Thoughts about Girls & Science

1) Why do you think girls tend to not consider science as a possible career option?
I think girls tend to not consider science as a possible career option because it is mainly portrayed as male dominated field (embodying the boyhood tree house motto “no girls allowed”). We implicitly reinforce the messages of what type of future career interests our children should have based on the things we buy them/ the activities we facilitate for them. Boys are often active and curious, and playing the “young scientist” through experimenting, repairing, and creating things is often portrayed as activities “just for the boys.” While in the bookstore one day, I actually found a book titled “The Curious Boy’s Book of Exploration” which contains various challenges, puzzles, and experiments for young boys. If girls are not included as participants of science during the younger years, its no wonder that they choose not to consider it as a possible career option when they grow up. This book clearly reinforces the message to both girls and boys alike that science and investigation are only socially acceptable activities for boys. The toys we surround our children with, and the activities we engage them in when they are young, send powerful implicit messages about what types of activities our child “should be” interested in, and what activities are not for them. So the cycle of gender reinforcement continues, and girls are given their Easy Bake Ovens to cook food, and boys are given the rock set to investigate nature.

2) What can you do in your classroom to help girls make more informed choices about science careers?
In my classroom, I think that it’s important to depict science as a career for both males and females. From a young age I would make sure I sent the message that both girls and boys can be “explorers” and investigate how things work. Boys are not the only ones allowed to be curious, and explore the world around them, so I would facilitate and encourage girls to engage in investigating things of particular interest to them. Often girls decide not to pursue careers in science based on a false of lack of understanding of what science is and/or how it works. For this reason, I would concentrate my energies on illustrating an accurate of the nature of science in my classroom. To help girls develop a more accurate image of how science works, I would make a conscious effort to facilitate science-learning experiences that encouraged exploration, creativity, social interaction (group-work), and relate to everyday life. Its up to the individual student whether or not she inevitably decided to choose a career in the sciences, but at least she would have had an opportunity to experience authentic science in which to make a more informed decision about her options.

Class Reflection

So far, this class has helped me to realize three key ideas related to teaching and schooling. First off, there is a vast distinction between “taught knowledge” and “learned knowledge.” Often times these two things are thought to be interchangeable, however they are quite different and one does not insure the other. Personally, I can saw that I have been taught much more than I have actually learned. Mainly because, many of my past teachers focused more whether or not they covered certain curricular subjects rather than if all their students had actually learned anything from their instruction. Ultimately, our job as teachers is not just to teach content, rather it is to help our students learn and apply the knowledge we teach. This is achieved through continuous assessment of student understanding, and implementation of modified instructional strategies to meet the needs of our students.

Another key idea I have come to recognize is the importance of utilizing the principles of developmental learning theory in order to inform ones teaching. It is essential to incorporate a meaningful balance of concrete and abstract representations in teaching concepts to our students. Typically, concrete representations are easier to understand than more abstract representations. Nevertheless, often we see that teachers primarily base their instruction on using abstract means of representation (e.g. text or speech) rather than provide their students with the opportunities to engage in real experiences with a phenomenon to better understand a concept.

Lastly, the third key idea that I have come to recognize is that most of my past learning experiences have predominately been product and not process oriented. In the sense that many of my past teachers primarily emphasized the development of products (e.g. assignments, papers, worksheets, etc.) and little or no attention was paid to processes of learning used to create those products. Therefore, like many others, I have become conditioned to produce products of learning without thinking about the skills needed to perform those operations. As a result, I have come to develop a mindset that values grades (products) over the processes of learning. However, without conscious knowledge of the processes of learning, one may find that they are unable to apply their knowledge in non-predescribed settings. And what good is a grade (representation of a product), if you can’t actually apply/demonstrate the skills/knowledge in a real life setting such as a classroom.

The Nature of Science

Contrary to what most of us have been taught in our past experiences, the essence of science lies far beyond following the 3 basic steps of the scientific method. There are multiple processes involved in the practice of science, and they very seldom occur in a linear format. Science utilizes many elements and processes such as discovery, creativity, curiosity, innovative thinking, evaluation, interpretation, questioning, comparing ideas, working cooperatively, and much more. Science is more than a branch of knowledge we teach in schools. Science is a profession, a philosophy, an active and ongoing study, a discipline and a process. As teachers, we must be careful about the types of messages we send explicitly, implicitly, and subconsciously to our kids. In relation to Science, and any subject for that matter, the underlying connotations we portray in our classrooms can greatly influence student perceptions and interest in a subject. So if our goal is truly to help students develop a positive view of Science, we must consistently evaluate whether or not our words and actions in practice are consistent with this goal.

Reflections on "How Science Works"

During the last few class periods, I have learned and further developed many of my understandings about concepts related to how science works. Science is based on evidence, in which ideas are constantly modified or changed based on the development of new evidence. Although many things in nature can be explained by science, not every question can be answered using scientific means. Conflict often arises when people attempt to combine science type thinking with that of faith based thinking because these two distinct philosophies of knowledge greatly contradict each other when it comes to explaining certain complex phenomena due to their differing purposes. Also, nothing can be proven with 100% accuracy or certainty, however scientists can attempt to provide more and more evidence in favor of a certain concept or way of thinking. The primary goals of science are to understand how things work and to gain knowledge about things in nature. Unlike technology, sciences purpose is not predominantly concerned with the application or use of their ideas in relation to benefiting society, rather it is motivated by curiosity to learn about nature and the universe. Another important distinction associated with science is that of the relationship between theories and laws. A theory is a well supported idea and contrary to common belief, a theory doesn’t become a law just because its has more evidence. Theories explain why something happens, and when more evidence is developed in its favor it simply becomes a “better supported theory.” A law on the other hand, tells us what happens, and is usually in the form of a simple statement that represents a mathematical equation or relationship.

Overall, the past few class discussions have been very beneficial in helping me refine and better understand many of the important concepts related to the study of science. In my past experiences with learning science, my teachers have typically bombarded us with a multitude of terms and it was really helpful to be able to go over and discuss the common misconceptions and fundamental concepts related to science in order to best understand the basic ideas. Rather than resort to useless memorization of a bunch of terms without having a clear framework in which to place them.