“Beneath their cheerful bunny faces,his slippers had steel toe caps”: Traction Cities,Postmodernisms, and Coming of Age in Philip Reeve’s <Emphasis Type="Italic">Mortal Engines</Emphasis> and <Emphasis Type="Italic">Predator’s Gold</Emphasis>

This article discusses Philip Reeve's young adult science fiction novels as literary collages. It explores the ways in which the author uses postmodernisms to introduce big ideas and construct a compelling futuristic world that combines fast-paced adventure with the bildungsroman.

Clergy’s Views of the Relationship between Science and Religious Faith and the Implications for Science Education

Since many teachers and students recognize other kinds of knowledge (faith) based on other ways of knowing, consideration of these realities is appropriate for the science education community. Understanding the multitude of ways that clergy view relationships between science and faith (i.e. alternative ways of knowing) would assist in understanding various ways that people address complex issues arising from ideas about science and faith. We administered a questionnaire composed of multiple-choice and short answer items to 63 United Methodist ministers. Findings included (1) that formal, organized faith contexts (e.g. church services) serve as informal science education opportunities, (2) participants demonstrated considerable diversity regarding the types of relationships developed between science and faith, and (3) participants recognized a need exists for better understandings of science and its relationship to faith for them, their colleagues, and their congregations.

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Jong-Hsiang Yang: a major promoter of Taiwanese science education

This article reviews the work of Jong-Hsiang Yang in science education and his efforts in creating a research culture in Taiwan. Following in Yang’s footprints, the rebuilding of science education, implementing a new science curriculum, and gaining the academic status of science education, we go through the important years of the development of science education in Taiwan. His leadership in introducing interpretive research methods and expanding international studies catalyzed profound changes to science education research in Taiwan.

Understanding conceptual change: connecting and questioning

We engage in a metalogue based on eight papers in this issue of Cultural Studies of Science Education that review the state of conceptual change research and its possible affect on the teaching and learning of science. Our discussion addresses three aspects of conceptual change research: theoretical, methodological, and practical, as we discuss conceptual change research in light of our experiences as science educators. Finally, we examine the implications of conceptual change research for the teachers and students with whom we work.

Critical physics agency: further unraveling the intersections of subject matter knowledge, learning, and taking action

In this rejoinder to Bryan Brown and John Reveles, we highlight the facts that (a) sociocultural theories of learning do not go far enough because they fail to address a number of issues and (b) we require concepts such as power and positionality to understand science learning.

Sreyashi Jhumki Basu: Building a more equitable world through science education

Dr. Sreyashi Jhumki Basu was a scholar committed to equity and social justice in science education who passed away in December 2008. In this essay, I describe Jhumki’s research and the call to action her life’s work has laid out for the science education community. In particular, I draw attention to the role of critical science agency in learning and the democratic science pedagogy model that Jhumki developed to support students in crafting such agency.

Developing Science Pedagogical Content Knowledge Through Mentoring Elementary Teachers

Elementary teachers are typically hesitant to teach science. While a limited knowledge of science content is a reason for this, limited science pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) has emerged as another reason in recent research. This study constitutes two case studies of a professional development program for elementary teachers involving mentoring by a university professor. The mentor took the role of a critical friend in joint planning and teaching of science. The study examines the nature of the mentoring relationship and reports the type of teacher learning that occurred, with a particular focus on the teachers’ development of science PCK.

Urban science classrooms and new possibilities: on intersubjectivity and grammar in the third space

In this article I explore research in urban science education inspired by the work of Kris Gutierrez in a paper based on her 2005 Scribner Award. It addresses key points in Gutierrez’s work by exploring theoretical frameworks for research and approaches to teaching and research that expand the discourse on the agency of urban youth in corporate school settings. The work serves as an overview of under-discussed approaches and theoretical frameworks to consider in teaching and conducting research with marginalized urban youth in urban science classrooms.

The Concept of Nondeterminism: Its Development and Implications for Teaching

Nondeterminism is a fundamental concept in computer science that appears in various contexts such as automata theory, algorithms and concurrent computation. We present a taxonomy of the different ways that nondeterminism can be defined and used; the categories of the taxonomy are domain, nature, implementation, consistency, execution and semantics. An historical survey shows how the concept was developed from its inception by Rabin & Scott, Floyd and Dijkstra, as well as the interplay between nondeterminism and concurrency. Computer science textbooks and pedagogical software are surveyed to determine how they present the concept; the results show that the treatment of nondeterminism is generally fragmentary and unsystematic. We conclude that the teaching of nondeterminism must be integrated through the computer science curriculum so that students learn to see nondeterminism both in terms of abstract mathematical entities and in terms of machines whose execution is unpredictable.

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Culture, food, and language: Perspectives from immigrant mothers in school science

The article explores the role of immigrant parents in middle school science as both teachers and learners as part of an urban middle school curriculum, the Linking in Food and the Environment (LiFE) program. The curriculum engaged parents as partners with science teachers to teach science through food. Over a 2-year period, parents attended a series of bilingual workshops, collaborated with classroom teachers, managed activities, guided student inquiry, and assisted in classroom management. The following study analyzes the role of culture, language, and identity as four mothers navigated their position as ‘insiders’ in a science classroom.

Ocean to outback: Léonie Rennie’s contribution to science education in Australia

In this article I initially borrow a metaphor from an art exhibition, Ocean to Outback, as a way to express my perspective on the contribution that Léonie Rennie has made to science education in Australia. I then consider Léonie’s contributions as overlapping themes. In particular, Léonie’s well-known research on gender and issues of equity in science education is explored as well as her highly regarded work on learning science in out-of-school settings. Curriculum integration is a less well-known aspect of Léonie’s research that also is considered. Léonie’s important contributions to research training and policy in science education are briefly described and commented on. Finally, I return to the metaphor of Ocean to Outback that reflects the enormity of the contribution that Léonie has made but also gives insight into her personal journey and qualities.

Gender and physics: feminist philosophy and science education

Physics education reform movements should pay attention to feminist analyses of gender in the culture of physics for two reasons. One reason is that feminist analyses contribute to an understanding of a ‘chilly climate’ women encounter in many physics university departments. Another reason is that feminist analyses reveal that certain styles of doing science are predominant in the culture of physics. I introduce recent philosophical work in social epistemology to argue that the predominance of certain styles of doing science is not good for science. Scientific communities would benefit from greater diversity in styles of doing science.

Intellectual innovation or intellectual retrofitting: on agency, culture and access to science education

A great challenge in education research involves the difficulty of differentiating between studies that apply commonly understood theoretical perspectives and recognizing studies that merely rename old theoretical frameworks. This conflict between intellectual innovation and intellectual retrofitting emerges as central to Basu, Calabrese-Barton, Clairmont, and Lock’s exploration of the relationship between critical agency and student identity development in science.

Technology-Enhanced Formative Assessment: A Research-Based Pedagogy for Teaching Science with Classroom Response Technology

Classroom response systems (CRSs) are a promising instructional technology, but most literature on CRS use fails to distinguish between technology and pedagogy, to define and justify a pedagogical perspective, or to discriminate between pedagogies. Technology-enhanced formative assessment (TEFA) is our pedagogy for CRS-based science instruction, informed by experience and by several traditions of educational research. In TEFA, four principles enjoin the practice of question-driven instruction, dialogical discourse, formative assessment, and meta-level communication. These are enacted via the question cycle, an iterative pattern of CRS-based questioning that can serve multiple instructional needs. TEFA should improve CRS use and help teachers “bridge the gap” between educational research findings and practical, flexible classroom strategies for science instruction.

Cam McRobbie: A man for all occasions

This article reviews the contributions of Campbell John McRobbie, Cam, to science education scholarship and research within the Australasian Science Education Research Association (ASERA) and within the broader science education community. Cam provided strong leadership and vision across many spheres of science education and leaves a legacy to the field that includes, (a) long term administrative and academic support of ASERA as an organization and for its incorporation, (b) firm establishment of RISE as an international journal of high quality, and (c) strong collegial approach to supporting the research of his colleagues including early career researchers and research degree candidates.

Making the Hidden Explicit: Learning About Equity in K-8 Preservice Science Education

Preservice teachers in a K–8 science methods course used guided video reflection to examine their interactions with children during science teaching. This inquiry approach helped preservice teachers identify and respond to gaps between their beliefs and intentions about teaching all children and their enactment of those beliefs. The experience of teaching a science lesson and then viewing it multiple times through a critical framework provided an opportunity for preservice teachers to recognize hidden assumptions, unexamined behaviors, and the unintentional meanings they may have conveyed to children. This encouraged them to think more critically about their roles as teachers in creating spaces where all children have access to quality science learning experiences.

Mary Budd Rowe: a storyteller of science

This article examines Mary Budd Rowe’s groundbreaking and far-reaching contributions to science education. Rowe is best known for her research on wait-time: the idea that teachers can improve the quality and length of classroom discussions by waiting at least 3 s before and after student responses. Her wait-time research grew from and helped inform her staunch advocacy of science education as inquiry; Rowe saw wonder and excitement as central to the teaching and learning of science. She spent much of her professional life designing professional development experiences and innovative curriculum materials to help teachers, particularly elementary school teachers, enact inquiry in their classrooms.

Language in Science Education as a Gatekeeper to Learning,Teaching, and Professional Development

In this study, I used a feminist poststructural perspective to explain how language is a gatekeeper in learning science, in achieving professional honors in teaching science, and in teaching science to English language learners. The various uses of language revealed interesting dynamics related to the culture of power of language and the culture of power of science along race–ethnicity, gender, and class dimensions for teachers. Teachers did not necessarily see language as having distinct purposes and uses. This further maintained the gatekeeping nature of language and discourse in science education. I discuss implications for looking at language in science education for teacher professional development and student learning.

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