Funds of Science Knowledge
When students encounter new science content in academic settings, these encounters are mediated through knowledge that they have collected through a lifetime of prior experiences with people, places, and texts. In other words, students do not arrive in our classrooms as “blank slates” with “zero balances” in their intellectual bank accounts; rather, they possess highly personal, and sometimes vast, scientific ‘funds of knowledge’ in the form of meteorological, geographical, biological, and ecological concepts formed through day- to-day living in particular places and times.
The DR funds of knowledge research program set out to identify and value typically unrecognized cultural and cognitive capital harbored by Dominican American students in order to generate knowledge for the production of culturally-relevant science curricula and enhance science teacher professional development. A simple principal has guided the program: science educators can leverage Dominican American students’ funds of science knowledge by rigorously investigating their student’s currently held scientific beliefs, values, and knowledge, and how their life experiences in the DR and local communities have shaped them. This work has produced findings that “provide a first step in building a resource bank that can be used to build curricula that more explicitly connect students’ lived experiences with school science topics.” (Barba and Reynolds, 2003). We have learned, for instance, that Dominican American students, from their frequent travels to the DR have intimate knowledge of, and exposure to cows, plantains, and palm trees, three organisms that are not readily observed in New York City. Our hope is that such knowledge paves the way for teachers becoming more informed in their choices of topics and examples connected to scientific ideas.
The crucial task of investigating students’ funds of knowledge should not be left to university-based researchers and science educators surveying large and distant student populations. While Dominican-American students may share certain life experiences, there is a danger in assuming that they hold uniform perspectives on the scientific world. One could argue that the teachersworking directly with Dominican-American students are in the best position to unearth both the shared and highly individualized aspects of students’ knowledge funds, and then to build instructional experiences based on a sophisticated understanding of what their students know about scientific phenomena.
The DR Project Funds of Knowledge Survey
One method of investigating students’ funds of science knowledge is to use and expand upon the survey developed by the DR Science Project (see Appendix in PDF). While the data that have been collected thus far have unearthed helpful information regarding Dominican-American students’ perspectives on the scientific world, the benefits of 7-12 science teachers administering the survey may include: (a) increasing the reliability and generalizability of the study by expanding the sample size; (b) delivering data directly into the hands of those in the optimal position to make use of it in the science classroom; and (c) revising the survey to include questions that inform instruction on topics that may have been overlooked in the current survey.
Anticipation Guides and Funds of Knowledge
An Anticipation Guide is another powerful tool for mining student’s funds of knowledge related to science or any other knowledge domain. It consists of two basic activities: (a) Before a unit of study, students present and discuss the origins of their beliefs and knowledge regarding central topics, concepts, or issues related to the subject matter; (b) After a unit of study in which they encounter new information, students reflect upon and reexamine their beliefs and knowledge regarding central topics, concepts or issues related to the subject matter. In addition to helping teachers know what their student’s know as a starting point for curriculum design and instruction, Anticipation Guides directly benefit students by initiating two intellectual processes that are central to successful learning of academic content: activation of prior knowledge and meta- cognition (thinking about one’s thinking).
Steps for Designing and Implementing an Anticipation Guide include: (1). Identify key information, concepts or issues that students will encounter in a unit of scientific study; (2). Create a short list of statements that present a perspective on the target information, concepts or issues. It is helpful to include statements that you anticipate are consistent with student’s beliefs or experiences and others that you anticipate will contradict their beliefs or experiences (see Duffelmeyer, 1994 for additional information); (3). List the statements on a handout or display and provide a space for students to indicate whether they agree or disagree with the statement; (4). Facilitate whole or small group discussions in which students share their responses and their justifications for them; (5). Review student responses to the Anticipation Guide and collect resources (e.g., from www.DRScience.org ) and plan instruction informed by what students “know” about the topic; (6). After students have participated in instructional activities related to the topic, ask them to evaluate, reassert, and/or change their original responses and locate specific evidence in the unit resources that supports their current perspectives; and finally (7). Facilitate a second whole-class or small group discussion in which students share their responses and their evidence-based conclusions. We provide one simple example of an anticipation guide below.
Sample Anticipation Guide for Earthquake Study
| Part 1: What do you think? | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Directions: Before we begin our unit on Earthquakes, read each statement in Part 1. If you believe that a statement is true, place a checkmark in the Agree column. If you believe that a statement is false, place a checkmark in the Disagree column. Be sure to explain your answer. | |||
| Statement | Agree | Disagree | Why? |
| 1. Earthquakes occur more frequently in New York City than the Dominican Republic (DR). | |||
| 2. One reason that earthquakes occur frequently in the DR is because it is very hot there. | |||
| 3. The surface of the earth is fractured much like a cracked eggshell. | |||
| 4. Earthquakes occur mostly on land. | |||
| 5. Every day there are earthquakes occurring on Earth. | |||
| 6. Geologists study earthquakes by traveling deep within the Earth’s core. | |||
Post-instruction Anticipation Guide
| Part 2: What do you think now? |
|---|
| Directions: Now that you have read, heard, and seen more about earthquakes, review your responses to Part I of the anticipation guide. If you still believe that a statement is true after what you have learned about earthquakes, place a checkmark in the Agree column. If you still believe that a statement is false, place a checkmark in the Disagree column. In the "Textual Support" column, note evidence from the materials that support or refute your original ideas. |