ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, August 4, 1996 TAG: 9608050075
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOEL TURNER STAFF WRITER
WHY DO VIRGINIA STUDENTS, including the Roanoke and New River valleys', excel on national science tests? Could it be the teachers' new ``hands-on'' approach?
Puppets might be part of the reason that Virginia students score so high in science on national standardized tests, Billie Reid says.
Puppets?
Yes. Children are likely to remember puppet versions of butterflies and other animals longer than they remember a description and picture of them in a book, said Reid, science supervisor for Roanoke County schools.
Reid often takes puppets with her when she talks to elementary classes about science. She said they symbolize the growing ``hands-on'' approach to the teaching of science that is designed to grab children's attention.
``We take children to ponds to study salamanders and other animals. We try to teach them to understand science as it affects their daily life,'' she said.
``With labs and experiments, they can feel, touch and feel things directly. They remember that.''
The new approach is more student-centered and builds on students' curiosity and interest rather than relying on a dry curriculum guide or textbook, said J. Preston Prather, an assistant professor of education at the University of Virginia.
In addition to relying on more field trips and experiments, many science teachers frequently use newspaper stories and television newscasts to teach students about volcanoes, disasters and science issues, he said.
``The traditional approach of a teacher standing at a desk, lecturing and telling the students what they ought to know, is changing,'' Prather said.
``Now teachers give students wires, batteries and bulbs if they are studying electricity, for example, and ask them to see if they make a light.''
Prather is co-director of a project at UVa that helps teachers learn how to design projects that convey scientific concepts.
The new approach seems to be working.
New test results show that Virginia's students do better in science than any other subject on national standardized exams for the fourth, eighth and 11th grades. They do poorest in vocabulary and reading, based on results released recently by the state Department of Education.
The state's fourth-graders have a national percentile rank of 71 in science, meaning that the pupils' average score was higher than those of 71 out of 100 children in the national sample. The national average is the 50th percentile.
Virginia's eighth-graders ranked at the 62nd percentile in science, and the average score of 11th-graders was the 66th percentile.
The good showing this year continues the state's trend of consistently scoring highly in science.
Most school systems in the Roanoke and New River valleys did even better this year than most of their peers in Virginia: They ranked above the state's average in one or more of the grades tested.
Four school systems scored above the state average in science for all three grades that were tested: Radford, Salem, Montgomery County and Roanoke County.
Six ranked above the state average in one or two grades: Botetourt, Craig, Floyd, Franklin, Giles and Pulaski counties.
Roanoke County recorded the highest single rating, the 80th percentile for fourth-graders, followed closely by Radford and Salem, both at the 78th percentile.
Reid said Roanoke County's teachers try to help the children understand scientific principles and become comfortable with the subject before requiring them to learn all of the terminology.
``Children are naturally curious about science, and you build on that curiosity with things they can see and touch,'' she said.
Vella Wright, director of research and testing for Roanoke schools, said students tend to remember what they learn in science experiments and labs better than what they read in subjects such as English and social studies.
``Generally speaking, students like science and labs. Any time you can see and touch something, you are more likely to understand it,'' Wright said. ``Science as a subject is more memorable than some other subjects.''
She thinks local and regional science fairs also tend to foster students' interest in science and help boost test scores.
Prather said elementary and high school science teachers are getting better as they become more confident in new instructional approaches geared to the background and interests of students.
In the traditional approach, teachers relied mainly on textbooks and preconceived curricula that had no relation to students' interests, he said. The idea was to shape students to the curriculum.
Now teachers assess the attitudes and background of students, then adapt the instruction to them, Prather said. They check the curricula guides and standards of learning to see if they have overlooked anything in a course, but they don't blindly adhere to them, he said.
``With the new approaches, teachers are reaching about 80 percent of the students,'' Prather said. ``Under the traditional approach, they might have reached 20 percent.''
At UVa and several other universities in the state, public school science teachers have been taught the new approaches. They in turn have conducted workshops for colleagues in their localities.
Prather said this has improved the teaching of science throughout Virginia and helps account for the improved performance of state students on the standardized tests.
``They are running for the goal,'' he said, "and they are getting there, for the most part."
LENGTH: Long : 105 lines ILLUSTRATION: GRAPHIC: Chart by staff: National percentile ranks. KEYWORDS: MGRby CNB