The Interactive Science Classroom
Grades 4-6
What is Hands-On Science?
Hands-on learning is by no means a new concept in education. However, its definition and our understanding of it has evolved over the years. While one definition of hands on learning is that students are simply engaged in materials and manipulatives, the type of hands-on learning I will look at in this website goes beyond this.
From a holistic, constructivist point of view, hands-on learning is when students are actively participating in building their knowledge. In this type of learning, students are challenged to explore beyond what is given in class and are pushed to use their previous relevant knowledge to construct a new understanding of the concepts.
At its most basic level, hands-on science is when students are "doing something, perhaps manipulating something, rather than just passively hearing or reading about science".
-Comas, 2014
For me, a large part of this learning process is asking my students questions or having them form their own questions. I find that any time I teach a science class or do a demonstration, I start out by asking students questions at every step. Why do you think this is happening? What do you think would happen if I did x? I do this to not only have the students actively thinking about what is happening in front of them, but also to model for them what asking relevant scientific questions looks like. I always find that by doing this, students slowly begin to ask their own questions and to form their own strands of inquiry about the topic.
Indeed, a hands-on activity is not beneficial to students unless it can be extended into a form of inquiry process. If students are passively completing a set of instructions and are not pushed in one way or another to contemplate why something is happening, then the activity has not extended their learning. Like any classroom activity, the experiments and demonstrations I present throughout this website are only as good as their delivery. By shaping the process to suit your students' needs and by generating a format that involves inquiry and deep understanding, your students can truly benefit from hands-on learning.
Indeed, Haury found that when students are exposed to hands-on learning activities, students:
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Remember material better
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Feel accomplished at the end of the task
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Are more engaged because they are part of the process
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Have a better chance of storing the information because they are exposed to more than one way to learn something
So give one of these activities a try and watch your students' curiosity grow!
References:
Flick, Lawrence. "The Meanings of Hands-on Science." Journal of Science Teacher Education4.1 (1993): 1-8. Print.
Haury, David, and Peter Rillero. "Hands-On Approaches to Science Teaching: Questions and Answers from the Field and Research." Office of Educational Research and Improvement1.1 (1992): 1-37. Print.
Huber, Richard, and Christopher Moore. "A Model for Extending Hands-On Science to Be Inquiry Based." School Science and Mathematics 101.1 (2001): 32-42. Print.
McComas, William. "Hands On Science." The Language of Science Education. Rotterdam: Sense, 2014. 45-54. Print.
National Research Council (NRC). 1996. National science education standards. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.