Developing Graphing Skills in Seventh Grade Biology AN
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View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Lebanese American University Repository Running head: Developing Graphing Skills in Seventh Grade Biology AN INQUIRY-BASED MODELING APPROACH TO DEVELOPING GRAPHING SKILLS IN SEVENTH GRADE BIOLOGY A Project Presented to the Faculty of the Division of Education and Social Sciences In Partial Fulfillment ofthe Requirements for the Degree of Masters of Arts in Education Emphasis: General Professional Development Track by Diana Bou Hamdan Under the Direction of Dr. Tamer Amin LEBANESE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY June, 2010 Developing Graphing Skills in Seventh Grade Biology ~ LAU L E 8 A N ESE A M E AI CAN U N I V E R SIT Y ;: -: 'ft..o~I<:':;":UI":::"':OI School of Arts & Sciences - Beirut Campus lebanese American University Project Approval Form Student Name: Diana Bou-Hamdan .... 1.0. #: 200801064 Project Title : An Inquiry-based Modeling Approach to Developing Graphing Skills in Seventh Grade Biology Program I Department: Education ___________________ School: Arts & Sciences, Beirut Approved by: Project Advisor: Tamer G. Amin Committee Member: -'I~m'!!a!!!n~Os~ta!!_ ___ /-L...---------- nd Date: June 2 • 2010 Developing Graphing Skills in Seventh Grade Biology 2 Plagiarism Policy Compliance Statement I certify that I have read and understood LAU's Plagiarism Policy. I understand that failure to comply with this Policy can lead to academic and disciplinary actions against me. This work is substantially my own, and to the extent that any part of this work is not my own I have indicated that by acknowledging its sources. Name: Diana K. Bou I· mdan Signature: Date: June, 2010 Developing Graphing Skills in Seventh Grade Biology 3 I grant to the LEBANESE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY the right to use this work, irrespective of any copyright for the University's own purpose without cost to the University or to its students and employees. r further agree that the university may reproduce and provide single copies of the work to the public for the cost of reproduction. Developing Graphing Skills in Seventh Grade Biology iii Acknowledgement I would like to acknowledge my supervisor, Dr. Tamer Amin, whose expertise, patience and knowledge added significantly to my graduate experience. I would also like to acknowledge my committee member, Dr. Iman Osla, for her comments and for her time. Finally I would like to thank my family for their support and encouragement. Developing Graphing Skills in Seventh Grade Biology iv Table of contents TIlE PROJECT REPORT ............................................................................... 1 Context of the Project .................................................................................... 1 Purpose of the Project .................................................................................... 1 Rationale and Significance .............................................................................. .2 Literature Review ..........................................................................................3 Problems students face with graphing ............................................................. .4 Problems noted by teachers in the Lebanese context ......................................5 The Lebanese curriculum and graphing .....................................................6 Teaching methods used in the Lebanese school ............................................7 A new approach to teaching graphing through scientific modeling: An inquiry-based modeling approach .................................................................................... 8 Inquiry-based instruction ....................................................................... 8 Modeling and metamodeling knowledge .....................................................9 Coupling modeling and inquiry-based instruction in science ..................................... .1 0 Modeling focusing on graphing ........................................................................ .12 The teacher's role ......................................................................................................... 15 Pilot Study and Expected Benefits .............................................................................................. 17 Plan for pilot study ................................................................................................................. 17 Findings and expected benefits .............................................................................................. 18 THE UNIT PLAN .......................................................................................... 21 The Original Unit in the Lebanese Curriculum ..........................................................21 Description of the Unit .....................................................................................22 Unit Lesson Plans ...........................................................................................27 REFERENCES ............................................................................................. .50 Developing Graphing Skills in Seventh Grade Biology v Abstract Modeling is a major aspect of science, and graphing is an abstract form of modeling that is widely used in education. One of the teaching approaches that can be implemented in a science classroom to improve students' graphing skills is the Inquiry-Based Modeling Approach (IBMA). The purpose of the project was to redesign a biology unit adopting IBMA and aiming to improve grade 1 students' graphing skills. The unit was redesigned based on Lehrer's data display construct. This project was executed in the Lebanese context where there is inadequate emphasis on developing graphing skills. In such a context where memorizing the content is the major emphasis, students face many problems with graph construction and interpretation. A pilot study was conducted on three grade 1 students to examine the feasibility of the redesigned unit. The students were pre-tested and post-tested and the results were compared. Comparing the tests' results showed that grade 1 students' graphing skills improved and that they were able to appreciate the value of graphs more after the unit implementation. Keywords: modeling, graphing, inquiry, data display. Developing Graphing Skills in Seventh Grade Biology 1 THE PROJECT REPORT Context of the Project The present project was executed in the Lebanese context. Although the general objectives of the Lebanese science curriculum state that students should investigate and discover knowledge for themselves, in Lebanese classrooms students are mostly treated as passive learners. Moreover, the Lebanese science curriculum focuses on content, with inadequate emphasis on developing various scientific skills such as modeling. Modeling is a fundamental aspect of science; therefore seience edueators should enhance students' ability to construct and interpret models as a major objective of science and math education. Scientific models include different forms, one of which is graphs that are of great use in mathematics and science. Graphing is a method by which people represent relationships between variables and then use those representations to draw conclusions about the relationships. However, in the Lebanese curriculum graphs are represented as minor activities, and the focus is on content knowledge rather than graphing as a tool for scientific investigations and for developing various scientific process skills. Purpose of the Project The purpose of this project has two components. The first component is to redesign a biology unit adopting inquiry-based modeling approach (IBMA) aiming to improve grade 7 students' graphing skills, focusing in particular on graph construction and interpretation. The second component is to pilot the feasibility of the redesigned unit. The pilot study was conducted with three grade 7 students who were pre- and post-tested, and then interviewed. The tests and the interviews provide information about the viability, applicability and effectiveness of the redesigned unit. Developing Graphing Skills in Seventh Grade Biology 2 Rationale and Significance of the Project Redesigning a biology unit is of value since students face various types of problems with modeling, particularly graphing. Learners show various systematic errors in constructing and interpreting graphs. Those errors tend to mislead them when drawing conclusions in different subjcet areas. At the level of interpreting graphs, errors are due to inherent biases and limitations ofindividual's perception (Shah & Hoeffiter, 2001). Forinstance, some students tend to group a set of points in a line graph rather than thinking of other possible ways of grouping such as a bar graph. For this purpose a student is required to understand different forms and uses of graphs. Moreover learners typically depend on appearance to interpret graphs without appreciating that graphs are models that represent data more abstractly. At the level of constructing and performing operations with graphs, students face great difficulties in certain areas such as reading and selecting points. That is, learners have difficulty reading points on the graph especially in the absence of some numbers on the axes, when the point fulls betwccn gridlines, or in the absence of the gridlines (Forster, 2002). IBMA was selected as an approach to redesign a grade 7 biology unit since the process of modeling is critical in science. When including modeling in inquiry-based instruction, learners