The Science of Teaching

CBEN and the Center for Education help urban teachers learn to engage students in scientific concepts.

Through the slender glass windows of a high-school classroom door, students can be seen sitting in neat rows, taking notes. The class appears to be in order and under control, so it would seem that these teenagers must really be learning. But take a closer look—not all of them are. Most are merely retaining the information for the teacher’s test and then forgetting it soon after.

Debbie Cobb, standing at left, teaches a lesson on electricity conductors with the assistance of Rhoniese Simpson, standing at center. The instructors are two of the teachers in the Model Science Lab at Lee High School.

To model more effective teaching methods while addressing low test scores and high drop-out rates, Rice’s Center for Education and Center for Biological and Environmental Nanotechnology (CBEN) have joined forces with the Houston Independent School District (HISD) to develop a new training program for ninth-grade science teachers. Elnora Harcombe, associate director of the Center for Education, says the program targets these teachers because of the nature of the ninth-grade integrated physics and chemistry class.

In this class, students learn basic concepts later built on by higher science classes. However, there is a high failure rate in this course, often due to the fact that it is taught by teachers who do not have the experience needed to properly engage students in the material.

One component of the training program developed to address this situation is the pH Model Science Lab at Lee High School. In its second year at the high school level, the pH Lab takes teachers out of their home high school for one year and teaches them new ways to convey information to students while improving their own science knowledge. “The main goal of this program,” Harcombe says, “is to convert teachers from delivering lectures and canned labs and show them how to help students truly understand the material.”

The program demonstrates various teaching models so teachers can see why their traditional methods are ineffective. They observe other teachers, sit in on classes at Rice, and go on field trips. “Teachers begin to pay attention to other ways of engaging their students in the material,” Harcombe says. “They see that what they’ve been doing all along hasn’t been working as well as they thought.”

Debbie Cobb, a teacher from Sam Houston High School, says that, after teaching for 25 years, she realized for the first time that students come to class with preconceived notions of the scientific concepts she’s trying to teach. “Kids don’t care about our ideas or what the book tells them,” she says. “They just learn what we tell them for the test, and they never really believe it to be true.”

Harcombe says the pH Lab gives teachers the opportunity to try new ways to impart information in an engaging way. They start by asking the students what their thoughts are on a particular scientific concept. Allowing students to talk about what they think gives them ownership over the information.

Harcombe knows it can be hard for most teachers at first. Things will get a little disorderly—students might even argue—so teachers have to let go of the idea that a quiet class is best. They have to subtly lead the discussion and provide their input at the right time, allowing students to come to a conclusion they can back up by evidence collected through their own investigations. When these conclusions are compared to scientifically accepted explanations, students then take ownership over the concepts they’ve learned and proven right or wrong.

Rhoniese Simpson, from Westside High School, says this method differs from traditional teaching by eliciting students’ ideas and making those the starting point, rather than books and notes. At first glance, it might seem that this type of teaching would be much harder, but Simpson says it actually makes class time easier on the teacher. “It takes more effort and thought outside of the classroom to come up with ideas that will get the kids excited about the subject,” she says. “It’s harder in class for the students—not necessarily the teacher—because the students are the ones coming up with opinions and ways to back them up.”

Harcombe says these sentiments come from almost all teachers who have been through the training program, and that is borne out by practical results. Now in its 13th year at the middle school level, the program has had an almost perfect teacher retention rate of 95 percent.

—Lindsey Fielder