Thinking, Doing, Talking Science

A new report published by the Education Endowment Foundation in the UK has described a randomized controlled trial to evaluate the effectiveness of a program that aims to make science lessons more conceptually challenging, more practical, and more interactive. The authors found that the approach, called Thinking, Doing, Talking Science (TDTS), appeared to have a positive impact on achievement.
  

The trial involved 41 schools in England, with 20 serving as a control group and 21 serving as the treatment group. A total of 655 Year 5 (fourth grade in the U.S.) students received the intervention. Their teachers received four days of professional development across 18 months, with training in a range of TDTS strategies aiming to encourage students to use higher-order thinking skills. For example, students are posed "Big Questions" - such as "How do you know that the earth is a sphere?" - that are used to stimulate discussion about scientific topics and the principles of scientific enquiry. The teachers were also given time to work on TDTS with colleagues.
  

The authors found that, overall, Year 5 students in schools using the approach made approximately three additional months' progress. The program had a particularly positive effect on girls and on students with low prior achievement, as well as a positive impact on students' attitudes to science, science lessons, and practical work in particular.
 

National test data will be used to assess the English and math outcomes of participating students and to measure the long-term impact of the approach, and a final report will follow in 2016.
 

The study is one of ten new reports published by the Education Endowment Foundation.

Johns Hopkins University 

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