Collaborative action research as a tool for generating formative feedback on teachers’ classroom assessment practice: the KREST project

This paper sets out to explore science teachers’ classroom assessment practices and outlines some of the tensions and synergies in changing assessment practices. It describes episodes from a collaborative action research project with science teachers designed to support the strengthening of classroom assessment practices – the King’s Researching Expertise in Science Teaching project. This paper focuses on how the collaborative action research project functioned as a tool for generating formative feedback for the teachers and how this feedback supported the teachers in making sense of and further developing their classroom assessment practices.     

Developing Greek Primary School Students’ Critical Thinking through an Approach of Teaching Science which Incorporates Aspects of History of Science

In this paper, the development of sixth grade students’ critical thinking skills in science courses is discussed relatively to the contribution of the integration of aspects of History of Science into instruction. Towards this direction a project on electromagnetism was designed and implemented aiming to engage primary school students in a critical examination of knowledge (importance, complexity and human implications) by generating argumentation and discussion in their classrooms. The “Test of Everyday Reasoning (TER)”, which targets the core critical thinking skills identified in “The Delphi Report” consensus, was translated and standardized for the Greek population in order to be used for the project’s assessment. A pre-post analysis was conducted for the experimental group and the control group. The encouraging results regarding critical thinking skills development are supportive to the integration of aspects of History of Science in science courses.     

Postcolonial Interventions Within Science Education: Using postcolonial ideas to reconsider cultural diversity scholarship

In this paper, I utilise key postcolonial perspectives on multiculturalism and boundaries to reconsider some of science education's scholarship on cultural diversity in order to extend the discourses and methodologies of science education. I begin with a brief overview of postcolonialism that argues its ability to offer theoretical insights to help revise science education's philosophical frameworks in the face of the newly intercivilisational encounters of contemporaneity. I then describe the constructs of multiculturalism, and borders and ‘border thinking’ (after ) that become useful to develop postcolonial readings as an active methodology of critique able to intervene and develops more revealing interpretations of some of science education's scholarship and differentiated experiences. As the focus of these interventions, I have selected ) ‘Defining “Science” in a Multicultural World: Implications for science education’ and ) ‘Multiculturalism, Universalism and Science Education: In search of common ground’ from the ongoing discussion on multiculturalism and cultural diversity within the journal Science Education. Finally, I conclude this paper with some general comments regarding postcolonialism and the science education scholarship on cultural diversity.     

Philosophy in the science classroom: How should biology teachers explain the relationship between science and religion to students?

This review explores Thomas Lessl’s “Demarcation as a classroom response to creationism: A critical examination of the National Academy of Science’s Science, Evolution, and Creationism (2008).” Lessl’s work examines philosophical debates about the relationship between science and religion from the perspective of communication dynamics between science teachers and audiences skeptical about evolution. His essay raises a number of important points that might help educators craft statements that are less likely to alienate religious students and to entrench any pre-existing opposition to evolutionary science. However, in this review, I raise a number of criticisms of Lessl’s account of the problems with the approach taken by the National Academy of Science. I argue that many of the criticisms of NAS’s approach to demarcation are not well-supported, and even were they to be strong criticisms, they do not justify skepticism toward evolution or science in general. Ultimately, I argue that addressing Lessl’s concerns means creating space for more intellectually rigorous and satisfying discussions of science and religion, but this is not appropriate in a biology classroom that merely wishes to introduce evolution. Addressing these concerns requires making more space for philosophy in the curriculum.

     

Is Science Me? Exploring Middle School Students’ STE-M Career Aspirations

This study explores middle school students’ aspirations in science, technology, engineering, and medical (STE-M) careers by analyzing survey data during their eighth and ninth grade years from an ethnically and economically diverse sample of Southern California urban and suburban public school students (n = 493). Students were classified based on their responses to questions about their science ability beliefs and subjective task values using latent class analysis (LCA). Four distinct groups of students were identified: Science is Me; I Value Science But Don’t Do It Well; I Can Do Science but I Don’t Value It Highly; and Science is Not Me. Few students (22 %) were classified as having strong science ability beliefs, and only a third as strongly valuing learning/doing science; a majority (57 %) were in the Science is Not Me category, underscoring the scope of the challenge to invite more young people to want to learn science. As predicted, students who believed they could do science and valued science were more likely than others to indicate interest in STE-M careers. This relationship between perceptions and aspirations was true regardless of gender, ethnicity, and type of STE-M field, but varied depending on socioeconomic status. Using LCA to organize information about students’ science self-perceptions may help target specific interventions to student interests and aspirations and better support and encourage their persistence in STE-M careers.     

Subject knowledge development by science student teachers: the role of university tutors and school‐based subject mentors

Following the introduction of a National Curriculum for Science, all secondary science teachers in England need to be prepared to teach all aspects of a broad and balanced science curriculum. This is the second paper in which we explore science student teachers’ subject knowledge development during a one‐year postgraduate teacher preparation course. In this qualitative study we explore the role of university tutors and school‐based subject mentors in science student teachers’ subject knowledge development as perceived by student teachers, school‐based subject mentors and university tutors. The findings reveal that student teachers are reluctant to use university tutors and school mentors for subject knowledge development because they are aware of their assessment roles. The role of the university tutor in subject knowledge development is perceived as one of facilitation and of developing student teachers’ sense of professionalism. School mentors perceive that they do provide support for subject knowledge development and they are largely unaware of any potential conflict arising from their assessment role. The findings of the study are discussed in terms of the nature of student teachers’ professional learning in communities of practice. The implications for mentor training programmes are considered.     

National innovation policy and public science in Australia

In this paper, I have positioned myself with Kean Birch and explored some of the political-economic actors/actants of policy suites implicated in the biotechnologies and bioeconomy. In particular, I have considered Australia’s recent National Innovation and Science Agenda and allied documents and entities (that is, Innovation and Science Australia, the National Science Statement and the 2016 National Research Infrastructure Roadmap) as one of the National Innovation Strategies in place now in OECD countries and beyond. In overview, these policy suites utilise the same high knowledge creation/low translation and commericalisation arguments as elsewhere to press for particular ideologically based ‘improvements’ to public science. Mapping the terrain of these entities has revealed the innovation, biotechnology and bioeconomy policy space to be inordinately complex and challenging to navigate. Reviewing Australia’s position enables the type of comparative work that contributes to a closer understanding of the largely neoliberal global economic imperatives shaping contemporaneity. Moreover, while these policy suites attempt to constitute and circulate particular visions of science education, their complex nature mitigates against science teachers/educators grappling with their implications.     

Evidence of Science and Engineering Practices in Preservice Secondary Science Teachers’ Instructional Planning

There is a current national emphasis on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Additionally, many states are transitioning to the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), which encourage teachers to incorporate engineering in science classrooms as well as have their students learn science by doing science. Methods courses are also shifting to adequately prepare preservice science teachers in these areas. This study examines preservice science teachers’ pre- and post-ideal inquiry-based lesson plan scenarios before and after intervention in their Secondary Science Methods I and II courses. These preservice science teachers participated in a variety of opportunities to practice authentic science inquiry (ASI) pedagogical techniques as well as integrated STEM topics, with a particular emphasis on computer programming throughout their 80 h of Methods instruction. ASI is a type of inquiry where students learn science by conducting science research in a grade-appropriate manner. Thirty-eight preservice teachers’ scenarios were analyzed using a rubric from Spuck (2014) to determine the degree to which the ten components of ASI were included in scenarios pre- to post-instruction. Trends in ASI component inclusion are discussed. These findings indicate that preservice science teachers are proficient at writing inquiry-based lessons where they planned opportunities for their future students to collaborate, use scientific instrumentation, and collect and analyze data, but need additional support with developing student activities where students create testable questions, revise their question and methods, participate in peer review, and disseminate their results to their peers or the larger scientific community. Overall, the results suggest Methods instruction should reinforce preservice teachers’ focus on planning lessons which include opportunities for all ASI components. Interventions in the aforementioned areas of weak inclusion may be beneficial to preservice teachers.     

Teacher education at the intersection of race and ability

Cultural Studies of Science Education - In this dialogue with Phillip A. Boda’s Conceptualizing the margins into science education praxis: disability as case in point, I would like to...     

Imagining the World: The Significance of Religious Worldviews for Science Education

This article begins by examining whether ‘science’ and ‘religion’ can better be seen as distinct or related worldviews, focusing particularly on scientific and religious understandings of biodiversity. I then explore how people can see the natural world, depending on their worldview, by looking at two contrasting treatments of penguin behaviour, namely that provided in the film March of the Penguins and in the children’s book And Tango Makes Three. I end by drawing some initial conclusions as to what might and what might not be included about religion in school science lessons. Science educators and teachers need to take account of religious worldviews if some students are better to understand the compass of scientific thinking and some of science’s key conclusions. It is perfectly possible for a science teacher to be respectful of the worldviews that students occupy, even if these are scientifically limited, while clearly and non-apologetically helping them to understand the scientific worldview on a particular issue.     

Methodology and Politics: A Proposal to Teach the Structuring Ideas of the Philosophy of Science through the Pendulum

This article refers to a framework to teach the philosophy of science to prospective and in-service science teachers. This framework includes two components: a list of the main schools of twentieth-century philosophy of science (called stages) and a list of their main theoretical ideas (called strands). In this paper, I show that two of these strands, labelled intervention/method and context/values, can be taught to science teachers using some of the instructional activities sketched in Michael Matthews’s Time for Science Education. I first explain the meaning of the two selected strands. Then I show how the pendulum can be used as a powerful organiser to address specific issues within the nature of science, as suggested by Matthews.     

Discussion strategies and learning science principles

Post-Sputnik science curricula stress the importance of teaching science as scientists might practice it. This has been vividly illustrated in the laboratory-oriented curricula generated in the past ten years. Even more important has been the emphasis on applying learning theories to their construction. The American Association for the Advancement of Science has implemented the ideas of Robert Gagné in order to develop Science—A Process Approach. Jean Piaget's theory of intellectual development has been integrated into the Science Curriculum Improvement Study. It has been the investigator's observation that many teachers who use the newer science curricula fail to utilize to the fullest the methods implicit in a development theory; consequently, the objectives which include the products as well as the processes of science may not be achieved. This paper will report on an investigation of two types of postlaboratory discussion strategies and their effects on sixth grade children's learning of some science principles. The effects these discussion strategies had on the learning of four science processes are reported elsewhere.     

What do we know and where do we go? Formative assessment in developing student teachers’ professional learning of teaching science

In the context of teacher education, it could well be suggested that assessment activities that build on formative interactions between student teachers and teacher educators might offer new windows into better understanding teaching and learning. This paper presents findings from a study into a primary science teacher education initiative that seeks to build the foundations on which 24 primary science student teachers, through the use of formative assessment of their science teaching and learning, can begin developing their pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). In the project, formative assessment consists of activities used by teacher educators to stimulate interactions, self- and peer-assessment in order to provide insights into how student teachers develop their PCK during a semester. Content Representations (CoRes), were used as a tool to unpack the student teachers’ approach to teaching a science topic and the reasons for that approach. The results indicate that the use of CoRes, together with subsequent self-assessment and formative interactions with teacher educators and peers, do have the potential for PCK development for student teachers. The results further highlight the need for developing reliable and valid tools for capturing and assessing student teachers’ PCK in pre-service teacher education.     

High School Students’ Perceptions of the Effects of International Science Olympiad on Their STEM Career Aspirations and Twenty-First Century Skill Development

Social cognitive theory guided the design of a survey to investigate high school students’ perceptions of factors affecting their career contemplations and beliefs regarding the influence of their participation in the international Science Olympiad on their subject interests and twenty-first century skills. In addition, gender differences in students’ choice of competition category were studied. Mixed methods analysis of survey returns from 172 Olympiad participants from 31 countries showed that students’ career aspirations were affected most by their teachers, personal interests, and parents, respectively. Students also indicated that they believed that their participation in the Olympiad reinforced their plan to choose a science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) major at college and assisted them in developing and improving their twenty-first century skills. Furthermore, female students’ responses indicated that their project choices were less likely to be in the engineering category and more likely to be in the environment or energy categories. Findings are discussed in the light of increasing the awareness of the role and importance of Science Olympiads in STEM career choice and finding ways to attract more female students into engineering careers.     

STEM导向的当代国际科学教育研究图景--基于NARST 2020年会的文本挖掘

科学教育是建设创新型国家以及呼应科教强国政策的根本,对于科技创新人才的培养至关重要。美国国家科学教学研究学会的年会代表了全球最高规格的科学教育研究盛典,基于NARST 2020年会报告题目和摘要,采用定性与定量相结合的文本分析法,依次进行了词频分析、主题建构和共现演化三个阶段的研究。研究发现:教师的教、学生的学、教师教育、课程评估、科学文化是本届科学教育年会五个研究领域,STEM是贯穿其中的核心议题。基于行为科学理论、活动理论和知识整合理论的管理学与教育学的跨学科研究框架和关键要素,可以把STEM研究划分为理论-实践、结构-功能,宏观-微观和心理-行动这八个维度构成的多元分析框架;无监督LDA主题模型的关系建模全面、清晰地确定了全球科学教育最新的六大研究主题的发展脉络与趋势;国际科学教育研究极为重视职前和职后教师教育,高质量的教师是科学教育改革的重要引擎和支撑,教师的教与学生的学是探究教学机制的关键。最后对西方思潮影响的中国科学教育改革提出了审思。     

INQUIRING INTO MY SCIENCE TEACHING THROUGH ACTION RESEARCH: A CASE STUDY ON ONE PRE-SERVICE TEACHER’S INQUIRY-BASED SCIENCE TEACHING AND SELF-EFFICACY

This case study reports the effects of a cooperative learning field experience on a pre-service teacher’s views of inquiry-based science and her science teaching self-efficacy. Framed by an action research model, this study examined (a) the pre-service teacher’s developing understanding of inquiry-based science teaching and learning throughout the planning and implementation phases of the field experience and (b) the pre-service teacher’s inquiry-based science teaching self-efficacy beliefs prior to and after the field experience. The pre-service teacher’s self-reflections before and after the field experience, video reflections, and results from the Personal Science Teaching Efficacy, a subscale on the Science Teaching Expectancy Belief Instrument-form B, were analyzed in this study. The findings revealed that (a) the pre-service teacher’s understanding of inquiry-based science teaching and learning was developed and enhanced through the planning and teaching phases of the field experience and (b) the pre-service teacher’s science teaching self-efficacy beliefs were improved as a result of a stronger appreciation and understanding of inquiry-based science teaching and learning. Further, the significance of this study suggests the use of cooperative inquiry-based field experiences and pre-service teacher action research by teacher education programs as means to deepening understanding of inquiry-based science instruction and increasing self-efficacy for such teaching.     

“Adventures in science”: casting scientifically talented youth as national resources on American radio, 1942–1958

From 1942 to 1958, a national weekly programme on CBS radio and presented by Science Service, Inc. devoted 37 of its broadcasts to profiling American high school students’ achievements in science talent searches, clubs and fairs. These “Adventures in Science” radio programmes cast scientifically talented youth as potential contributors to national goals in the hopes of eliciting greater public appreciation of science and science education. This characterisation reflected meritocratic and democratic justifications for American science education. First, the host of this series and director of Science Service, Watson Davis, argued that these students could someday become elite scientists to help compensate for the perceived scientific manpower shortages during World War Two and the postwar era. As a result, listeners of these programmes should value these talented boys and girls, because the potential military applications of their research could safeguard the nation from external threats. Second, journalistic intermediaries such as Davis and announcers at local broadcast sites presented the importance of students’ scientific work in practical terms: as commercial and domestic products to be evaluated and consumed by democratic citizens. Listeners should therefore appreciate the contributions of science and science education to their everyday lives, material comforts and a vibrant consumer economy – especially in the postwar era. This article concludes that these popular radio programmes demonstrate that the enlistment of science education for national political and economic agendas both during and after the Second World War well preceded the US government’s curricular response to the launching of Sputnik with the National Defense Education Act of 1958.     

Science Teachers and Science‐Related Attitudes

Summaries

English

Science teachers’ perceptions of affective‐domainobjectives were gathered through interview procedures. A sample of teachers in Western Australian high schools were the subjects of the study.

For the purpose of analysis, a distinction is drawn between attitudes to science (such as ‘enjoyment of science lessons’ and ‘interest in science') and scientific attitudes (such as ‘honesty in reporting data’and ‘tolerance of the views of others').

Analysis of teachers’ views revealed confusion and lack of clarity regarding these science‐related attitudes. However, it is argued that curriculum writers are no clearer in their views.

It is suggested that a much clearer, more explicit justification for attitude objectives (of both kinds) needs to be made by curriculum writers. Science teachers need to be provided with greater assistance in clarifying the role of these attitude objectives, as well as assistance with techniques for their assessment.