Getting the Science Department Wired

1
Getting the Science Department Wired

• Melanie Nash
• University of Melbourne

2
Introduction

• Positioning myself as the researcher
• Welcome to St Claires
• Sally and her community
• What has happened to this community of practice

3
On the road to Damascus

• New Opportunities Funding
• Willingness to change my pedagogy
• ICT a catalyst for a change in the department
• Becoming an online tutor

4
Curiouser and Curiouser said Alice

• What enables or constrains integration of ICT in
  science departments?
• What do science teachers perceive as ICT
  integration?
• What is the best organization of ICT resources?

5
The Study

• Three girls schools-
• (1) Independent - laptop school
• (2) Government - Pods and laptop stream
• (3) Government - Computer laboratories
• Data collection-
• (1) Document analysis
• (2) In-depth interviews
• (3) Classroom observations
• Theoretical framework Communities of Practice

6
Welcome to St Claires

• St Clairs prides itself on the quality of its
  teachers and their
• understanding of current educational research
  into how
• children learn. Teachers work in all levels to
  help students
• understand how they learn, to foster independent
  thinking and
• to help them develop questioning skills.
  Students are
• encouraged to use their skills in ICT and on
  their notebook
• computers to develop greater independence in
  finding
• information and judging its quality. The wireless
  environment in
• teaching areas allows students enormous
  flexibility in their
• choice of study groups.
• (Melbourne Weekly Independent Schools
  Guide 2004, pg 16)

7
Simplified community onion
Science teachers on the periphery
Science teachers in core group
School
Science Dept
Private Girls schools in Melbourne
8
The science department

• Sally- science coordinator (HOD) - 25 years
  teaching, been at school for 6 years, specialist
  in biology
• Carol- science teacher - 14 years teaching, been
  at school for 5 years, specialist in biology
• Nina- science teacher - 11 years teaching, been
  at school for 5 years, specialist in biology
• Plus 3 science teachers and one lab technician

9
Getting to know Sally

• Im not into discovery, learning in a major way,
  for these
• kids to get a lot out of their science, they need
  to have the
• basic concepts under control. So really what we
  do is we
• give them the basic concepts and we illustrate
  with
• activities as we go along, rather than giving
  them a whole
• series of activities to do, and saying, you go
  work it out. I
• just find its far more efficient, you dont get
  as many
• misconceptions and when I say efficient I mean we
  get
• through probably three times as much work.

10
Sallys View of Technology

• You see we have to report on a set of skills such
  as time
• management, ICT, etc and we have had the reports
  changed
• in science to use of technology rather than use
  of
• information communication technology. Because
  we think
• that learning to use a microscope, light a Bunsen
  burner,
• reading balances those sorts of things all come
  under the
• heading technology. So to just define it as ICT
  was rather
• limiting.

11
Sally and the data loggers

• We chose not to use data loggers for speed and
• acceleration, you see we think that its far more
  visual
• seeing the dots formed on the ticker tape than to
  have this
• nebulous thing that comes out of cyber space and
  suddenly
• gives you a graph. We think its important
  particularly for
• the weaker kids to see the dots being formed the
  students
• actually know what they are looking at. I think
  its far
• better to give them a piece of graph paper and to
  make
• them do it properly.

12
Whats happened to this Community of Practice?

• The community has become stagnant due to the
  influence of Sally and her core clique
• Teachers have actively refused to cross
  boundaries
• This has led to irrational politics
• Short term focus on tangible outcomes
• Anti-learning culture in relation to ICT
• The subject coordinators dominance and her
  identity have stifled this community

13
Is there hope for this Community of Practice?

• I think there is, the fact that Carol has had
  minor
• success in her use of technology and her interest
  in
• Developing her ability is encouraging.
• The question is does she or anyone at the school
  have
• enough influence to persuade Sally to change?

• Or should we take Jean Luc Pichards advice and
  simply eject the core!!! (Star Trek, TNG)