My research has been carefully designed to build towards a coherent understanding of children’s ideas about celestial motion (observable patterns of motion in astronomy explained by the actual motions of the earth, moon and planets) and instruction designed to improve students’ knowledge. In order to provide the necessary coherence to my research, I have adopted a learning progression approach to guide my research (NRC, 2007). Thus, my overall research agenda aims towards describing how instruction can help students grow in sophistication of their ability to understand and apply celestial motion, a big idea which unifies topics of elementary and middle school astronomy. This includes investigating the intersection between students’ knowledge and teachers’ use of instructional strategies as well as examining the planetarium learning environment.
My work in this area began with the two studies I conducted for my dissertation. In the first study, I described children’s knowledge of apparent celestial motion from first to eighth grade (Plummer, 2009a). Based on this, I designed and tested a planetarium program that used kinesthetic learning techniques to help first and second grade students improve their ability to describe the patterns of apparent celestial motion (Plummer, 2009b). To begin constructing a learning progression for celestial motion, I synthesized the results of these two studies to build a set of learning trajectories which describe how children’s understanding develops both with and without instruction (Plummer & Krajcik, in press).
Building in sophistication along the learning progression requires that students begin to use the actual motion of celestial objects to explain what they can observe, such as the earth’s rotation to explain the sun’s east to west daily motion. I have begun development of this aspect with investigations of how instruction that uses students’ own kinesthetic modeling can help third grade students improve their knowledge of celestial motion. I began by testing strategies that would help improve understanding of both apparent and actual celestial motion with a small group of third grade students (Plummer & Slagle, 2009a). In addition, I have examined the extent to which a typical third grade curriculum improves understanding of these topics (Plummer & Slagle, 2009b). This fall I conducted a professional development with the third grade teachers in this same district, focusing on the use of strategies (based on the first study), in order to examine three conditions which will allow us to uncover how these strategies combine to move students along the learning progression: classroom instruction only (focusing on explanations), planetarium instruction only (focusing on apparent celestial motion), and combined classroom plus planetarium instruction.
I have conducted two additional studies to uncover progress in learners’ understanding of celestial motion topics. First, recognizing the importance of training teachers to guide students in astronomy-based inquiry opportunities, I examined inquiry-based investigations conducted by preservice teachers as part of an elementary science methods course as well as how these investigations improved their understanding of celestial motion (Plummer, Zahm, & Rice, accepted). This study highlights the importance of providing more structured guidance on modeling and explaining to reach full understanding of these topics. Second, with Lori Agan, I have found that organizing instruction on the seasons from a local-to-global versus global-to-local perspective does not influence the magnitude of progress in understanding the explanation for seasonal change or their ability to describe the observational patterns associated with seasonal change (Plummer & Agan, NARST 2010). This area of research helps us build towards higher levels of sophistication along the learning progression.
Two additional studies round out the research in which I am currently engaged, these focusing on characteristics of astronomy teachers. First, I have conducted a study of secondary astronomy teachers’ beliefs about teaching and learning (Plummer & Zahm, 2008). The results of this study suggests that additional professional development is needed to move teachers towards adopting attitudes towards how students should be learning about astronomy that better reflect current reform efforts. Second, I am in the process of analyzing interviews with 36 planetarium professionals on their attitudes about teaching and learning in the planetarium environment, categorizing the range of instructional strategies typically used, and characterizing these professionals’ scientific and educational training (Plummer & Small, in progress). Initial results indicate that these professionals highly favor interactive strategies in the planetarium environment over passive programming.
My current research continues to focus on these same themes but I intent to place a greater focus on the intersection of scientific reasoning with the domain of celestial motion at the elementary and middle grades. Songer, Kelsey, and Gotwals (2009) have laid out the argument for integrating content and inquiry reasoning into learning progressions. The difference is in the emphasis on the development of increased sophistication in children’s scientific reasoning abilities in a content area rather than using reasoning as a content delivery method. Schwartz et al. (2009) have begun the processes of elaborating and testing a learning progression for scientific modeling, generalized across multiple domains, which will be of critical importance in understanding elementary and middle school students’ reasoning ability in celestial motion. Very few studies investigate inquiry reasoning in the domain of astronomy supporting the conclusion that this is an under studied area of astronomy education research (Adams & Slater, 2000; Bailey & Slater, 2004; Lelliott & Rollnick, 2009). My previous work has already begun to establish the core content ideas at the focus of my celestial motion learning progression; the next step align inquiry reasoning processes to this content domain, including scientific observation, identifying evidence, constructing arguments, and modeling. In particular, this domain is well suited to developing proficiency in the methods of scientific observation and generating evidence.
References
Adams, J. P., & Slater, T. F. (2000). Astronomy in the national science education standards. Journal of Geoscience Education, 48(1), 39-45.
Bailey, J. M., & Slater, T. (2003). A review of astronomy education research. Astronomy Education Review 2(2), 20-45.
Duschl, R. A., Schweingruber, H. A., & Shouse, A. (Eds.) (2007). Taking science to school: Learning and teaching science in grades K-8. Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press.
Plummer, J.D. (2009a). Early Elementary Students’ Development of Astronomy Concepts in the Planetarium. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 46(2): 192-209.
Plummer, J.D. (2009b). A Cross-Age Study of Children’s Knowledge of Apparent Celestial Motion. International Journal of Science Education, 31(12): 1571-1606.
Plummer, J.D. and Agan, L. (2010). Towards a Learning Progression Addressing the Seasons: A Comparison of Two Learning Trajectories with Middle School Students. Paper to be presented at the annual meeting of the National Association for Research in Science Teaching, Philadelphia, PA.
Plummer, J.D. and Krajcik, J.S. (in press). Building a Learning Progression for Celestial Motion: Elementary Levels from an Earth-Based Perspective. Journal of Research in Science Teaching.
Plummer, J.D. and Slagle, C. (2009a). Children Explaining Celestial Motion: Development of a Learning Progression. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the National Association for Research in Science Teaching, April 20, Garden Grove, CA.
Plummer, J.D. and Slagle, C. (2009a). A Learning Progression Approach to Teacher Professional Development in Astronomy. Paper presented at the Learning Progressions in Science conference, June 24-26, Iowa City, IA.
Plummer, J.D. and Zahm, V. (2008). Astronomy in Middle and High Schools in the Greater Philadelphia Region, Presented at the 3rd Annual Conference of the Math and Science Partnership of Greater Philadelphia, November 15, West Chester, Pennsylvania.
Plummer, J.D., Zahm, V. and Rice, R. (Accepted). Inquiry and Astronomy: Preservice Teachers’ Investigations in Celestial Motion. Journal of Science Teacher Education.
Schwarz, C.V., Reiser, B.J., Davis, E.A., Kenyon, L., Acher, A., Fortus, D., et al. (2009). Developing a learning progression for scientific modeling: Making scientific modeling accessible and meaningful for learners. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 46(6), 632-654.
Songer, N. B., Kelcey, B., & Gotwals, A. W. (2009). How and when does complex reasoning occur? Empirically driven development of a learning progression focused on complex reasoning about biodiversity. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 46(6), 610-631.
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