About Mr. Ower
I have been teaching on Team 7B since 2006. During that time I have taught over 1,000 students, I have earned my masters degree, I am on the precipice of earning my doctorate, I have been a guest speaker at DePaul University on action research in the science classroom, I have participated in the review of science items for the ISAT, and review science curricula for the Illinois State Board of Education.
I earned my undergraduate degree in elementary education from Illinois State University. Aside from my education courses, I focused most of my studies in physics, geology, and biology. In 2009, I began working on my masters in science education through DePaul University. My research at DePaul focused on how constructivist and inquiry-based curricula and pedagogy affected students' retention and understanding of science concepts. My study found a statistically significant difference in student understanding and retention between students taught using constructivism/inquiry and traditional lecture/lab methods. Students who are taught using constructivism/inquiry retain science concepts longer, have a better ability to explain these topics, and can better justify their claims regarding these topics.
When I completed my masters, I was asked to stay at DePaul in their curriculum studies doctoral program. I am nearly done with the program, having only the dissertation left to complete. My dissertation topic is on the phenomenology of inquiry-based science curricula design and implementation. This topic is born out of my own experience in designing such curricula and implementing it in my classroom. Too often research in this area focuses on quantitative aspects, the struggles encountered, and reasons why science teachers are using traditional methods over inquiry methods. Absent from this is the meaning teachers make and experience in using inquiry-based curricula. Coming to know these meanings with my research participants is the crux of my doctoral work.
Science Education Philosophy
Science education has historically focused on the transmission of content from the teacher to the student. This scholar-academic approach is often accompanied by hands-on activities that do not engage students with authentic scientific practices. Rather than design an investigation or discuss the strengths and weaknesses of a given methodology, students participate in cookie cutter labs that merely support what they have already been told. This practice does not engage students in scientific processes and inhibits their opportunity to become scientifically literate.
With an increased demand for STEM graduates, it is important that elementary teachers lay the foundation of what will become a lifelong love of science. Teaching students through primarily "unscientific" pedagogies will not help in this endeavor. To truly engage with science, students must participate in authentic scientific processes. Our classroom curriculum is founded in an inquiry framework for learning. Students engage with ideas through exploration, investigate these ideas with experimentation, and apply their learned knowledge to relevant and new situations. Concluding each investigation, students must make claims of what they learned and undergird their claims with evidence collected during the investigations. This method connects students with scientific processes and reflects what happens in the scientific community.
Our investigations are designed to increase students' abilities to design fair experiments, develop observation skills, improve communication of findings (e.g. scientific drawings, data tables, and charts), and identify weaknesses within experiment design and results. Definitions and facts are not the priority of our investigations. Rather, our studies are designed to connect students with major concepts in a given topic. For example, in our Exploring Plate Tectonics unit, students conduct investigations into understanding how the process of convection explains the movement of earth's plates and subsequent geologic events (e.g. volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, and tsunamis). These multi-lesson investigations last several weeks and result in students having a strong understanding of the underlying concepts that are applicable to several scientific disciplines.
I have been teaching on Team 7B since 2006. During that time I have taught over 1,000 students, I have earned my masters degree, I am on the precipice of earning my doctorate, I have been a guest speaker at DePaul University on action research in the science classroom, I have participated in the review of science items for the ISAT, and review science curricula for the Illinois State Board of Education.
I earned my undergraduate degree in elementary education from Illinois State University. Aside from my education courses, I focused most of my studies in physics, geology, and biology. In 2009, I began working on my masters in science education through DePaul University. My research at DePaul focused on how constructivist and inquiry-based curricula and pedagogy affected students' retention and understanding of science concepts. My study found a statistically significant difference in student understanding and retention between students taught using constructivism/inquiry and traditional lecture/lab methods. Students who are taught using constructivism/inquiry retain science concepts longer, have a better ability to explain these topics, and can better justify their claims regarding these topics.
When I completed my masters, I was asked to stay at DePaul in their curriculum studies doctoral program. I am nearly done with the program, having only the dissertation left to complete. My dissertation topic is on the phenomenology of inquiry-based science curricula design and implementation. This topic is born out of my own experience in designing such curricula and implementing it in my classroom. Too often research in this area focuses on quantitative aspects, the struggles encountered, and reasons why science teachers are using traditional methods over inquiry methods. Absent from this is the meaning teachers make and experience in using inquiry-based curricula. Coming to know these meanings with my research participants is the crux of my doctoral work.
Science Education Philosophy
Science education has historically focused on the transmission of content from the teacher to the student. This scholar-academic approach is often accompanied by hands-on activities that do not engage students with authentic scientific practices. Rather than design an investigation or discuss the strengths and weaknesses of a given methodology, students participate in cookie cutter labs that merely support what they have already been told. This practice does not engage students in scientific processes and inhibits their opportunity to become scientifically literate.
With an increased demand for STEM graduates, it is important that elementary teachers lay the foundation of what will become a lifelong love of science. Teaching students through primarily "unscientific" pedagogies will not help in this endeavor. To truly engage with science, students must participate in authentic scientific processes. Our classroom curriculum is founded in an inquiry framework for learning. Students engage with ideas through exploration, investigate these ideas with experimentation, and apply their learned knowledge to relevant and new situations. Concluding each investigation, students must make claims of what they learned and undergird their claims with evidence collected during the investigations. This method connects students with scientific processes and reflects what happens in the scientific community.
Our investigations are designed to increase students' abilities to design fair experiments, develop observation skills, improve communication of findings (e.g. scientific drawings, data tables, and charts), and identify weaknesses within experiment design and results. Definitions and facts are not the priority of our investigations. Rather, our studies are designed to connect students with major concepts in a given topic. For example, in our Exploring Plate Tectonics unit, students conduct investigations into understanding how the process of convection explains the movement of earth's plates and subsequent geologic events (e.g. volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, and tsunamis). These multi-lesson investigations last several weeks and result in students having a strong understanding of the underlying concepts that are applicable to several scientific disciplines.
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