About Dr. Ower
I have been teaching on Team 7B at Wilmette Junior High School since 2006. While teaching is my primary role in education, I have kept myself busy in education's many facets. I have earned my masters and doctorate, I have been a guest speaker at DePaul University on action research in the science classroom, and I presented white papers on the role of science education in socio-scientific issues at UIC. I have participated in the review of science assessment items for ISAT and currently score student responses for the Illinois Science Assessment. I am part of a team of educators and researchers designing NGSS assessments at UIC.
I earned my undergraduate degree in elementary education from Illinois State University. Aside from my education courses, I focused most of my studies in physics, geology, and biology. In 2011, I completed my masters in science education through DePaul University. My masters research focused on how constructivist and inquiry-based curricula and pedagogy affected students' retention and understanding of science concepts. My study found a statistically significant difference in student understanding and retention between students taught using constructivism/inquiry versus traditional lecture/lab methods. Students who are taught using constructivism/inquiry retain science concepts longer, have a better ability to explain these topics, and can better justify their claims regarding these topics.
When I completed my masters, I was asked to stay at DePaul in their curriculum studies doctoral program. My dissertation topic was on the phenomenology of inquiry-based science curricula design and implementation. Researchers have called for detailed accounts of how teachers experience implementing inquiry-based curricula. My study responded to this call and offered recommendations for curriculum developers and school administrators to help ensure the success of new inquiry-based curricula.
Science Education Philosophy
Science education has historically occurred as a transmission of content from teacher to student. This type of learning is often led by the teacher and accompanied by hands-on activities that do not engage students with authentic scientific practices. These activities are called "cookie cutter labs" and are used to confirm what they have already been told. These activities do not afford the students the opportunity to discover knowledge. Students are rarely given the opportunity to ask questions nor are they asked to develop and test their own ideas. Consequently, this teacher-to-student style of science education puts an emphasis on memorizing facts, does not engage students in scientific processes, and ultimately inhibits their opportunity to become scientifically literate.
To develop science literacy, students must participate in and be cognizant of authentic scientific processes that mirror how scientists conduct their work. To ensure this happens, our classroom curriculum is founded in an inquiry framework for learning, is anchored in phenomenon, or observable events in our natural world, and is driven by a storyline. The storyline guides students through making sense of the phenomenon. This process allows students to create, test, revise, and refine models, or explanations, for the phenomena we study. This process of incremental modeling allows students to see the tentative nature of science, make them aware of gaps in their thinking, and generate new questions to further expand their models. The end result is a comprehensive model from which students can produce an argument that supports and refutes claims for the phenomenon based on evidence and key concepts they discovered.
Our 7th grade curriculum familiarizes students with the scientific enterprise, allows them to discover and create knowledge, and engages them in the practices and processes that undergird the field of science. Our students will leave 7th grade with an increased understanding of how science operates as a discipline and an increased understanding of concepts in the earth and life sciences. They will refine their scientific ideas and improve their ability to critically assess and be skeptical of information they encounter in their everyday lives.
I have been teaching on Team 7B at Wilmette Junior High School since 2006. While teaching is my primary role in education, I have kept myself busy in education's many facets. I have earned my masters and doctorate, I have been a guest speaker at DePaul University on action research in the science classroom, and I presented white papers on the role of science education in socio-scientific issues at UIC. I have participated in the review of science assessment items for ISAT and currently score student responses for the Illinois Science Assessment. I am part of a team of educators and researchers designing NGSS assessments at UIC.
I earned my undergraduate degree in elementary education from Illinois State University. Aside from my education courses, I focused most of my studies in physics, geology, and biology. In 2011, I completed my masters in science education through DePaul University. My masters research focused on how constructivist and inquiry-based curricula and pedagogy affected students' retention and understanding of science concepts. My study found a statistically significant difference in student understanding and retention between students taught using constructivism/inquiry versus traditional lecture/lab methods. Students who are taught using constructivism/inquiry retain science concepts longer, have a better ability to explain these topics, and can better justify their claims regarding these topics.
When I completed my masters, I was asked to stay at DePaul in their curriculum studies doctoral program. My dissertation topic was on the phenomenology of inquiry-based science curricula design and implementation. Researchers have called for detailed accounts of how teachers experience implementing inquiry-based curricula. My study responded to this call and offered recommendations for curriculum developers and school administrators to help ensure the success of new inquiry-based curricula.
Science Education Philosophy
Science education has historically occurred as a transmission of content from teacher to student. This type of learning is often led by the teacher and accompanied by hands-on activities that do not engage students with authentic scientific practices. These activities are called "cookie cutter labs" and are used to confirm what they have already been told. These activities do not afford the students the opportunity to discover knowledge. Students are rarely given the opportunity to ask questions nor are they asked to develop and test their own ideas. Consequently, this teacher-to-student style of science education puts an emphasis on memorizing facts, does not engage students in scientific processes, and ultimately inhibits their opportunity to become scientifically literate.
To develop science literacy, students must participate in and be cognizant of authentic scientific processes that mirror how scientists conduct their work. To ensure this happens, our classroom curriculum is founded in an inquiry framework for learning, is anchored in phenomenon, or observable events in our natural world, and is driven by a storyline. The storyline guides students through making sense of the phenomenon. This process allows students to create, test, revise, and refine models, or explanations, for the phenomena we study. This process of incremental modeling allows students to see the tentative nature of science, make them aware of gaps in their thinking, and generate new questions to further expand their models. The end result is a comprehensive model from which students can produce an argument that supports and refutes claims for the phenomenon based on evidence and key concepts they discovered.
Our 7th grade curriculum familiarizes students with the scientific enterprise, allows them to discover and create knowledge, and engages them in the practices and processes that undergird the field of science. Our students will leave 7th grade with an increased understanding of how science operates as a discipline and an increased understanding of concepts in the earth and life sciences. They will refine their scientific ideas and improve their ability to critically assess and be skeptical of information they encounter in their everyday lives.
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