Let's Take A Closer Look at the Box Diagram

I am going to approach this idea several times, from different directions. Please bear with me as I go through the introduction.

My experience is that it takes students, and teachers, several attempts to "get" this idea, so be prepared for a spiral curriculum experience. It might appear to be a little repetitious, but stick with it. Your students will thank you.

The first thing to note is that the student "progresses" through five stages. It might be more appropriate to say that the student considers five kinds of actions.

One of the purposes of the "box" is to arrange aspects of these actions so that they are adjacent. In history, and in rhetoric, they would not appear to be so obviously related.

 Now pay attention to the coloured bars in the diagram. Boxes 2 and 5 are tied together by a magenta bar labelled "theory - thinking." Boxes 2 and 5 are theoretical in their intention: they deal with scientists' representations of nature. As such, the first row is theoretical.
Box 2 is concerned with concepts and theories. This is the place where the student works to make representations of her thoughts about her focus question. Box 5 is the place where the student makes representations of theoretical implications of her findings.

The yellow bar that connects boxes 3 and 4 indicate the methodological emphasis of those phases in the investigation. These boxes are about doing things. They are concerned with method, its design, its instrumentality, its effectiveness, its limits.

Now note the cyan-coloured vertical connecting boxes 2 and 3. These boxes are concerned with model-building. In box 2, the student-scientist considers possible theoretical models that might be brought to bear upon the focus question. In box 3, the student-scientist considers how to hive off a little bit of nature, so as to construct a methodological model that could test the student-scientist's theoretical model of the situation.

The magenta analysis bar connects boxes 4 and 5. In box 4, the student-scientist makes representations of the records. Note that the term records indicates a much broader collection of data than "observations." This would include video, audio, and transducer records of nearly infinite variety. Box 4 also includes all attempts to methodically transform the records. This could be as simple as constructing an ordered table of records, or as complex as computationally modifying a photograph of a supernova. In any case, the student-scientist understands that she is methodically making records of data relevant to the focus question, and transforming  that data into relevant structures. This is methodical analysis.

In box 5, the student-scientist attempts to analyze the theoretical implications of all that has preceded.

OK. Is this just more government-funded BS from OISE? Or does this actually apply to real situations?

First disclaimer: I have not received a dime of government money.
Second disclaimer: OISE will not allow me into their elevators.
Third disclaimer. This isn't BS.

In seven days, I will be back with two lines of evidence.

First line: many articles published in scientific journals apparently reflect this structure.
Second line: many students have provided me with convincing examples of this kind of work.

Our Epistemological Assumption... Don't Be Afraid!

e·pis·te·mol·o·gy

  [ih-pis-tuh-mol-uh-jee]

noun

a branch of philosophy that investigates the origin, nature, methods, and limits of human knowledge.

The form that science takes in the classroom reflects the epistemological assumptions of the teacher. For example, the "purpose - equipment - method - observations - conclusions" structure that has prevailed for the last century makes some huge assumptions. Some examples...

• Knowledge is "out there" just waiting to be "discovered."
• We can "discover" that knowledge simply by "observing nature" in a disciplined way.
• The learner has all of the other mental equipment required to "discover" knowledge.

Contrary to that model of science, may I propose another model? My colleagues and I have found this model much more plausible, and much more fruitful, both for us as teachers, and for the teenagers who are trying to learn.

"Science is not the study of nature.
Science is the study of human representations of nature." 

Let's consider Max Planck, for example. Planck had worked out a representation of light as a quantum with energy related to frequency. As a result, scientists all over the world were studying this representation: is this a good representation? can it be true in all cases? does it have a more complex structure? does it need adjusting? Note that the scientists are twiddling the representation, and then testing the representation against experimental evidence.

Consider Niels Bohr: the act of actually observing the hydrogen spectrum was trivial. But now, Bohr was able to represent the hydrogen spectrum as a quantum structure. Perhaps he could represent the atom as a quantum structure, since they were related. Bohr re-represented the planetary model of the atom with quantum concepts, and modified the representation of the hydrogen atom. Note that he did not "discover" the Bohr atom. He created it.

We can involve students in the very heart of science by having them make representations of nature, test their representations of nature, and refine their representations. As they become familiar with this method, they become less afraid, more confident. As learners, all they have to do is refine their representations. It's not that different from refining their drawings of a horse or a car.

How Can We Teach High School Students to Do Real Science?

First Light.

Of three centuries' experience of science education, one of the science teacher's enduring difficulties is the problem of teaching students "what science is."
Francis Bacon's description of a "method of science" became a prescription in science texts. Every teacher has since found that it violates the very essence of science at some point.
When education leaders emphasize one key aspect of science, such the importance of "controls," we find that all of the experiments look like industrial quality control measurements.
Yet if we simply leave the students to "discover" science, we find that most students cannot articulate anything more than the most rudimentary patterns.
So... year after year, we see our weakest students trying to "discover" how to please the teacher, the middle students trying to "game the system", and our strongest students frustrated by the artificiality of the educational enterprise.
The Ross Box Diagram is a simple heuristic with great depth. In the pages to follow, I will describe each part of the Ross Box Diagram, and work with any questions that interested respondents might raise.

So.. Post away, and form whatever circles and associations you can to keep the questions alive.