Four Good Science Teaching Strategies & How to Use Them

Larry Ferlazzo is an English and social studies teacher at Luther Burbank High School in Sacramento, Calif.

The new question-of-the-week is:

What is the single most effective instructional strategy you have used to teach science?

In Part One , Frank Dill, Cheryl Matas, and Fred Chapel shared their science favorites.

Today, John Almarode, Ph.D., Paul Lennihan, and Anthony Nesbit contribute their recommendations.

‘Student Talk’

The answer is student talk. Getting my learners to talk through concepts, practices, and understandings had the greatest impact on their science learning. Not laboratories, demonstrations, worksheets, or movies. Fostering and nurturing opportunities for learners to talk about the different types of chemical reactions and the role of a catalyst in those reactions allowed my high school chemistry students to make their thinking visible and get immediate feedback from their peers.

In high school physics, critical conversations allowed my learners to deeply think about the physical principles involved in a problem, the different approaches to solving that problem, and then making meaning of the solution within the context of scientific phenomena. This is not simply a hunch. Year after year, my learners and I documented the greatest gains in their learning as a result of student talk. At James Madison University, this is still a key component of my teaching in the College of Education.

The impact I experience with student talk is consistent with the research on what works best in teaching and learning. John Hattie (2020) found that classroom discussion has an average effect size of 0.82, nearly doubling the rate of learning. There are three elements of student talk that make this instructional strategy so powerful:

• The science of how we learn. Student talk blends key elements of the science of how we learn. From elaborate encoding, retrieval practice, and feedback, students’ talking about their learning increases the acquisition, consolidation, and transfer of learning.
  
• Versatility. Student talk can be embedded in so many different approaches to teaching and learning science. From summarizing to think-pair-share to Jigsaws, we can integrate student talk into any other instructional strategy. Yes, some may identify a Jigsaw as their single most effect instructional strategy. However, student talk is what makes the strategy so effective.
  
• Finally, engagement. To effectively and efficiently talk about concepts, practices, and understandings, learners must activate prior knowledge, articulate connections between concepts, and apply their thinking to understand their peers’ thinking. This serve and receive aspect of student talk increases learners’ engagement.

There is one aspect to the effectiveness of student talk that cannot be left unsaid: implementation. As with any instructional strategy, implementation drives the effectiveness. A better way to put this is, student talk has the potential to be the most effective instructional strategy.

How student talk is implemented in my classroom ultimately determines the effectiveness on student learning. Over the years, trial and error has been the theme for my teaching. I am purposeful about the use of student talk, but there are times when the evidence of learning suggests that the implementation needed adjusting (e.g., learners sat in silence, conversations were superficial or off topic, dialogue focused on irrelevant details).

This evidence suggested that additional scaffolding or support was needed for learners to engage in talking, dialoguing, or critical conversations around scientific phenomena. Maybe learners needed additional support in academic vocabulary, the tools needed for student talk. Some learners needed question stems or sentence starters to activate their background knowledge and structure their dialogue. And, quite possibly, additional instruction was needed to build enough background knowledge to engage in critical conversations.

Over the years, I have found that the principle of gradual release (see Fisher & Frey, 2013) builds the capacity and confidence in learners to step out; talk about science concepts, practices, and understandings; and give and receive feedback from their peers. Having clear expectations, teacher modeling, and structures for supporting student talk provides the scaffolding and support early on. Over time, these scaffolds and supports can be removed as learners integrate talk, dialogue, and critical conversations into their science learning.

Fisher, D., & Frey, N. (2013). Better learning through structured teaching. A framework for the gradual release of responsibility (2 nd ed.). Alexandria, VA: ASCD.