Science and Literacy - A Reflection

Science and Literacy.

With the advent of technology and its ever evolving growth, reading as a hobby or general reading has become uncommon. Students of today like to read about matters that affect them in their daily life. Science learning therefore, has to be more focused and specific.

Let us understand the connections between Science and Literacy under the three approaches that also broadly highlight the responsibilities of a science educator.

1. Performance expectations for literacy in the Science Classroom.

The science teacher would have the following responsibilities..

·        To motivate the students to think and reflect on their learning.

·        Encourage students to take risks, ask them to explore, promote scientific thinking and make them realize that the process of arriving at a solution to a problem is more important than the result by itself.

·        Improve language skills. No matter how much we say that language does not play a crucial role in science learning we all know that good communication is the key to reinforce good learning and retention of the learning.

·        Specify the expectations clearly to the students not by just telling them to perform better. Define`better` for them.

·        Motivate and guide students in all areas of literacy including reading, writing, listening and speaking.

·        Differentiate instruction in the classroom wherever necessary.

From my personal experience I can say that differentiating instruction works. Differentiating instruction while teaching non-english spearkers does not mean lowering expectations. The performance expectations remain the same but the means to achieve it changes. The tools and techniques used to achieve the goals is varied. The same applies when differentiating instructions for a group of gifted students.

While reading comprehensions accurate interpretation and conclusions have to be made. If possible cite real world connections that maybe connected to the students` personal interests.

Such a connection will be retained in the students` memory and so will the science concept.

·        Help students reach a good level of writing by allowing them to communicate by writing down what they have learnt.

2.      Explicit teaching strategies.

·        Inquiry based learning is a must for good science learning. Students should be encouraged to ask questions what, how, why, when…

·        They should be taught the methods for reading and learning. Like…

a)      Underline main ideas.

b)      Highlight important areas in the text.

c)      Write short questions in places where the text is not understood.

d)      Write down thoughts as reading progresses.

e)      Find definitions of unfamiliar words and use them in a new sentence.

f)       Make drawings and illustrations to understand concepts and then use them to frame sentences to communicate the understanding.

3.      Metacognition

The ability for students to become aware of their thinking processes while doing literacy activity in the classroom.

·        Bring the story telling to the classroom. Encourage students to write essays, connect with other disciplines through drama, poems, art and essays.

I still remember that while teaching about `Atoms` to an eighth grade group the class had written poems, enacted a play, written stories and thoroughly enjoyed it. Science learning becomes fun when such methods are used for students to learn and retain concepts. Story telling is always a good method to make students explore and also gives them a freedom to imagine.

As educators we may not be able to employ all of the approaches together but we should do so in steps. Infuse a little of each of these into the curriculum and make a strong and positive link between science and literacy.