CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of Study
Science
is a major area of human mental and practical activity which generates
knowledge, knowledge that can be the basis of important technological
applications as well as of intellectual satisfaction (Harlen, 1992: 2). Science
provides any activities that require students and all people to understand
about its nature. The nature of science is going to reach if people are able to
understanding the characteristics of science and its components specifically, whether
convey understanding its natural phenomenon or developing ideas which fit to the
available evidences.
Developing
ideas of science is very difficult for students. Students tend to use their
common sense whenever they have found the phenomenon of natural science. They are
rarely to evaluate the phenomenon using scientific concept. In the learning
process, students go through the same processes in trying to make sense of
object or events, but because of their more limited experience they may not have
an idea available to them which really fits and they use what seem most
reasonable to them (Harlen, 1985: 20 adapted from Harlen, 1992: 11). For
example, face with the evidence that a boy exerts a constant horizontal force
on a large box. As a result, a block moves across a horizontal floor at a
constant speed “v0”. The
constant horizontal force applied by the boy is? (Adapted from Christian,
2010). The concept of force can be applied in this illustration. But, it seems
to be very large problem for students. In other hand, almost students will tend
to reason that the constant horizontal force applied by the boy is greater than
the total force which resists the motion of the box.
That
example illustrates several points which are generally found in learning and
which are represented the learning process not successfully. Therefore, it
needs to be maintained such as major objective how develop the scientific idea
of students. As a part of learning, this makes a requirement for teachers in
other assess student’s scientific ideas. It is very useful either teachers or
students. Teachers can put down a scientific concept to student, i.e., both
implicitly and explicitly science confinement as objective, capable of yielding
ultimate truths, proving things, having a definition and unique subject matter,
having unique method, and being value-free (Harlen, 1992: 2). By engaging
student’s knowledge, teachers are able to decide what kind of student’s idea
will be assessed regarding to the science confinement, how the ideas can be
assesses. It is more specific, because teachers should understand first what scientific
idea is.
Shortly,
assessing student’s scientific idea is required teacher to give more attention
to the science confinement. In other side, teachers have to understand about
student’s concept mapping, student’s common sense, and the characteristic of
student’s prior knowledge, in other teachers are able to decide the method for
use in assessing student’s scientific ideas. Deeply, these matters are
important to be discussed. Therefore, more systematic it will be analyzed
deeply about assessing student’s scientific ideas.
1.2 The Statement of Study
There
are any points which need to be discussing deeply in this occasion, such follows:
1. What is scientific idea?
2. How to gained student’s scientific ideas in learning
science?
3. How the scientific ideas can be assessed in learning
process?
1.3 The Purpose of Study
Specifically,
the purpose of this study is to understand about student’s scientific idea and
how to provide an available method to assess the scientific ideas. It is the
important aspect for teachers that should be maintained. Besides that, this
study is purposed to form the science literacy which combined to the dealing of
assessment.
CHAPTER II
ANALYSIS AND IMPLICATION
2.1 Analysis
2.1.1 What is Scientific Idea?
The
question “what is scientific idea” seems the most obvious and yet the most
unnecessary question with which to begin. It is obvious that we should want to
be clear about what it is we are assessing.
It is important for teacher to understand about the student’s idea. The
some of student’s ideas are different from those of scientists has been known
for a long time.
Based
on the theory of constructivism, students are able to construct their knowledge
by their self, not caused by transfer of knowledge from teacher to their mind.
Therefore, as the impact of this theory, students have chance to explore their
experience to the object of study. It means that they have prior knowledge that
possible different to the scientific. The idea which is constructing in
learning might be different to the scientist’s idea.
So
the tenets of constructivist learning clearly now have widespread support,
although it is necessary to look more closely at what taking the student’s idea
seriously means. The extent to which student’s
idea are used, rather than merely revealed and noted, makes all the difference
to whether or not the students have the intended ownership as their ideas are
modified and be adapted to the scientific idea.
Student’s
idea can be directed to the scientific idea by considered the two important
points to make about conditions under which ideas will become more scientific
during the process of change embodied in learning process. First, when idea is
tested, the outcome in terms of changed or rejected ideas will depend on the
way in which the testing is carried out. It was assumed in the argument that
testing of ideas was rigorous and systematic, in the way associated with
scientific investigation (Harlen, 1992: 13). When this is so, then ideas which
do not fit to the evidence will be rejected and those which do fit will be
accepted and strengthened. But it may not be case that the testing of student’s
idea has this quality. Students may ignore contradictory evidence in
interpreting findings and hold on to their initial ideas even when these do not
fit the evidence. That extent to which student’s idea become more scientific
depends on the way in which the linking and testing are carried out, that is,
on the use of the process skill.
The
second point is that the students having less experience have fewer existing
concepts to use in attempting to explain new phenomenon. It seems
characteristic of human being to try to explain things and that if really fit
are not available then less satisfactory ideas will be used. It is more comfortable
to modify an idea to abandon it, especially if it is your only way of making
any sense of observation. It often happens that student will hold onto their
idea to the point where their modification in other to explain way contrary
evidence renders them unscientific.
In
the interest of protecting the validity of hypothetical scientific ideas, it
might be best, in these circumstances to agree the possibility of supporting
evidence but to suggest that what had been seen so far did not seem to support
the ideas (Harlen, 1992: 14).
2.1.2 Teacher’s Role in Developing Student’s
Scientific Ideas
The
development of ideas and understanding goes hand to hand with the development
of process skill and scientific attitudes. Learning with understanding involves
development of ideas through the learners own thinking and action and in
science this means that process skill are used and through use are developed to
deal with new situations. Attitudes, being more generalized component of
behavior and process skill and concepts, depend upon being fostered in a wide range of experiment since
there is no way of teaching attitude directly. This essential interconnectedness
of ideas, or concepts, skills and attitudes is not denied by focusing on each
one at a time in considering the teacher’s role in developing student’s
scientific activity.
The
teacher’s rule in helping students to develop ideas has several aspects, of
which we shall consider the following (Harlen, 1992: 74-80):
1. Gaining access to student’s ideas
Students have to be involved in relevant explorations or enquiries when
their ideas are monitored. This is a variety of technique which can be used to
enable student to reveal their ideas. But by the nature of the demand for
immediate information, they can’t be used for all children at the same time.
2. Deciding the next step
To decide the action to take in the light of evidence about the ideas
children have, it is necessary to keep in mind the starting point and the
general direction toward more widely applicable scientific ideas. For example,
the existing ideas might be there is
nothing in the empty space between objects around us, and the scientific
idea might be air is all around us.
3. Taking action to help the development
Responding the information about student’s idea can be drew together
under three headings: (1) practical activities, (2) discussion, and (3)
expectation and support. Practical activities designed to develop student’s
ideas are mainly of two kinds, such as those which are intended to extend student’s
experience and involve student in testing their idea. Discussion of words and
other representation is not sufficient on its own but as an accompaniment to
practical activity it can make all to the thinking which is provoked by
experience. The last, expectation and support can be varied from one child to
another so that each is enjoying the challenge of extending ideas but within
the range of present capabilities.
2.1.3 Deciding the Ideas to Assess
When
teachers plan activities and the sorts of experiences they will provide for
children they have in mind certain ideas and skill which they intend the
activities to foster. These are expressed in various ways and recently the
identification of statements of attainment of the national curriculum has
provided useful means of doing this. It is not expected that a single lesson,
or activity spreading over several lessons, will result in the achievement of
the skills and ideas but that the activity will make a contribution and this is
seen as the educational reason for the activity will make a contribution and
this is seen as the educational reason for the activity (Harlen, 1992: 174).
Forward
planning of this kind is essential for purposeful teaching and it need not be
in any way confining. The stated intention may be that children should raise
questions or plan their own investigations or exchange ideas about a new
phenomenon. These objectives allow all the freedom children need to retain
ownership of their learning and provide a clear basis for a teacher to decide
how to set up the lesson and how to interact with the children. It is this
clarity which is to go gathered. What this means in practice is best conveyed
through an example.
There
were few other ideas which student would no doubt be helped to develop in the
activities but the teacher decide to focus on these four rather than spread
more widely. They include a range of conceptual difficulty. They span levels 2
to 4 in the national curriculum, which the teacher judge would match the level
of development of student in the class with respect to this are of work.
The
question then arises as to how information to be gathered about the student’s
ideas. What method can be used during the course of the activities? It should
be considered that the questions can be answered by interpreting the assessment
of student’s ideas. By using the method need to be ones which enable
information to be gathered from the entire student undertaking the activity.
2.1.4 Method for Use as Part of Teaching
Children have to construct their own meaning regardless of
how clearly teachers or books tell them things. Mostly, a person does this by
connecting new information and concepts to what he or she already believes.
Concepts—the essential units of human thought—that do not have multiple links
with how a student thinks about the world are not likely to be remembered or
useful. Or, if they do remain in memory, they will be tucked away in a drawer
labeled, say, "biology course, 1995," and will not be available to
affect thoughts about any other aspect of the world. Concepts are learned best
when they are encountered in a variety of contexts and expressed in a variety
of ways, for that ensures that there are more opportunities for them to become
imbedded in a student's knowledge system.
The main method fall under the four headings of discussion,
including questioning and listening, children’s drawings, annotated by
themselves or in discussion with the teacher, concept maps, which are a special
form of drawing and children’s writing, which may be structured by the teacher
in the form of questions to answer, or may be an account of observations an
ideas structured by the child.
1. Discussion
The teaching process usually begins with questions and
phenomena that are interesting and familiar to students, not with abstractions
or phenomena outside their range of perception, understanding, or knowledge.
Students need to get acquainted with the things around them—including devices,
organisms, materials, shapes, and numbers—and to observe them, collect them,
handle them, describe them, become puzzled by them, ask questions about them,
argue about them, and then to try to find answers to their questions.
Just listening in to the children’s observations will provide
information about the way they are using the words hot, cold, melt, and perhaps
temperature. For those children whose grasp of these is not clear some direct
questioning will probe their ideas:
- How does the water feel compared with
the ice?
- Touch your arm and then the ice, how
does the ice feel in comparison?
- (if the word temperature has been
used) Which is at the highest temperature, your arm, the ice or the water?
- What do you think it means when the
temperature of something goes up?
More open question help to start
discussion about why the ice melts, something which some children of this age
will assume is ‘natural’ ad does not need explanation:
- What do you think is causing the ice
to melt?
- What would you need to do to stop it
melting?
- What do you think is happening when
you put water in a freezer and goes solid?
If such questions seem too demanding,
remember that, first, they are not much different from the questions teachers
ask when they join groups during the normal course of teaching, and second,
they do not all need to be asked of all children. It will be evident in many
cases that either a child is still some way from an idea or that they have
already become at ease with it. This information will be used to lead the
children to activities which advance their ideas from where they are, but there
is no need to continue probing when is clear. A third point is that talking in
not the only means of communicating ideas that children can use.
2. Children’s Drawings
Asking children to draw what they think is happening gives a permanent record of their ideas which has the advantage of being able to be perused after the event. It is not easy for anyone to draw abstract things such an ideas about melting, and the use of labels and annotation as a commentary on what is happening is necessary, but the drawing is essential for conveying the image by a seven year old (figure) shows very clearly that the child considered the direct action of the sun as important in causing the disappearance (by evaporation) of water from the tank. In the case of the ice balloon, useful suggestions for probing (and advancing) children’s ideas might be:
- Draw what the ice balloon looks like
now and what you think it will look like after dinner, at the end of the
afternoon and tomorrow if we leave it in water ( the same task could be given
to predict what it would look like if left out the water)
- Put labels on your drawings to point
out the things which have changed and what changed them.
- Draw a picture with labels to show
all the differences you can between ice and water.
It is best, if at all possible, to
talk to the children individually while they are doing their drawings and to
clarify for your information things which are not easy to interpret.
3. Concept Maps
Concept maps are diagrammatic ways of
representing links between concepts. There are certain rules to apply which are
very simple and readily grasped by the children of five or six. If we take the
words Solid and Liquid we can relate them to each other in this way (figure)
We have a proportion which indicates
a relationship, with the arrow signifying the direction. Solids may melt into
liquids, but not vice versa. We can add to this by linking other words and so
forming a map.
Asking children to draw their ideas
about how things are linked up provides insight into the way they envisage how
one thing causes another. The starting point is to list words about the topic
the children are working on and then ask them to draw arrows and to write
‘joining’ words on them. (figure 2) shows the list and the map which a six
years old, drew after some activities about heat and its effect on various
things. It is possible to spot from this that the children has not yet
distinguished heat from temperature but that they have some useful ideas about
what heat can do. As with all diagrams, it is advisable to discuss them with
the child to be sure to the meaning intended.
4. Children’s Writing
Whilst drawings can usually be made
by even the youngest children, writing is most helpful when children become at
ease in doing it. However the following example was of a six year old who
explains why the condensation from her breath on a cold window went away.
“ I went outside and I breathed on the windows and my cold breath comes
out and if you look at it, you can see it large a way it goes when it gets
warm”. (Russell and Watt, p. 36 adapted from Harlen, 1992: 180).
A ten year olds answer to how to slow
down the evaporation of water from tank indicates the value of not just asking
for writing about what has been observed but posing problems where ideas have
to be used:
“by putting a piece of glass covering it and it will
last longer because it can’t get out”(Russell and Watt, 1990. p. 38)
The kind of writing task which may reveal children’s
ideas in the context of the ice balloon activity would be stimulated by:
- What were the changes which happened
to the ice balloon in the water? What would you need to stop the ice balloon
changing?
- Describe what you think would make
the ice melt more quickly and say why it would work.
- Describe to someone who had never
seen ice and water what the differences are and how they would know which was
which.
Many
of the questions suggested earlier for discussion could also be turned into
writing task for older children.
2.1.5
Using the Result
We will probably have been
realized that what has been suggested for assessing could equally well have
been suggested as teaching points, to close is the relationship between
teaching and assessment of the behind being considered. Just to underline
further that the purpose of lathering information in this way is to use it in
teaching, we bring together here some ideas for acting upon the information
about the children’s ideas (Harlen, 1992: 181).
1.
If the child is not using a word in a
way consistent with a good grasp of the concept, discuss the child’s meaning of
the word; try to find out how the misunderstanding has arisen.
2.
The same may apply to the whole task
and so it is useful to find out what the child considers (s) he is doing (for
example, if melting is understood as “breaking up” the child’s action could
same quite in appropriate to the teacher
but rational to the child.
3.
Use other members of a group to help
a child whose ideas seem less well developed. For example the child who didn’t
see any reason to explain why water freezes in a freezer, was challenged by
others to go further: but there must be something happening, it doesn’t happen
by magic. He then listened to their ideas and began to add some suggestion of
his own.
4.
The most effective way of helping
children to develop their ideas is to help them to turn them into a form which
can be tested. This involves making a prediction. The child who said that it
was the water which was making the ice balloon melt revised this after
realizing that on this basis taking it out of the water should stop it melting,
which was soon found not to be true.
2.1.6
Method for Checking Up Student’s Ideas
One
of the ways of obtaining information to summaries students’ achievement is by
checking up, that is giving some special tasks which are devised specifically
to assess the points reached in the development of ideas. There are also comes
when teachers feel the need to introduce the special tasks when it does not
seem to have been possible to collect information about certain ideas in any
other way.
Based
on the APU bank, the way can use to assessing student’s ideas thorough asking
children to apply them rather that asking them directly for facts, which could
be memorized. The open response is important so that student can use or explain
their ideas and not just respond to alternative given by others. More
information about how student responded to these questions and how they were
marked can be found from the references given (Harlen, 1992: 181-182).
2.2 Implication
As
the implication of assessing scientific ideas of student, it oppose teacher to
orchestrate discourse among students about scientific ideas. An important stage
of inquiry and the student science learning in oral and written discourse that
focus the attention of student on how
they know what they know and how their knowledge connect to larger ideas,
other domains, and the world beyond the classroom. Teachers directly support
and guide this discourse in two ways (adapted from National Research Council,
1998: 36): (1) they require students to record their work-teaching the
necessary skill as appropriate-and (2) they promote many different forms of
communication.
Using
collaborative group structure, teacher encourages interdependency among group
members, assisting students to work together in small groups so that all
participate in sharing data and developing group report.
Teacher also gives group
opportunities to make presentation of their work and to engage with their
classmates in explaining, clarifying, and justifying what they have learned. The teacher’s role in these small and larger
group interactions is to listen, encourage broad participation, and judge how
to guide discussion-determining ideas to follow, ideas to question, information
to provide, and connections to make. In the hand of skilled teacher, such group
work leads students to recognize the expertise that different members of the group
bring to each endeavor and the greater value of evidence and argument over
personality and style.
Developing
student’s scientific ideas takes time on a daily basis and over the long term.
Schools must restructure schedules so that teachers can use blocks of time, interdisciplinary
strategies, and field experiences to give student many opportunities to engage
in serious scientific investigation as an integral part of their science
learning. When considering how to structure available time, skilled teachers
realize that students need time to try out ideas, to make mistakes, to ponder,
and to discuss with one another.
Understanding
the various ideas which have by student skilled teachers recognize the
diversity in their classes and organize classroom so that all students have the
opportunity to participate fully. Teacher’s monitory the participant of all
students, carefully determining, for instance, if all members of a collaborative
group are working with materials or if one student is making all the decisions.
This monitoring can be particularly important in classes of diverse students,
where social issues of status and authority can be factor.
Refer
to the assessment of student’s scientific ideas, requires a range of actions
based on careful assessments of students, knowledge of science, and a
repertoire of science-teaching strategies. One aspect of the teachers is model
for the students they teach. A teacher who engages in inquiry with student’s
model the skills needed for inquiry. Teachers who exhibit enthusiasm and
interest and who speak to the power and beauty of scientific understanding
instill in their students some of those same attitudes toward sciences.
Based on the assessment of
student’s scientific ideas, engage teacher has to be given the resources and
authority to select the most appropriate materials and to make decisions about
when, where, and how to make them accessible. Such decisions balance safety,
proper use, and availability with the need for students to participate actively
in designing experiments, selecting tools, and constructing apparatus, all of
which are critical of to the development of an understanding of inquiry.
It is important for student to
learn how to access scientific information from books, periodicals, videos,
databases, electronic communication, and people with expert knowledge. Students
are also taught to evaluate and interpret the information they haveacquired
through those resources. Teacher provides the opportunities to students to use
contemporary technology as they develop their scientific understanding.
CHAPTER III
CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
3.1 Conclusions
Based on the analysis of the
matter, it can be concluded such as follows:
1.
Scientific idea is an adea that can be implemented by
using the scientific method, such as
experiement, observation, analysis, or making synthesis of the idea. This idea
encourage by the scientific attitudes, such as objective, made from the
curiosity, supported by evidences, has critical reflection, open mindedness,
can be generated with other, and dominate of scientific creativity.
2.
It is need for teacher to assess student’s scientific
ideas by using some methods of assessment, such as giving chance to students in
other making observation, experiment, or analysis about the interest matter for
them. Teacher can assess the relationship of student’s scientific ideas to the
method and their performace to aplicate the ideas. As the result, teacher is
able to use the result of assessment to be refference for student’s progression
on learning science.
3.
It is important both teacher and students to maintein
the development of their ideas to making the interest scientific ideas. Teacher
can ask student to present their result of experiment and observation as the
responsibility of their scentific attitude. In other hand, teacher is able to
analysis student’s literacy of science regarding to the development of
scientific ideas.
3.2 Suggestions
The most importance to consider for
teacher in process of assessing student’s scientific ideas, in other they can
maintein student’s knowledge, exactly their literacy on science. Perhaps, the
student consideration of learning science influent their development of the
ideas. Beside that, teacher be expected to facilitate students with resources,
either the tools of experiement or some of valid books.
REFFERENCES
Christian, R. and
Aufschnaiter, C. 2010. Misconceptions or missing conceptions? (Eurasia Journal of Mathematics, Science, and
Technology Education). Vol. 6: 3-18. Germany: Justus Liebig University
Giessen, Giessen.
Harlen, W. 1992. The teaching of science. Great Britain:
BPCC Ltd. Exeter.
National Research Council. 1998. National science education standard. Washington DC: National Academic Press.
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