Science and Literacy: Exploiting the Synergies

1. Science and Literacy: Exploiting the Synergies P. David Pearson, Suzy Loper, Megan Goss UC Berkeley Slides and LOTS OF OTHER STUFF available at WWW.SCIENCEANDLITERACY.ORG

2. Overview of goals for this morning • Acquaint you with our perspective in the Seeds and Roots at Lawrence Hall of Science • Illustrate how the principles that underlie our work can be applied in any setting and program • Give you an opportunity to apply some of these principles to your own programs and classrooms

3. Useful paper Cervetti, G., Pearson, P. D., Barber, J., Hiebert, E., Bravo, M. (2007). Integrating literacy and science: The research we have, the research we need. In M. Pressley, A. K. Billman, K. Perry, K. Refitt & J. Reynolds (Eds.), Shaping literacy achievement (pp. 157-174). New York: Guilford Pre-Print available at WWW.SCIENCEANDLITERACY.ORG Ppearson@berkeley.edu

4. What’s the difference between primary, secondary, and college teachers? • Their kids • Their subject matter • Themselves

5. Some preliminaries • I am not a science educator • Literacy must de-center • More like learning • Less like science or social studies • Knowledge acquisition tools • Means not ends

6. Some more preliminaries • Legitimate threats to science education from literacy curricula • Text domination • Word domination • We’ll take care of it for you

7. Science educators are rightfully suspicious of literacy, especially text-driven science curriculum. Apprehensions about text: • Declarations of ‘fact’ not the scientific enterprise • Misrepresentations • Eclipse inquiry

8. Many science educators are apprehensive about vocabulary instruction Apprehensions about vocabulary: • Science as memorizing words (N = 3500) • Words as the final goal • How words get in the way of concepts

9. We’ll take care of it for you! • We’ll teach the students how to decipher content area texts • Not your responsibility as a science teacher.

10. Many have thought through the commonalities in cognitive processes: For example • Carin and Sund (1985). Teaching science through discovery, 5th Ed. Columbus, OH: Merrill. • Many intellectual skills in common • Predicting • Classifying • Interpreting • Thinking as a common core

11. Existing Research: Conceptual accounts of relationships • Baker, L. (1991). Metacognition, reading, and science education. In C.M. Santa and D.E. Alvermann (Eds.), Science learning: Processes and applications (pp. 2-13). Newark, DE: International Reading Association • Formulating conclusions • Analyzing critically • Evaluating information relevance • Establishing relationships • Applying information to new settings

12. Empirical work at the science and literacy interface • Guthrie: Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction (CORI). • Palincsar & Magnusson: Guided Inquiry Supporting Multiple Literacies (GIsML). • Romance & Vitale: In-depth Expanded Applications of Science (IDEAS) • Anderson, et al: Wondering, Exploring, and Explaining (WEE). • Pappas, Varelas, Barry, and Rife: Dialogically-Oriented Read Alouds

13. Learning from our predecessors • Integration is promising • Can travel both ways • Lead with literacy, follow with science (Guthrie and CORI) • Lead with science, follow with literacy (Palincsar & Magnusson) • Making a virtue out of the Second and First Hand Investigations: Palincsar & Magnusson • Literacy can gain from science: Romance and Vitale

14. Today’s Report • Description and illustration of the principles that guide our work • Along the way…talk about the legitimate role of text in inquiry based science

15. Context for Our Work • NSF-funded Seeds of Science/Roots of Reading Project • Collaborators: UC-Berkeley’s Lawrence Hall of Science and Graduate School of Education • Revision of GEMS units to integrate literacy with firsthand science • Curriculum development and research

16. Literacy Marco A. Bravo Gina Cervetti Megan Goss Elfrieda Hiebert Carolyn Jaynes, Dvora Klein P. David Pearson Lisa Sensale Jennifer Tilson Science Jacqueline Barber Josiah Baker Lynn Barakos Kevin Beals Lincoln Bergman Mary Connoly Jonathan Curley John Erickson Catherine Halversen Kimi Hosoume Suzanna Loper Carolyn Willard Suzy Loper Our Entire Seeds and Roots Team

17. Progress to Date • Built a model of science-literacy integration • Applied that model to the development of 3 units for 2nd-3rd grade students and assessment system • Built a model of text accessibility • Developed and produced 27 non-fiction student readers that embody this model • Planned and are currently authoring another 56

18. Progress, continued • Developed and integrated an approach for accommodating language learners • A national, quasi-experimental research study involving 87 classrooms in 21 states • Planning a new national field trial in 160 classrooms in even more states • Engaged in several separate research studies regarding science-literacy integration • Genre (narrative and straightforward informational) • Lexical and syntactic complexity • Spontaneous use of new vocabulary in writing • Nature of the discourse in a lesson that “cooks”

19. Guiding Principles and Curricular Guidelines

20. Three Pillars of Integration • Engage students in firsthand and text investigations • Employ multiple modalities • Capitalize on synergies between science and literacy

21. Firsthand and Text Investigations • Premise: Text and experience can play a set of dynamic roles in the inquiry process and the learning cycle.

22. First and second hand investigations • Conduct Snail investigations about preferred environments and food • Read a “plausible narrative” in which other students conduct similar investigations • Compare results and account for discrepancies • Mirrors what scientists do when they “build on” the scholarly traditions within which they work.

23. Multiple Modalities Science-Only (GEMS) • Learn from first hand experiences and reflection • Doing • Talking Science/Literacy (Seeds/Roots) • Learn through multiple learning modalities • Doing • Talking • Reading • Writing

24. Applying multiple modalities • Apply it to all activities/synergies • Vocabulary • Use is the ultimate standard • Knowledge • Inquiry-Comprehension

25. Synergies • Science knowledge/conceptual vocabulary: Words are fundamentally conceptual • Science inquiry/reading comprehension: Science and literacy share core meaning-making strategies • Nature and practices of science/oral and written discourse: Science entails a discourse about the natural world

26. Synergy #1: Words are fundamentally conceptual • Definitions don’t make it • Context of use helps, but not always • Words are surface labels for semiotic potentials: words are not the point of words (ideas are!). • Concentrate on the conceptual context--how does this concept relate to all of its siblings? • Semantic networks • Family resemblances

27. Shelter Water Food Organisms Habitat Shoreline Desert Forest Lots of visual and verbal activity Transmit Transparent Translucent Photo Photograph Photosynthesis

28. Vocabulary • Commit to a small set of core science words that together (and in combination with firsthand experiences and talk) help build a rich conceptual network • Print-rich environment (both reading and writing) • No gratuitous singletons • Increasing depth of knowledge • Awareness • Acquaintanceship • Ownership • Use it and manipulate it • Best accomplished by RWTD

29. The language of science • We have been able to identify, across a range of K-5 science texts, a set of “high utility” science words • Words that while not highly frequent in general discourse, recur with great regularity in science texts • We look for opportunities to use these words again and again in all of these language and experiential modes. • We also promote the deliberate use of specialized science terms

30. Promoting Scientific Language

31. Apply the multi-modal filter • At every opportunity in every part of the curriculum. • Read it • Write it • Talk it • Do it

32. Synergy #2: Capitalizing on the cognitive synergies between inquiry and comprehension

33. Check the appropriate box

34. Some Shared Strategies Activating Prior Knowledge Establishing Purpose/Setting Goals Making and Reviewing Predictions Drawing Inferences and Conclusions Recognizing Relationships D

35. How do we know that these are really similar across science and literacy? • First, we cede the point that the nature of the evidence is fundamentally different • But… • Can we see a fundamental cognitive similarity between the processes widely used in science and literacy? • Can you use the same rubric to score activities in science and literacy

37. Can the same rubrics be used to evaluate student performance in both domains? D

38. Making Predictions • Makes prediction with no apparent reasoning • Provides prediction supported by unrelated evidence • Provides prediction supported by related evidence • Is able to revise prediction to take into account additional evidence • Assesses the nature and quality of evidence D

39. Evidence-based Explanations 1. Explanation does not refer to evidence 2. Cites some evidence to support explanation 3. Cites multiple pieces of evidence to support an explanation 4. Synthesizes evidence to create explanations beyond what the students have been taught 5. Assesses the nature and quality of the evidence D

40. Operating Theory: Comprehension Strategies are Inquiry Strategies!! • Comprehension and inquiry are the accepted meaning making strategies in science and literacy • Comprehension and inquiry share goals and strategies D Constructing meaning from experience

41. Synergy #3: Science is a Discourse • Science is all about language…but is more than words • Instead of avoiding scientific terminology and register, need to embrace it • Hands-on science is a venue for bringing the language of science to bear on experience G

42. Postman, 1979 quote • Biology is not plants and animals, it is a language about plants and animals. • Astronomy is not planets and stars. It is a way of talking about planets and stars" (p. 165).

43. Teaching Discourse • Environment rich in language of science • Select generative vocabulary • Use everyday language as a conceptual bridge • Immerse students in investigations to bind language to activity G

44. Teaching Discourse • Discourse circles: • talk about experiments • Deal with challenging conceptual problems: Is this sand old or new? What does the evidence tell us? • a place to practice talking science • A place to learn something about the nature of science • Communicate with one another • Disagreement can be functional • Gather evidence to adjudicate competing claims • Reflect on our learning • How are we doing? • How were we acting like scientists? • How compelling is our evidence? • What do we need to work on?

45. Writing: Writing as Scientists Do • Observing and recording • Writing reports to communicate findings • Writing procedural texts • Writing descriptive texts

46. With important discourse elements, including vocabulary • Read it • Write it • Talk it • Do it In any order and any combination D

47. Text roles

48. Text can Support Inquiry Science • Providing Context • Delivering Content • Modeling • Supporting Second-Hand Inquiry • Supporting Firsthand Inquiry

49. Authenticity in Science Scientists read to situate research in broad social themes Provide Context Scientists read to acquire new knowledge etc. Deliver Content Scientists replicate others’ procedures and experiments Modeling Supporting Second-hand Investigations Scientists read and interpret others’ data and findings Supporting Firsthand Investigations Scientists use reference books to do their own work

50. Providing Context Students learn about the natural habitat of butterflies From the Trade Literature