Friends and family assignments : one strategy for connecting the classroom with the real world

Abstract

This study addressed the following question: "How does facilitating informal explorations with friends and family outside of a science course help students who are enrolled in the course?" The context was a physics course for prospective elementary and middle school teachers. This was a qualitative study that analyzed student responses to homework assignments and interview questions. Three general assertions emerged from analysis of what happened when students shared their science learning with friends and family members. Friends and family assignments: helped students become less afraid of science and more confident in their abilities to learn and teach it, enhanced science learning, and provided experiences that students felt would benefit them in their teaching careers. The six strands put forth by the 2009 National Research Council report, Learning Science in Informal Environments, also provided a framework for analyzing the responses. The responses demonstrated aspects of all six strands. These results suggest that infusing such friends and family assignments into any science course can provide learners with new ways to understand, remember, and use concepts, explanations, and facts related to science.