Breaking the COVID-19 Ice: Integrating Socioscientific Issues into Problem-Based Learning Lessons in Middle School

Abstract

COVID-19 represents a socioscientific issue with many different facets and societal impacts for middle school in the 2020-2021 academic year. Socioscientific issues are socially significant, real-world issues that are culturally important and grounded in science. Using a socioscientific issues approach to engage middle school students in ill-structured problems in science and health issues affords teachers a motivational and scientific literacy teachable moment. Teachers face challenges when employing an SSI approach due to lack of time, lesson availability, and professional development. This brief paper and pre-recorded presentation describe problem-based learning modules related to COVID-19, such as vaccines, ventilators, and distribution of supplies that will be ready for middle school teachers at the beginning of the next school year. Lesson plans and related instructional tools will be available online at no charge. Research of the modules will use a qualitative approach to gather data from participating teachers.

Setting the Context

Decisions about when to start school, how to start school, and how to address students’ content needs and stress levels remain unresolved for the 2020-2021 academic year. In addition to the typical year-beginning responsibilities, middle school teachers face additional burdens to manage their students’ stress levels related to COVID-19. Speculation about how teachers can incorporate COVID-19 related topics into their classrooms spreads across multiple educational online websites (Gonser, 2020; PBS Newshour, 2020; Rosenberg, 2020). Using COVID-19 lessons as a teachable moment topic allows educators to harness current science literacy coverage in social and mass media. Middle school teachers face a mainly uphill challenge to advance students’ interest in science during the stressful uncertainties of quarantines. American students have had no increase in STEM interest and achievement over the last five years (ACT, 2017). Using a socioscientific issues (SSI) approach to engage middle school students in ill-structured problems in science and health issues affords teachers a motivational and scientific literacy teachable moment. This paper discusses how teachers can use problem-based learning (PBL) lessons developed under the Natural Disasters and Health (NDH) project funded by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) Science Education Partnership Award (SEPA) to address teachable moments related to COVID-19 such as vaccines, ventilators, and distribution of supplies.

NDH Project

Wheeling University’s Center for Educational Technologies and Challenger Learning Center received a 5-year grant from SEPA to develop an immersive learning simulation with supporting material including curricula, career opportunities, and professional development to provide middle school students with memorable experiences about human body systems impacted by natural disasters. It builds upon methodologies and lessons learned during two previous successful SEPA high school projects, CyberSurgeons and Pandem-Sim. The PBL lessons discussed in this paper are part of the supporting materials being developed under the NDH grant with intentional context and application to the COVID 19 pandemic. The NDH project goals related to the PBLs include:

1. Improve student scientific literacy of human body systems using natural disasters as a hook to gain students’ undivided attention.

2. Develop student critical thinking, collaboration, and communication skills to identify and effectively respond to problems.

3. Promote community involvement, career awareness, and diversity of participants.

4. Explore the impact of SSI approaches in NDH.

Plans to Ready COVID-19 Lessons for Teachers

At the end of the first year of the NDH grant, Wheeling University closed due to the COVID-19 crisis, and the authors Tyrrell and Calinger continued to work from their homes in Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Tyrrell’s project role focuses on evaluation/research, and Calinger is the curriculum writer/project manager. While the authors continued to work on project tasks according to the grant timeline, they began to brainstorm about how to prioritize some supporting materials to ready them for the 2020-2021 school year. Tyrrell and Calinger teleconferenced several times to discuss ways to prioritize plans for SSI PBLs related to the pandemic to fit the gap identified as an immediate need for middle school lessons related to the pandemic and its societal impact. Educational websites featured articles recommending the use of COVID-19 teaching materials to address teachable moments to meet the needs of teachers in the changing global chaos. Discussions focused on expeditious plans for uploading lesson plans to social media websites and informed consent materials for their evaluation.

SSI Definition and Context

Sadler (2002) identified SSI as socially significant, real-world issues that are culturally important and grounded in science. According to Owens et al. (2017), using SSI to consider difficult science issues will help students to become scientifically literate citizens. Additionally, SSI approaches address controversial issues that are ill-structured and require evidence-based reasoning (Zeidler, 2014). Kolstø (2001) emphasized the importance of addressing controversial topics in SSI because students are likely to face similar situations in their daily lives. Social and mass media often report about SSI issues, including disputes and disagreements about how to solve claims associated with the topic (Klosterman et al., 2012; Kolstø, 2001). Examples of SSI lessons in classrooms include topics such as global warming (Klosterman & Sadler, 2010), genetically modified products (Cinici, 2016), antibiotics (Friedrichsen et al., 2016), human genetics (Chen & So, 2017), and oil spills (Chen & So, 2017). Zeidler (2014) emphasized that SSI instruction focuses on cognitive content development in discussions about moral and emotional reasoning and the nature of science.

Benefits and Challenges of SSI Instruction

SSI-based teaching showed benefits in terms of students’ motivation, engagement, and argumentation skills (Klosterman & Sadler, 2010). Additional student advantages for SSI instruction include gains in the understanding of science content (Topcu et al., 2010), science method (Karahan & Roehrig, 2017), student engagement in inquiries related to science and their own experiences (Sadler et al., 2016; Topcu et al., 2010), and positive emotional experiences during learning (Tomas & and Ritchie, 2012). Recent studies also found that SSI-based instructions improved middle school students’ argumentation skills (Atabey & Topcu, 2018).

Challenges for Teacher Preparation and Support of SSI

While socioscientific issues-based teaching showed multiple student benefits, teachers face challenges when implementing SSI in their classrooms. Drawbacks of SSI approaches included a lack of available curriculum and extended time to implement in the classroom. (Erman & Sari, 2019; Hancock et al., 2019; Tidemand & Nielsen, 2017). Another challenge to SSI instruction was that science teachers remain reluctant to incorporate SSI lessons because they are not familiar with strategies to include ethical reasoning in controversial topics, particularly in global issues (Chen & So, 2017). Peel et al. (2018) noted that teachers are often unfamiliar with or uncomfortable with making social connections to the SSI issue. While teachers find that an SSI strategy motivates their students, they often find the inclusion of ethical-based discussion difficult and sometimes controversial (Ottander & Ekborg, 2012).

Background Literature Relevant to the Development of SSI PBLs for NDH

Appropriate scaffolding strategies assist teachers and their students to have open dialogues about science content. In a case study about teacher scaffolding during a technology-enhanced, SSI genetics unit in a biology classroom, Ergulec et al. (2016) examined hard (i.e., planned and anticipated static supports such as lesson plans and data) and soft (i.e., situation-specific supports to assist with learning) supports in a technology-enhanced 9th-grade high school biology classroom. Findings revealed that teachers used both hard and soft supports to scaffold their students’ learning. Soft scaffolding strategies focused on monitoring, questioning, verifying and clarifying, summarizing, and encouraging participation. According to Zeidler (2014), teachers require examples of SSI teaching and learning and associated resources for adoption into their classrooms. The SSI PBLs for NDH will include the following lesson components: learning objectives, standards, scenario, background content, guiding questions and discussion recommendations, sample rubric, lesson extensions, and additional resources such as videos and websites. Additionally, teachers’ pages on the NDH project website will include background tips for implementing PBL. Teachers using the PBLs are encouraged to contact the NDH team by phone or email to create a running dialogue about curriculum integration and implementation.

Tidemand and Nielsen (2017) investigated the implementation and interpretation of SSI with 100 Danish biology teachers using an open-ended questionnaire and five in-depth interviews. Using a closed group Facebook link, secondary biology teachers responded to the questionnaire. Tidemand and Nielsen (2017) found that the teachers interpreted the SSI lessons in a content-centered way. Interview findings revealed that the teachers did not ask students to reflect or respond to questions about SSI. Teachers construed the meaning of SSI to relate to subject matter having the potential for societal or ethical deliberation, rather than as an ill-structured problem for the issue. Teachers used SSI topics to teach factual biology content and also assessed students on content knowledge. Teachers tended to reduce the SSI to factual biological contents without emphasis on the societal impact. Tidemand and Nielsen’s (2017) findings are similar to other studies where teachers require additional professional development to understand SSI pedagogy. Ottander and Ekborg (2012) found similar patterns about teachers’ SSI instruction where teachers resorted to teaching content using a factual approach over the inclusion of discussions about ethical concerns linking society and science. Several researchers stressed the importance of providing sample SSI lessons to teachers, especially when accompanied by professional development (Klosterman et al., 2012; Peel et al., 2018). While some articles discussed lengthy professional development programs to educate middle and secondary school science teachers about SSI, some researchers noted the availability for professional development time was minimal (Ceyhan et al., 2019; Peel et al., (2018). Several articles discussed lengthy PD sessions intended to educate teachers about SSI teaching models, review existing SSI curriculum, and design SSI units for their classrooms. SSI sample lessons helped teachers become familiar with pedagogical teaching considerations quickly (Bayram-Jacobs et al., 2019; Chen & So, 2017). Some studies referred to lengthy professional development sessions as problematic.

Several studies assisted in informing plans for the evaluation of the SSI PBLs. Tidemand and Nielsen (2017) used a closed group Facebook link to distribute questionnaires to secondary biology teachers. The NDH project plans to use a similar method of uploading the SSI PBLs as well as teacher evaluation questionnaires. While the NDH project will eventually have a built-out website for the entire project, the website may not be ready by the end of the 2020 summer. Social media sites provide closed group options to rapidly upload and download recruitment invitations for middle school teachers as well as evaluation forms.

PBL SSI Modules for NDH

Several PBL modules under development for the NDH project center’s online resource will focus on SSI associated specifically with the coronavirus pandemic. PBL modules will contain a real-world scenario or problem to be solved. The PBL will place students in the active roles of problem-solvers and simultaneously increase science content knowledge and develop both problem-solving and critical thinking skills. SSI PBL modules will also contain support materials that scaffold the background students need to solve the problem. Depending on the module, support material could include explanations of concepts, videos that highlight the problem, maps, charts, or tables.

In one SSI PBL scenario, there will be a shortage of a newly-developed vaccine against a deadly infectious disease. Students will take on the roles of medical professionals assembled by national health agencies to help decide who should get the vaccine. Students will work in groups to review the concepts and facts concerning vaccines and how they provide immunity to disease.

At the end of their research and review of the science involved in vaccines, they will make recommendations on quarantine and isolation policies and people who should receive the limited supply of vaccines first. Each classroom group presents its recommendations. Students will be asked to identify populations in their community that are most at risk. Young children, adolescents, elderly people, people with illnesses, susceptible populations with chronic health conditions, and medical personnel will be considered. They decide who will receive the vaccine—and who will not.

As with any PBL, it is expected that student recommendations among groups will differ. After student teams present their recommendations to the class and answer any questions classmates may have, the class as a whole must decide which people will be immunized. They can choose one of the team’s approaches or devise a combination of solutions to the problem.

The NDH resource center will also include Teacher Professional Development materials to help teachers implement PBL and SSI materials in their classrooms. Materials will include how PBL and SSI can enrich their science instruction and increase student understanding of science concepts, how to implement PBL modules, student learning in teams, and how to build PBL rubrics. Topics for SSI PBLs include the use of antivirals, mechanical ventilator shortages, and vaccinating for herd immunity.

Evaluation

Formative evaluation of the SSI PBLs will occur during the 2020-2021 academic year. Some SSI PBLs will be ready for evaluation by September 2020. Lessons will be loaded to a social media location or website for dissemination of the PBL lessons, professional development materials, informed consent, and evaluation forms. Formative evaluation will describe the teachers investigating and implementing the SSI PBLs as well as the characteristics and affordances of online materials. Additionally, the evaluation will report changes made to enhance learning. Process evaluation reporting will determine the extent to which the project follows the grants’ proposed plan, reasons for deviations, and lessons learned. The summative evaluation will gather information to answer questions about the outcomes and impact of the SSI PBLs. Evaluation efforts will be rapid to address the teachable moments of teachers in the changing global pandemic. The NDH project’s research data sources will include telephone interviews and email correspondence with the participating teachers, notes from phone calls, video teleconferences, and meetings, and a teacher questionnaire based on demographics, SSI and other instructional strategies, curriculum integration, overall impressions, ease of use, and teacher training and artifacts.

The teacher PBL SSI evaluation will use a qualitative approach to investigate the implementation of the lessons and will explore the following research questions: 1. How do middle school science teachers’ perceptions about what science is change after engaging with an SSI? 2. How do middle school science teachers integrate SSI PBLs into their classrooms? and 3. What additional supports do middle school science teachers need to implement SSI PBLS into their classrooms? Dissemination of results will follow in the form of conference papers or articles describing how the teachers integrate SSI PBLs.

Significance

The development of the planned COVID-19 PBLs is significant for several reasons. The paper describes descriptions of strategies that middle school teachers can implement in their classrooms in the 2020-2021 school year. Middle school teachers face unique challenges related to the pandemic, and SSI PBLs represent an opportune teachable moment to address students’ concerns related to emotional, societal (including financial and economic), medical, and science-related consequences due to the pandemic.

COVID-19 represents an SSI that has many different facets and societal impacts, many of which are just beginning to be felt by middle schoolers and their families in the USA. SSI are ill-structured in their complexity, occur in various knowledge domains, and fit well into learning opportunities with an inquiry emphasis. The ill-structured nature of SSI meshes well with PBL lessons as a strategy to learn about the nature of science and ethical considerations for scientific impact. Additionally, the widespread mass media coverage of COVID-19 makes it an ideal topic for middle school teachers seeking lessons for the upcoming 2020-2021 school year. Internal evaluations from earlier SEPA projects echo findings from Tomas and Ritchie (2012), where students report feeling confident, proud, engaged, and motivated to pursue science topics. The COVID-19 SSI PBLs will contribute to three areas of socioscientific pedagogical understanding: 1. health issues related to real-life emergencies and pandemics, 2. awareness of societal issues that complicate decision-making in emergencies, and 3.impacts on teachers’ implementation of the lessons. Such an educational approach improves scientific literacy and promotes critical thinking (Zeidler, 2014).

Conclusion

Socioscientific issues represent an ideal way to engage students in investigating and understanding the worldwide coronavirus crisis. Positioning SSI within PBL modules allows students to not only increase their mastery of the science content critical to understanding the complicated factors involved in fighting this pandemic but also to understand difficult societal factors as their schools are closed and friends and family fight this disease. Teachers may struggle to present these relatively new topics to students. Available lesson plans, support materials, and teacher professional development concerning the implementation of the curricula will be instrumental in increasing teacher proficiency and confidence in coronavirus instruction.