Proposed Next Steps
Although the ending of the school year prevented me from implementing a phase 3 in this research, there are a few ways I would take this research on choice further. In phase 2 I discovered that my students preferred to participate in activities that reflected "real" science and that public demonstrations of knowledge played a significant role in motivating students. My students liked feeling that they had learned a lot through their own research and sharing their expertise with others. It also stood out to me that students who still did not feel like scientists mentioned that the assignments are still teacher dictated and that real scientists solve real problems.
In phase 3 I would seek to explore the relationship between choice and the real science that my students crave. Nearly half my students still do not see themselves as scientists because I am still dictating the assignments which are not truly authentic. In phase 3 I would like to study what happens when I truly relinquish control and place full responsibility on my students to create an authentic scientific experience. In light of this shift I would adjust my research question to:
What happens when I have students in a high school chemistry class conduct scientific research of their choosing?
and adjust the subquestions to:
I propose to do this through a science fair type approach where students come up with a real world question they would like to address and designing and implementing an experiment to respond to their question. They would present their research and data to an audience of their peers or even professional scientists. This phase 3 would respond to the desires of my students to engage in more real science and look at the impact of having students choose a problem to solve and taking the necessary steps as a researcher to solve it. Meanwhile my students would be exercising scientific thinking and problem solving skills called for in the Next Generation Science Standards.
In phase 3 I would seek to explore the relationship between choice and the real science that my students crave. Nearly half my students still do not see themselves as scientists because I am still dictating the assignments which are not truly authentic. In phase 3 I would like to study what happens when I truly relinquish control and place full responsibility on my students to create an authentic scientific experience. In light of this shift I would adjust my research question to:
What happens when I have students in a high school chemistry class conduct scientific research of their choosing?
and adjust the subquestions to:
- What supports or scaffolds will my students need as I gradually release responsibility to them to conduct their own research?
- How does choice and authentic learning impact students' motivation and engagement with science?
- What impact does choosing their own research have on my students' perceptions of themselves as scientists?
- What effect does choice have on content knowledge and depth of understanding?
I propose to do this through a science fair type approach where students come up with a real world question they would like to address and designing and implementing an experiment to respond to their question. They would present their research and data to an audience of their peers or even professional scientists. This phase 3 would respond to the desires of my students to engage in more real science and look at the impact of having students choose a problem to solve and taking the necessary steps as a researcher to solve it. Meanwhile my students would be exercising scientific thinking and problem solving skills called for in the Next Generation Science Standards.