compact, concise statement of a theory of education to the classroom teacher. The classroom teacher needs a theory that can be used, discussed, and modified. The purpose of this paper is to present such a statement, which will allow a teacher to modify lab activities in a way that is consistent with the present national standards in the United States and with the theory of constructivism. As a reviewer pointed out, modification may not be as difficult as complete revision of an open-ended laboratory activity, but modification with these methods will still be time consuming and will probably result in a reduction in the number of experiments that can be done. On the positive side, the methods suggested here provide a coherent framework to make incremental progress in increasing student learning from laboratory activities. The value of theory to guide our efforts in education has been put in an interesting way by Suppes (42): It is often said that what we most need in education is wisdom and broad understanding of the issues that confront us. Not at all, I say. What we need are deeply structured theories in education that drastically reduce, if not eliminate, the need for wisdom.
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