Shifting from Activitymania

"Activitymania" was defined in Shifting from Activitymania as "an approach to teaching elementary science that involves a collection of prepackaged, hour-long (or less), hands-on activities that are often disconnected from each other" (14). This spoke so much to my own experience in elementary school science class: a menagerie of engaging, fast-paced, but ultimately meaningless activities tied specially designed to teach the science concepts on the curriculum. We learned every fact for the brief time it was relevant in class, and then out the window those concepts went.

The idea that the actual activity aspect of this activitymania isn't so terrible, but that the ideology behind it is backwards, is what engaged me as I read this essay. Working as a camp counselor for the past few years, we usually focused on one thing when teaching science to our groups: stimulation. Basically, our focus was keeping the kids busy and engaged in something that would help teach the concept. If a few of them understood what needed to be understood, we felt satisfied.

That mentality is really easy to rely on, and even we at camp had similar pre-packaged science kits. If someone had plopped me in an elementary science classroom last summer, said "Teach," and shut the door, I'd probably have relied solely on an activity-centered program to teach what I needed to teach. Kids understand better when they are engaged in relevant activities. We can hammer out the conceptual details after they do the activity. That was my philosophy. Then, I read the article's discussion of inquiry-based learning and its benefits in the classroom.

"The shift [from activitymania to inquiry-based learning] doesn't mean throwing out the kits and manuals. Instead, we ask teachers to clearly define conceptual goals and the relationships to students' lives and interests prior to selecting classroom activities...Once these overall goals are established, supporting activities that link and build understanding can be identified" (16).

Now, as someone who is in the transition from activity-happy camp counselor to a conceptually-oriented elementary teacher, I can actually use this information to help tinker with the way I plan to teach science. Even if I am in a district full of mandatory activity kits, I know now that there are ways to work around it if the teaching philosophy will support it. As a teacher I will oft tread the odd balance between behaviorist and constructionist thinking, and here is one of those times. I need to equip my students with the power to construct their own meaning from science.