Lewis/Life - Teaching Techniques

Chapter 2 - Teaching Techniques

A. General Tips
Your biggest challenge with this chapter may well be convincing your students that an overview of the processes of scientific inquiry is an important consideration.
Most of your students have had the "scientific method" in one form or another at various points in their academic careers. Unfortunately, most of them see the "scientific method" as something "to be gotten through" at the beginning of every science class because it doesn't have much relevance to the rest of the course.
Part of the reason students believe this is that few instructors apply and correlate scientific inquiry into the bulk of their courses. Scientific inquiry becomes almost an isolated entity.
If you want the process of scientific inquiry to become real to your students, you have several choices. All involve a continuous reminder to the students of what is happening in science. I offer three possible approaches. Other equally valid approaches certainly exist. Find the one(s) that best fit the needs of your class.
The first approach is to stress this chapter now and then to follow through with this process throughout your course. With every major topic use brief commentaries to bring out questions, observations, experimentations, and conclusions that led to our present understanding of the concept. Do this in sequential fashion. These commentaries will show how the scientific method was used in the past. This approach can then be projected for future research.
Another approach is to assign students to research the history of our understanding of certain topics. Practical examples of the scientific method can be drawn from this assignment.
The third approach is to postpone assigning this chapter. Don't even mention the "scientific method" until about four or five weeks into your course. Instead, stress the process with every topic. Discuss the history of ideas, the observations leading up to discoveries, the questions brought about by other discoveries. When the students are immersed in this way of looking at ideas, then introduce the formal "scientific method" and show them how it applies to the major concepts they have had thus far. Then assign Chapter 2.
One instructor who used this approach gave me this comment from one of her students: "The 'scientific method' finally makes sense! All these years of hearing about it at the beginning of the course -- and now I see how it works, and how we have been working it all along!"
You might wish to copy and distribute to your students the Overview of Chapter Objectives flowchart found at the beginning of this Instructor's Manual Chapter.
B. Possible Approaches to the Chapter
In addition to the suggestions offered above, the best approach to this chapter is to make the scientific method real to the students. Lewis does a good job of this throughout the chapter; but it is up to you to relate the specifics of the scientific method to the specifics of your class.
As you prepare this class, is there something in the news that exemplifies scientific inquiry? Is there perhaps something that should exemplify scientific inquiry but doesn't? These situations can help add to the immediateness of scientific inquiry.
Look ahead to the rest of your course. Flag some key topics that you can use later specifically to demonstrate the scientific method. Keep in mind questions like: What was the problem? What solutions were proposed? What was known and not known? How did investigators approach the problem?
C. Hints Related to Specific Chapter Topics
III. Some of your students may have learned different wording for the steps of the scientific inquiry. Mention that other wordings are possible but that the underlying concept is the same.
Use Figure 2.3 as your pivot point for this section -- and throughout the semester as you discuss events connected with the scientific method.
IV. I suggest you design an experiment with your class. There are several very effective ways you can do this. For instance, if your room has plants, you might take a leaf off the plant and hold it up to the class and say, "OK. Design an experiment." They will probably all look blank. Prod them with questions like, "What might I want to know about this leaf? How am I going to find out? What do I already know?" You will see some very nice simple experiments develop.
Another example you can use that demonstrates the commonality of the scientific method can be done as a simulation. Tell the class this is an over-simplification but that it is highly effective. Ask the class to envision a three year old walking into the kitchen (while mom is busy in another room) and noticing a plate on the shelf that is piled high with round tan objects with dark brown spots. Work through the scenario of what questions the child will formulate and what actions the child will take. Extrapolate this to the scientific method. Include a scene where the child take a bite from the putative cookie and realizes that it is a cardboard prop for someone's art project. How does this fit in to our method of scientific inquiry?