What I like about Constructing Science is that it has an attitude. Instead of just a bland "You can teach this way, or you can teach that way" approach, Dale Baker and Michael Piburn of Arizona State University say that there is plenty of evidence that people learn only when they "construct" knowledge. They tell their readers how to go about helping students to construct scientific understanding, beginning with an explanation of why science education needs to change. This is followed by 14 practical chapters about how to bring about constructivist learning in a classroom. Constructivist education requires that the learners' prior knowledge be taken into account from the outset. Students already know plenty about the world in which they live. They have built a framework for the physical worldotherwise they would be unable to get along in it. Usually, this pragmatic structure differs dramatically from what we, as supposedly sophisticated scientists, know to be true. But "telling them" what is "correct" just doesn't work. Not only do people forget unconnected factoids as soon as they are no longer perceived as useful, but the accumulation of insights rather than information is the only way in which real scientific literacy can be accomplished. Baker and Piburn try to show us how to generate those insights in the minds of our students.

Constructing Science doesn't mince words. On science textbooks, the authors say, among other things, "Textbooks reduce science to its least common denominator." On lecture-format teaching, "Any dialogue that takes place within a single voice is no dialogue at all and is inconsistent with the constructivist perspective. It is suspect. It is more a form of indoctrination than it is a conversation." In fact, nearly every chapter in the book begins with a commentary in which the authors state that they disagree with conventional wisdom about the topic to be discussed. Their conclusions are supported with abundant literature references that buttress their points of view. This is not a manual for beginning teachers, explaining what the science curriculum is, how to write lesson plans, and the other material that is done so well in Trowbridge and Bybee. The chemistry teacher will find few examples of topics that can be directly imported into his or her classroom. But the constructivist approach to teaching is done better here than in any other "methods" book I've seen.