University of Oklahoma
Answers #6
Let's look at the answers to the questions, and then offer some speculative comments about the results.
1. Gibbs and Lawson (1992) reported "real bad," answer b, in judging biology texts at high school and college. The textbooks were out-of-date, to begin with, and they presented hypotheses as if they were facts; they simplified theories; they ignored qualifications and exceptions to "laws"; and they presented the principles of Biology as if they were immutable and unchanging, in sharp contrast to the more tentative and exploratory principles held by practicing biologists.
Right at hand is Lloyd (1993), an observational study of how a heavy emphasis on such texts works out in practice, as compared to what they call a "constructivist" approach.
2. The Dister program expected less of students. The investigators remark that this might lead teachers, as well, to expect less of students.
(We haven't taken the time to hunt down this reference--it's in the three-volume anthology on elementary reading edited by Lauren B. Resnick and Phyllis A. Weaver, published by Lawrence Erlbaum in 1979.)
3. Jeanne Chall and Sue Conrad (1991) strongly endorsed answer b--American textbooks are too easy.
4. The most common reason high school dropouts give for dropping out is boredom. This is widely reported, so we won't give a specific reference. (Yes, yes, we know, that may of course not be the real reason--we're just reporting the facts, ma'am.)
Now, some speculative comments (references not provided, or, what did Dorothy Parker say when importuned by a bore at a party?)
- so, in general, the criticism of writing textbooks, offered, for example, by Janet Emig (1971, ch. 1), and still broadly true today--that these textbooks radically simplify and misstate for students the writing processes of skilled adults--is broadly true of textbooks in general. We would argue that the textbook tradition in English composition is even more seriously distorted--for example, by offering "static abstractions" (Connors, Freshman English News, 1982?) that hinder rather than help students' development.
- these results are in line with Roger W. Shuy's general criticism of skills approaches to language learning--consistently, these approaches underestimate the capabilities of learners (Shuy, Research in the Teaching of English, 1981).
- Chall and Conrad (1992) note the Pogo theme in their study--"we have met the enemy and he is us." American children do not perform as well as we would like them to on standardized tests because our textbooks don't teach them very much. (Doctoral studies excepted).
- Let's say that you simplify learning for students--teach them "the basics," as it were. Now, one effect is that they won't all learn "the basics"--just listen to conversation in a faculty coffee lounge--and so you simplify the basics even more, regressively. (All this comes under the heading, "What's wrong with being wrong?" from Labov, 1969/1972.)
The more serious effect is that teaching one thing--"the basics" may well deny students access to the deeper knowledges that make real learning possible.
- two parenthetical references, just for fun.
In a delightful hatchet job, Robert Connors works through the best-selling college writing textbook, James McCrimmon's Writing with a Purpose, edition by edition (Rhetoric Society Quarterly, 1984). His conclusion is that each time McCrimmon tries something new, it comes out the next edition. The first edition, for example, questioned the invariant topic sentence, and the second edition questioned the utility of the so-called "methods of development"--both became mainstays of subsequent editions.
Journalist Francis Fitzgerald looked at high school history textbooks over time. It's fun to watch "history" change--Native Americans were "bad guys" in 1900, "good guys" in 1930, "bad guys" in 1950, and "good guys" again in 1970. More interesting is his discussion of the failure of "discovery learning" textbooks of the 1960s and 1970s (students learn about, say, the Mexican-American War by reading first-hand accounts from the United States and from Mexico). These were popular with students and practitioners saw them as effective ways to teach history. But everyone else, from teachers to administrators to state textbook committees, found them troublesome (for differing reasons), and what Fitzgerald sees as a powerful learning tool was dropped.
References
[ERIC abstracts provided if at hand]
Chall, Jeanne S., & Conrad, Sue S. (1991). Should textbooks challenge students? The case for easier or harder textbooks. New York: Teachers College Press.
Gibbs, Al, & Lawson, Anton e. (1992). The nature of scientific thinking as reflected by the work of biologists and by biology textbooks. American Biology Teacher, 54, 137-152.
A sample of 14 college and 8 high school biology textbooks were evaluated to determine whether they provided accurate and adequate descriptions and examples of scientific thinking. The authors contrast their views of the nature of scientific thinking with those of the textbook authors on the concepts of hypothesis, theory, law, and principle. (MDH)
DE: College Science; Higher Education; Science Education; Secondary Education; Secondary School Science; Textbook Content; Thinking Skills
DE: *Biology; *Critical Thinking; *Science Instruction; *Scientific Literacy; *Scientific methodology; *Textbook Evaluation
ID: *Scientific Thinking
IS: CIJMAR94
Lloyd, Carol V. (1993, April). Social contexts for literacy: Two biology classrooms. Paper presented at the meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Atlanta, GA. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 363 514) [27p.]
There is a growing body of current research that addresses literacy from the perspective of literacy as a social process. This perspective underscores the need to examine the culture of classroom in our attempt to understand how students learn and become literate within a discipline. This paper presents two case studies of high school biology classrooms within this framework. One classroom was taught by teacher whose articulated beliefs about learning and observed teaching could be described as constructivist. The classroom culture in his room was one in which students learned about biology through their interaction with each other and the ideas of biology. The reading and writing tasks within this classroom culture contributed to their sense that scientific literacy was about learning ideas and solving problems. The second classroom was taught by a teacher whose articulated beliefs and observed teaching could be described as behavioral. The culture he created in his classroom left students with the sense that scientific literacy was about reading to memorize facts and writing to accumulate pages of information. These findings are related to attempts to improve science teaching in ways that will enhance student learning and literacy in biology. (Author)
DE: Case Studies; High Schools; Problem Solving; Science Teachers; Secondary School Science
DE: *Biology; *Classroom Environment; *Constructivism Learning; *Science Instruction; *Scientific Literacy
IS: RIEMAR94
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