Many traditional university-level science classes consist of multiple
hours of lecture each week accompanied by a two-hour, hands-on
laboratory session in which participants use high-tech equipment to
explore the world around them. However, this model does not align with
the typical elementary classroom schedule, and thus, it does not
adequately prepare future teachers to be successful at providing
hands-on experiences for their students. A typical elementary teacher
cannot dedicate a two-hour block each week for their students to perform
science experiments, and public schools often cannot afford high-end
science equipment. Thus, there is a disconnect between how universities
are preparing future science teachers and the reality of the day-to-day
elementary classroom. This disconnect can be addressed by restructuring
the college science classroom to more closely mirror the elementary
classroom, not in content but in time format. At Dickinson State
University, science courses for future teachers have been adjusted to
meet one hour a day for five days a week rather than three lectures a
week plus a two-hour lab. This provides the same amount of time to teach
content, but the lab times have been broken into two shorter lab days.
These one-hour lab sessions allow future teachers to experience more
hands-on labs which can be completed in a shorter amount of time, and
they provide those teachers a wealth of classroom activities which can
easily be converted to the elementary classroom. Beyond a shift in time
scheduling, Dickinson State University has also re-organized the
equipment used in these labs. Rather than offering labs using equipment
that will rarely be found in a public school classroom, the labs have
been adjusted to make best use of simplified equipment that is
reproducible by future teachers in their own classrooms. This allows for
direct transferability of skills between the university classroom and
the elementary classroom. While every change in teaching format can pose
its own challenges, these alterations are already producing positive
results. The education majors completing these classes tend to be more
excited about teaching science in their own classrooms, and they are
more comfortable with the hands-on activities that are available to
them. The new format is also providing a richer opportunity for the
college instructors to model correct scientific thinking and
experimental design skills that are specifically applicable to future
elementary classrooms.