New VISTAs in Science Education

Authors

K. Waite, Middlesex Elementary School
B. Healy, Middlesex Elementary School

Publication Date

2015

Abstract

In the summer of 2012, a colleague and I attended the four-week Virginia Initiative for Science Teaching and Achievement (VISTA) Elementary Summer Science Institute where we were trained to conduct inquiry-based science teaching in a problem-based learning setting. We then implemented our training in our own academic classrooms by developing a Problem-Based Learning unit meeting the objectives of our Virginia standards-based science curriculum and selecting a topic with tics to our local community. Toward demonstrating that students, teachers, and educational systems stand to benefit from the implementation of this methodology, this article clarifies the following aspects: 1) outlines the problem, scenario, and process of developing a Problem-Based Leaming unit; 2) explains the delivery in the classroom; 3) analyzes ongoing formative and summative assessments; 4) and, discusses the influence on students, teachers, and instruction as a whole.

Volume

15

Issue

1

First Page

19

Last Page

31

Rights

© Virginia Mathematics and Science Coalition, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

DOI

https://doi.org/10.25891/WCGX-9N42

Recommended Citation

Waite, K. and Healy, B. (2015) "New VISTAs in Science Education," Journal of Mathematics and Science: Collaborative Explorations: Vol. 15: No. 1, Article 6.
Available at: https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/jmsce_vamsc/vol15/iss1/6