New Perspectives in Science Education

Today’s science teachers are challenged with immersing their students in the practices of science inquiry, while also using technology as a learning and organizational tool. Researchers and practitioners need instruments to identify and describe applications of technology that support and even transform instruction. Classroom observation protocols provide critical tools for examining impacts on student learning. However, of 11 existing English-language technology-based protocols, most either only acknowledge the presence of technology or describe it in broad terms. Just five of the 11 address the integration of technology with key pedagogical practices, and none of these consider alignment of technology implementation with specific attributes of science classrooms, such as the pursuit of authentic science questions. Building from a foundational framework, we developed, piloted and validated an observation protocol that captures the quality of technology use to support science inquiry in secondary schools. We conducted four iterative rounds of testing, which included 68 observations in 26 high school science classrooms across seven states in the U.S. The resulting protocol focuses on the integration of technology into (1) science and engineering practices (from the U.S. Next Generation Science Standards); (2) student-centered teaching (with students accountable for their own learning), and (3) contextualization (grounded in local geographic context, focused on real problems and solutions, and connected to the work of science professionals). The protocol couples numeric codes with written descriptions of evidence of the teachers’ intentions, actions and reflection, and then synthesizes these into a multi-dimensional measure of quality. Overall, our observation protocol fills an important gap in understanding technology’s role in supporting science inquiry in schools. It can serve as an instrument for researching applications of technology that enhance science instruction, and can also be used as an evaluative tool by coaches and teachers to reflect and improve technology integration in the context of science inquiry.

Keywords: Classroom observation protocol, science inquiry; technology;