Science 101: Learning in a different manner
Introductory science courses — in biology, chemistry, math and physics — can be challenging for first-year college, CEGEP and university students. Science 101 courses can make or break a student’s decision to venture into scientific fields.
“The language, fundamentals and scope of science gateway courses can be akin to a foreign culture,” says Calvin Kalman, principal of Concordia’s Science College and a professor in the Department of Physics. “Students can have great difficulty reading scientific texts — even when they are written in their native language — while also coping with complex knowledge taught by their professor.”
Since 1995, Kalman has investigated new ways to ease this learning curve. It was his late wife, Concordia English professor Judith Kalman, who made a suggestion that led to his current research and the studies they co-authored.
“The main problem in scientific teaching is that its approach is not holistic,” he explains, noting that high school through university-level textbooks aren’t necessarily consistent and don’t employ user-friendly language. “They offer layers of scientific results, coming from competing interpretations, deposited during centuries.”
Kalman’s most recent paper, published in the journal Science & Education, followed 15 college and university students over the course of a semester. He asked that they practise what he calls “reflective writing” — a process where students digest and analyze assigned readings before classroom discussions and pen their thoughts. “It’s a way of getting students to wrestle with, rather than to summarize, materials,” he says.
Students were interviewed three times and asked to describe how reflective writing helped their comprehension of course content. “They felt that they had to put the information into their own words, which really helped them to understand and refine key concepts,” Kalman says. “Reflective writing gets students to initiate a self-dialogue about texts and ask: ‘What do I understand?’ and ‘What do I not understand?’”
Kalman says teaching and learning is most successful when student concepts overlap with their professor’s. “Students are often looking for basics to pass courses, but that doesn’t engage them,” he says. “Unless they come to class prepared to ask questions, students end up serving time.”
Kalman’s solutions aren’t radical. He encourages professors to go beyond PowerPoint presentations and lectures to promote critical thinking among students. Because his research could have implications for other fields, he recently obtained a three-year grant of $139,600 from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
The funding has allowed him to launch collaborations. He is the principal investigator in studies in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver, as well as internationally with peers in Portugal, China and Vietnam. Following a course he delivered at Tra Vinh University last fall, he was asked to supervise a PhD student from Vietnam who will incorporate Kalman’s best teaching practices in his own country. He has similar arrangements with students from China and Egypt.
Improving science education, Kalman says, is the only way that Canada can remain at the forefront of the knowledge-based economy: “If students don’t understand what they’re learning they’ll drop out and we’ll lose ideas as well as people who will move our country forward. What this country needs are people who think critically — who are entrepreneurs — and that begins with how they’re taught.”
Related links:
• Cited study
• Concordia Department of Physics
• Concordia University’s Science College