University of Arkansas at Monticello's 1985 Summer Science Institute: A Report and an Opinion

Journal of the Arkansas Academy of Science Volume 40 Article 24 1986 University of Arkansas at Monticello's 1985 Summer Science Institute: A Report and an Opinion Eric Sundell University of Arkansas at Monticello Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarworks.uark.edu/jaas Part of the Elementary Education Commons, and the Science and Mathematics Education Commons Recommended Citation Sundell, Eric (1986) "University of Arkansas at Monticello's 1985 Summer Science Institute: A Report and an Opinion," Journal of the Arkansas Academy of Science: Vol. 40 , Article 24. Available at: http://scholarworks.uark.edu/jaas/vol40/iss1/24 This article is available for use under the Creative Commons license: Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-ND 4.0). Users are able to read, download, copy, print, distribute, search, link to the full texts of these articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author. This Article is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@UARK. It has been accepted for inclusion in Journal of the Arkansas Academy of Science by an authorized editor of ScholarWorks@UARK. For more information, please contact , . Journal of the Arkansas Academy of Science, Vol. 40 [1986], Art. 24 UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS AT MONTICELLO'S 1985 SUMMER SCIENCE INSTITUTE: A REPORT AND AN OPINION ERIC SUNDELL Department of Natural Sciences University of Arkansas at Monticello Monticello, AR 71655 ABSTRACT The University of Arkansas at Monticello's 1985 Summer Science Institute was created to improve in science among on-the-job upper elementary school teachers (grades 4-6) in southeast Arkansas. Students received three weeks of solid introductory coursework in botany, chemistry, and geology. However, deficiencies in public school science education are extensive and deeply rooted and willnot be seriously addressed by anything less than radical changes in teacher training and certification competence policies. on teacher education programs. That report bears the general message: INTRODUCTION more content, less pedagogy. The Teacher Education Improvement Consortium was organized and funded in 1984 by the Arkansas Department of Higher Education to address the problem of declining student achievement in science at the elementary and secondary levels. Three goals were identified: 1) to improve the scientific and mathematical existing teachers, K-12; competence of 2) to improve the professional attitudes and esprit de corps of existing teachers, K-12; and 3) to identify model teaching techniques from the institutes and in-services (see below) and disseminate that information. The Consortium's action took the form of four Summer Science Institutes located on the four University of Arkansas campuses. The Institutes offered education in the sciences to elementary and secondary teachers, who in turn were to pass along what they had learned both to their students, and, later, to their colleagues in a series of "in-service peer-teaching" workshops. In its analysis of science education at the secondary level, the Teacher Education Improvement Consortium (Goal Statement, unpublished document, distributed by TEIC, 1984) attributed declining student achievement, in part, to an excess of academic democracy: Secondary school curricula have become homogenized, diluted and diffuse. With extensive student choice, students do not opt for the more rigorous classes in science and mathematics. The problem of course begins in the lower grades (ifnot at home). A National Science Foundation study, published in 1978 (The Status of Pre-College Science, Mathematics, and Social Studies Educational Practices inU.S. Schools: an Overview and Summaries of Three Studies, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office), gave the following dire description of elementary science education in America: Although we found a few elementary teachers with a strong interest and understanding of science, the number was insufficient to suggest that even half the nation's youngsters would have a single elementary school year inwhich their teacher could give science a substantial share of the curriculum and do a good job of teaching it. And most recently, a study by the Southern Regional Education Board's Commission for Educational Quality (Improving Teacher Education: an Agenda for Higher Education and the Schools, SREB: Atlanta, 1985) placed the responsibility for inadequate teaching, in part, Published by Arkansas Academy of Science, 1986 74 Proceedings Elementary teachers should be broadly educated across all of the major academic divisions... They need breadth intheir academic preparation. Ifthey are to develop as scholars, they also need to delve into some academic subjects more deeply than they are likely to do if they limit themselves mostly to introductory courses. That the inadequate teacher salaries offered by a tight-fisted and skeptical to simply apathetic public might be the principal cause of the disease and the unsatisfactory performance of many students, teachers, and teacher educators merely symptoms is too large an issue to take up here. THE UAMSUMMER SCIENCE INSTITUTE Faculty from UAM and the regional public schools, as well a representatives from the Southeast Arkansas Educational Cooperative meeting as a Local Advisory Committee, chose to concentrate effort on science teaching at the upper elementary level. InUAM's Summe Science Institute, 23 fourth through sixth grade teachers were given three weeks of introductory science coursework by three UAMfaculty in thei areas of expertise: biology (mostly botany), chemistry, and earth scienc or geology. Each subject received a week's treatment. Student attended lecture-laboratory sessions 6 hours a day, 5 days a week. Durin the academic year subsequent to the Summer Institute, each teache was to present two "in-service" workshops to his or her colleagues a the local schools. One of the most attractive features of the Science Institute grant wa its generous budget. Local school teachers were recognized as profes sionals and received an honorarium of 500dollars each. Additional fund permitted the purchase and distribution of supplies and lab materials Teachers returned to their classrooms with books on the trees am wildflowers of Arkansas, mounted specimens of native trees, rocks and minerals, and an assortment of common chemicals and chemistry glassware and small lab equipment. Several travelling chemistry boxe were stocked with pH meters, small electronic balances, and battery chargers, to be circulated among interested area science teachers by the Southeast Arkansas Educational Cooperative. A syllabus summarizing science content of the UAM phase of the Institute is given below: BIOLOGY/BOTANY: Day 1 : Scientific method; aims and methods of taxonomy; artificial and natural classification systems; construction of dichotomous keys. Arkansas Academy (...truncated)