Interdisciplinary Science Course Research Articles

Analysing the Nature of Ministry Guidelines for Developing Interdisciplinary Science Courses (Grades 11–12) in Ontario (Canada)

Scientific problems of the twenty-first century involve complex research questions that require an interdisciplinary approach. Educational research suggests that overall student achievement is greater in an interdisciplinary science curriculum than in a discipline-specific science curriculum. Regardless, the secondary school science curriculum in Ontario remains discipline-specific. The Ontario Ministry of Education (OME) released an ‘Interdisciplinary Studies’ curriculum in 2002; however, it appears to be sparsely implemented across Ontario. The objective of this study is to investigate what guidelines are provided by the OME to help Ontario secondary school science teachers (grades 11–12) design and implement interdisciplinary science courses. A document analysis methodology is used to gather data from selected OME curriculum documents. The results of this study found that interdisciplinary science courses are based on multiple models of interdisciplinarity; however, the guidelines provided for developing interdisciplinary curriculum, assessment, and teaching methods do not explicitly indicate which type of interdisciplinary model is applied, nor do the documents explicitly consider the degree of integration of concepts and skills from across disciplines/subject areas. Primarily, the results of this study may inform Ontario Ministry science curriculum writers, teachers and educators interested in interdisciplinary science curriculum elsewhere, about what aspects of the selected curriculum documents provide practical information for developing interdisciplinary science courses and components of the curriculum that may warrant potential revisions or additions during future curriculum drafting.

Studying, designing and 3d-printing an operational model of the Antikythera Mechanism

3D printing technology is an established industrial practice for rapid prototyping and manufacturing across a range of products, components and commercial sectors and at the same time possesses great potential for every-day life applications to be invented, explored and developed by the coming generations of scientists and engineers. A 3D printer installed in a school setting and complemented by well-designed educational activities can: stimulate the interest and curiosity of students; engage and motivate them into studying science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects, that they may choose or consider as career options; give the opportunity to teachers to achieve content and concept learning in an innovative way. In this paper we present an interdisciplinary science course that was developed for high school students and was implemented in an actual science classroom. The objectives of the course were both to spark the interest and creativity of students and teach them certain curriculum units the content knowledge of which is reached or utilized in an unconventional way. Students are gradually introduced into the 3D printing technology, its application and potential and are assigned a challenging collaborative project in which they have to study, analyse, design and build, using the 3D printer of their school, an operational model of a renown ancient artefact, the so-called Antikythera Mechanism. The mechanism is a 2100-year-old computer and is internationally known as an artefact of unprecedented human ingenuity and scientific, historic and symbolic value. The course involves the teaching of STEM curriculum domains of physics, astronomy, mathematics/geometry, informatics and technology related content and also non-STEM subjects like history and Greek language, both ancient and modern. We give an overview of the course, discuss its various phases and highlight its outcomes.

An Interactive, Instant Polling Exercise to Allay Student Anxiety in Science Courses

Many high school and undergraduate students enter science courses feeling intimidated by course content and unsure of their abilities. Teachers are frequently challenged in mixed-level and interdisciplinary courses to ascertain and honor students’ levels and areas of experience. In these cases, the application of critical pedagogy techniques can create a culture of caring and thereby allay student anxiety and increase student motivation and success. Here I describe a simple instant polling exercise that employs critical pedagogy to stimulate dialogue about students’ experiences with course content. This exercise is especially useful for mixed-level and interdisciplinary science courses, and can be easily adapted for small or large classes.

Analysing student written solutions to investigate if problem-solving processes are evident throughout

ABSTRACTAn interdisciplinary science course has been implemented at a university with the intention of providing students the opportunity to develop a range of key skills in relation to: real-world connections of science, problem-solving, information and communications technology use and team while linking subject knowledge in each of the science disciplines. One of the problems used in this interdisciplinary course has been selected to evaluate if it affords students the opportunity to explicitly display problem-solving processes. While the benefits of implementing problem-based learning have been well reported, far less research has been devoted to methods of assessing student problem-solving solutions. A problem-solving theoretical framework was used as a tool to assess student written solutions to indicate if problem-solving processes were present. In two academic years, student problem-solving processes were satisfactory for exploring and understanding, representing and formulating, and planning and executing, indicating that student collaboration on problems is a good initiator of developing these processes. In both academic years, students displayed poor monitoring and reflecting (MR) processes at the intermediate level. A key impact of evaluating student work in this way is that it facilitated meaningful feedback about the students’ problem-solving process rather than solely assessing the correctness of problem solutions.

New Interdisciplinary Science Course for First-Year Faculty of Science Students: Overview and Preliminary Results from the Pilot

Transitioning to university can be a daunting endeavour, with student success dependent on a myriad of effects (Pascarella & Terenzini, 2005). Understanding how to navigate university systems, who to meet, how to get help, how to study, and what goals to set can be hard to grasp (Valle et al., 2003). We provide an overview of the new interdisciplinary foundations course, which piloted in fall 2014, for first-year Faculty of Science students at McMaster University. This course provides a taste of research-based learning (Healey, Jenkins, & Lea, 2014) and develops essential skills that are important for an undergraduate degree and future academic or career plans, exposes students to a wide range of departments and programs in the Faculty of Science, and invites students to reflect on their academic journey and how it may be changing as a result of the course. This customized approach intentionally teaches students how to locate and use institutional resources and the expectations that the institution has of its students, while offering opportunities to create networks of support essential for student success and retention (Kuh, Cruce, Shoup, Kinzie, & Gonyea, 2008), and speaks to a number of considerations highlighted in the literature (e.g., Ambrose, Bridges, DiPietro, Lovett, & Norman, 2010). Other factors considered include balancing the needs of the Faculty, the resources available, and the goals, demands, and interests of the students. In this paper, we describe the course’s design, structure and implementation, key components of the course, support from upper-level science students, and preliminary pedagogical results, which assess its impact on and perception by students.

Tipping the Balance from Expert to Facilitator: Examining Myths about Being a Teacher Educator

This self-study addresses two questions: (1) how did self-study aid the teacher educator in interrogating her beliefs about and mediate her projection of teacher-as-facilitator versus teacher-as-expert? and (2) in what ways did prospective elementary teachers in an undergraduate, interdisciplinary science course exert control over their learning as a result of the teacher educator's self-interrogation of practices? In her teaching role with prospective teachers, Nicole explored a major myth about teaching concerning the image of the professor as the primary expert in the classroom. Critical events analysis revealed instances where she exerted power as an expert or assumed the role of facilitator. Instead of clearly marked instances where she took actions to exert her various roles in the classroom, she found that classroom events could not be categorized neatly. There were cases where she acted as an expert and students felt free to make their own decisions about their learning. When she was uncertain or attempted to relinquish control, students often responded by not taking control of their learning.

Using student feedback to improve student attitudes and mathematical confidence in a first year interdisciplinary quantitative course: from the ashes of disaster!

Today's scientist is faced with complex problems that require interdisciplinary solutions. Consequently, tertiary science educators have had to develop and deliver interdisciplinary science courses to equip students with the skills required to solve the evolving real-world challenges of today and tomorrow. There are few reported studies of the lessons learned from designing and delivering first year compulsory interdisciplinary science subjects at regional universities. Even fewer studies assess the impact that teaching interventions within interdisciplinary courses have on students’ attitudes towards mathematics and technology, and mathematics anxiety. This paper discusses the feedback received from the first student cohort of a new compulsory, first year interdisciplinary science subject at a regional Australian university which resulted in curricular revisions. These revisions included a greater emphasis on the subject relevance and increased student support in tutorials. Assessment practices were also dramatically modified. The change in student attitudes and anxiety levels a priori and a posteriori to the interventions was measured quantitatively and qualitatively. Post-intervention, female and non-mathematics major students had grown in mathematical confidence and were less anxious. It is important that positive and negative research findings are reported, so science educators can learn from one another, and can better prepare their students for the challenges they will face in bringing interdisciplinary solutions to contemporary real-world problems.

A Framework for Analyzing Interdisciplinary Tasks: Implications for Student Learning and Curricular Design

The national conversation around undergraduate science instruction is calling for increased interdisciplinarity. As these calls increase, there is a need to consider the learning objectives of interdisciplinary science courses and how to design curricula to support those objectives. We present a framework that can help support interdisciplinary design research. We developed this framework in an introductory physics for life sciences majors (IPLS) course for which we designed a series of interdisciplinary tasks that bridge physics and biology. We illustrate how this framework can be used to describe the variation in the nature and degree of interdisciplinary interaction in tasks, to aid in redesigning tasks to better align with interdisciplinary learning objectives, and finally, to articulate design conjectures that posit how different characteristics of these tasks might support or impede interdisciplinary learning objectives. This framework will be useful for both curriculum designers and education researchers seeking to understand, in more concrete terms, what interdisciplinary learning means and how integrated science curricula can be designed to support interdisciplinary learning objectives.

Teaching Science through Computation

We present a computational pedagogy approach to teaching an interdisciplinary science course. Modeling and simulation tools allow us to introduce a science topic from a simplistic framework and then move into details after learners gain a level of interest to help them endure the hardships and frustration of deeper learning. More than 90% of students in course surveys state that modeling improved their understanding of science concepts. Students appear to appreciatelearning not only the use of simulation tools to design and conduct science experiments, but also basic programming skills to simulate a science experiment using a simple algebraic equation, new = old + change. A strong link is established between computational and natural sciences. Students learn in a simplistic framework how laws of nature act as the source of change.

Using Culture, Policy and Traditional Knowledge to Improve Engagement in Science Courses

Problem statement: In our undergraduate science courses, we need to engage students by including the current issues and concerns of our students as well as recognizing the place-based context in which they learn. Including culture, policy and traditional knowledge when it intersects with a chemical principle and a challenging real world issue adds concreteness to the scientific process. Approach: Science Education for New Civic Engagement and Responsibilities (SENCER) is a national dissemination project for courses in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. SENCER courses connect science and civic engagement by teaching through complex, capacious, current and unresolved public issues to the underlying scientific principles. The more that our students were exposed to culturally responsive interdisciplinary science courses that encompass biocomplexity, the more prepared they will act as agents of long term stewardship through periods of rapid change and ecological challenge. It was therefore critical that issues such as sustainability, environmental health, food security, justice and precaution be integrated into science teaching. In studying public issues of the north, students and faculty can use examples from traditional knowledge to illustrate the use of science principles. Results: As part of the IPY UARCTIC effort, examples from climate change, nutrition, nuclear science and chemical ecology were developed to illustrate this integration. The courses adapted and delivered at an arctic university will illustrate the benefits of integrating social and cultural topics with science. Student responses showed an increase in interest in science. Conclusion: The adapt and adopt process is synergistic and should be goal oriented. This approach was especially relevant to minority and indigenous students who were engaged in the issues of their local community. The SENCER approach to arctic science creates a legacy of new, engaging courses in the north.

Enhancing Teacher Preparation and Improving Faculty Teaching Skills: Lessons Learned from Implementing “Science That Matters” a Standards Based Interdisciplinary Science Course Sequence

In a highly collaborative process we developed an introductory science course sequence to improve science literacy especially among future elementary and middle school education majors. The materials and course features were designed using the results of research on teaching and learning to provide a rigorous, relevant and engaging, standard based science experience. More than ten years of combined planning, development, implementation and assessment of this college science course sequence for nonmajors/future teachers has provided significant insights and success in achieving our goal. This paper describes the history and iterative nature of our ongoing improvements, changes in faculty instructional practice, strategies used to overcome student resistance, significant student learning outcomes, support structures for faculty, and the essential and informative role of assessment in improving the outcomes. Our experience with diverse institutions, students and faculty provides the basis for the lessons we have learned and should be of help to others involved in advancing science education.

Approaches to cell biology teaching: learning content in context--problem-based learning.

In answering the call of the American Association for the Ad-vancement of Science (1990) that “science should be taughtas science is practiced at is best,” science faculty across thecountry have systematically begun to infuse their skills, per-spectives, and experiences as scientists into the instructionalapproaches they select for their undergraduate classrooms.Problem-based learning (PBL), which diffused into under-graduate science instruction from the medical school settingover 10 years ago, is one of those approaches. Use of PBL inthe undergraduate setting has steadily grown in popularityover the past decade (Samford University, PBL Initiative), atleastinpartbecauseitsinquiry-drivennatureandunderlyingphilosophies resonate with these comments from the recentBoyer Commission Report (1998) on undergraduate educa-tion at research universities:

Using Problem-Based and Active Learning in an Interdisciplinary Science Course for Non-Science Majors

Because the United States is an international leader in scientific research, the public has long assumed that undergraduate education in science serves all. Yet many national concerns have attended this status as world leader, as many citizens have lagged behind in awareness, knowledge, and attitudes toward science. David Goodstein has pointed out that the United States is a world leader both in science training and scientifically illiterate students (1993). Furthermore, the population of women and minorities has been underrepresented traditionally in the scientific disciplines.

Natural Disasters as a Unifying Theme for an Interdisciplinary Science Course

The subject of natural disasters offers a rich assortment of topics that can be selectively used by instructors to tailor-make a course for their unique populations of students. There is a large reservoir of student questions about active Earth processes. For science teachers who wish to convey the nature of scientific inquiry using unanswered questions of interest to their students, natural disasters present wonderful pedagogical opportunities.

Experimenting with Interdisciplinary Science

For the past 3 years a biologist, chemist, physicist, and science educator at Louisiana Tech University have worked together to develop a year-long interdisciplinary science course. The course help...

Weathering as a Topic in an Interdisciplinary Science Course for General Education

An interdisciplinary natural-science core course for general-education students was taught for two years at Indiana-Purdue University Fort Wayne. The course had a modular design and was presented by faculty from mathematics and each of the science departments at the University. It was our goal to give beginning students a chance for in-depth examination of a few subject areas.Students participated in two six-week-long “topic modules,” sandwiched between shorter introductory and capstone modules. This pattern could be repeated (with different topic modules) in a second semester.The geology module focused on the topic of silicate and carbonate mineral weathering. The students worked in teams to design and execute an experiment evaluating the dissolution kinetics of K-feldspar, dolomite, and/or calcite. Experimental results and conclusions were presented as poster sessions evaluated by geoscience faculty. Similar experiments might be of interest to teachers of introductory geology labs, honors courses, freshman seminars, or introductory petrology.

Teaching science at the university level: What about the ethics?

Ethics in science is integrated into an interdisciplinary science course called “Science, Technology and Society” (STS). This paper focuses on the section of the course called “Societal Impact on Science and Technology”, which includes the topics Misconduct in Science, Scientific Freedom and Responsibility, and the Use of Human Subjects in Research. Students in the course become aware not only of the science itself, but also of the process of science, some aspects of the history of science, the social responsibilities of scientists, and the ethical issues in science. Teaching techniques include the instructor sharing experiences as a scientist with the students, sharing books and resources with students, utilizing current sources of information like the weekly “Science Times”, inviting guest speakers, and utilizing portfolios to assess student learning.