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...that the conditions that fostered the implementation of CTL strategies were a collaborative interaction with students, a high level of activity in the lesson, a connection to real-world contexts, and an integration of science content with other content and skill areas. Furthermore, the CTL strategies were best implemented when teachers used them in conjunction with sound classroom management techniques.
Contextual Teaching and Learning of Science in Elementary Schools
One of the major goals of recent reform efforts in science education has been to ensure that various instructional approaches shared with teachers during inservice teacher enhancement are relevant to the challenges that actually confront them in their daily teaching practice (Meijer, Zanting, & Verloop, 2002). Our purpose in this article is to report findings on an innovative approach that is having a significant impact on the teaching of science in elementary schools.
For ten years now, the National Science Education Standards (National Research Council, 1996) have provided a vision for science education reform. The standards have helped teachers plan lessons, teach effectively, assess validly, and refine their knowledge and skills continually. Since 1998, the University of Georgia (UGA) has participated in a federally supported project to design a model program for the continued professional development of elementary school teachers. In its present form, the program reflects the significant influences of the standards, the Pathways to the Science Education Standards--Elementary School Education Edition (Lowery, 1997), and an innovative instructional approach called Contextual Teaching and Learning (Johnson, 2002; Sears, 2002; Sears & Hersh, 2000).
Contextual Teaching and Learning (CTL) is based on situated cognition research (Cobb & Bowers, 1999; Kumar & Voldrich, 1994) which has found that constructivist processes such as critical thinking, inquiry learning, and problem solving should be situated in relevant physical, intellectual, and social contexts (Brown, 2000; Cavallo, Miller, & Saunders, 2002; Downing & Gifford, 1996; Driver, Asoko, Leach, Mortimer, & Scott, 1994; Glynn & Duit, 1995). CTL is consistent with a constructivist approach for the teaching of science in elementary schools (Bentley, Ebert, & Ebert, 2000). The CTL approach anchors teaching and learning in students' diverse life contexts and prepares students for learning in the complex environments they will encounter in their future careers.
CTL is a grassroots initiative that has emerged from teachers' efforts to build upon situated-cognition research and integrate into one approach a number of validated strategies that are too often employed independently of one another. As implemented in the UGA program for teaching science in elementary schools, these CTL strategies include (1) inquiry learning, (2) problem-based learning, (3) cooperative learning, (4) project-based learning, and (5) authentic assessment. These strategies are described in detail in Table 1. In order for these component CTL strategies to be used effectively, they should be used with other commonly accepted good teaching practices such as promoting self-regulated learning and addressing student diversity when teaching (Chiappetta & Koballa, 2002; Loucks-Horsley, Lovle, Stiles, Mundry, & Hewson, 2003).
CTL is a constructivist approach to learning in that it focuses on knowledge that is highly contextualized and relevant to students (Driver et al., 1994; Johnson, 2002; Morrell, 2003). CTL emphasizes using concepts and process skills in real-world contexts that are relevant to students from diverse backgrounds. This approach "motivates students to make connections between knowledge and its applications to their lives as family members, citizens, and workers and to engage in the hard work that learning requires" (Sears & Hersh, 2000, p. 4).
CTL is not a cookbook approach to teaching science. Instead, its component strategies provide a set of integrated tools that elementary school teachers can use to instruct effectively and to address controversial yet fundamentally important issues that may be raised in their classrooms--issues such as the origin of the earth, the evolution of life, and animal rights, to name only a few (Tippins, Koballa, & Payne, 2002).
The purpose of the present study was to gain insight into the conditions that facilitate and hinder the implementation of CTL when teaching science to children from diverse backgrounds. Accordingly, case studies were conducted of 21 elementary school teachers in their classrooms, following up their two-week, full-time participation in a summer CTL graduate-level workshop.
Method
We are two university researchers who are studying elementary school teachers in connection with a CTL implementation project supported by the U.S. Department of Education. We each have been facilitating teacher professional development for more than 20 years. We recognize that society is constantly changing and, consequently, so is the nature of teaching and learning. Accordingly, we welcomed the vision for reform that the standards offered us and adopted the CTL strategies as a relevant means of implementing the standards when teaching science in elementary schools.
The 21 inservice elementary school teachers included 20 women and one male. Four of the women were African American, and one was Hispanic/Latino; the other teachers were Anglo American. They ranged in age from 22 to 48 years old (M = 32.1 years; SD = 6.7) and in teaching experience from one year to 27 years (M = 8.3; SD = 5.2). All of the teachers had bachelor's degrees; in addition, four had master's degrees and one had a doctorate. All of the participating teachers earned the professional development credits necessary to retain...
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