Learning in interactive science centres

The potential of informal sources of science learning to supplement and interact with formal classroom science is receiving increasing recognition and attention in the research literature. In this study, a phenomenographic approach was used to determine changes in levels of understanding of 27 grade 7 primary school children as a result of a visit to an interactive science centre. The results showed that most students did change their levels of understanding of aspects of the concept “sound”. The study also provides information which will be of assistance to teachers on the levels of understanding displayed by students on this concept. Specializations: informal science learning, science curriculum Specializations: science education, science teacher education, conceptual change, learning environments.     

Physics teachers' action-research experience with a teaching module on “Force”

Eight physics teachers from three research schools working in collaboration with the author developed, tried, and evaluated a teaching module on “Force”. The module was designed for students in a non-western society, for whom there is no cultural term that explicitly defines the concept. This paper describes illustrative examples of the trials and evaluation exercise of the module. It concludes with a summary of the effects the teachers' interaction with the module had on their professional development. Specializations: Physics education, science education, education in developing countries.     

Keeping up: A dilemma for science teachers

This paper is based on interviews with seventy-five science teachers in twelve schools across Australia. The interviews were conducted as part of a D.E.E.T. Project of National Significance. The purpose of the project was to develop a strategy for the professional development of science teachers. The main purpose of our interviews was to listen to teachers' views on what such a strategy should try to achieve. We asked them to talk about conditions affecting the quality of their work, their attitudes to teaching, their professional development, their careers, the evaluation of teaching, and Award Restructuring. Through these interviews we came to understand how many science teachers are loosely connected with potentially valuable sources of support for their professional development. In this paper we focus on one group of “loose connections”; those between science teachers and scientists in other fields, research in science education, and their colleagues within science departments in schools. Specializations: Science education, reflective practice, teaching and learning. Specializations: Professional development, educational evaluation.     

An ecological perspective on research with computers in science education

This paper presents an “ecological perspective” on research with computers in science education. It is proposed that current and past research within the computer education field has been characterised by an over-emphasis on technical applications of the machinery, rather than a deeper consideration of the teaching and learning process. This tendency toward “technocentric thinking” has usually failed to take into account the important social and cognitive interactions within the computer learning environment. The view advanced here, is that an understanding of the effects of computers on students' learning can be achieved only through an analysis of the dynamic interactions between students and teachers as they work with computers in a particular environment. A theoretical framework for understanding this range of interactions is presented. Finally, an ecological model is proposed for conducting future research on the application of computers in science education. Specializations: information technology in education, science education, technology education, environmental education, and media education     

Gender-inclusive technology materials for the primary school: A case study in curriculum development

This paper describes how an idea for technology education materials developed into a process for producing unique curriculum modules for teaching technology in a gender-inclusive way to primary children. Using a case-study format, the paper describes the interaction between participants, the sequential evolution of the materials themselves and the degree to which success was achieved in terms of the original goals. The study demonstrates how an awareness of gender bias needs to be a feature from the earliest stages of curriculum development, through to the trialling and modification stages. The curriculum materials were a product of effective cooperation between teachers, science educators and community representatives. They utilise a “process” approach to the teaching of technology and in this presentation, we demonstrate how this same approach is a useful framework for describing this particular curriculum development. Specializations: primary science and technology education, gender issues. Specializations: diagnosis of student learning and teaching for conceptual change, technology education, curriculum evaluation. Specializations: affective aspects of science and technology education, gender issues.     

Development of an instrument for measuring attitudes of early childhood educators towards science

The attitude towards science of first year early childhood education students was explored using an instrument developed for the purpose. The instrument comprises four Likert-type scales, biographical items and two open-ended attitude items. The four scales, characterised as ‘confidence’, ‘enjoyment’, ‘usefulness’ and ‘appropriateness of science for young children’, were supported by varimax factor analysis and had reliabilities from 0.83 to 0.88. Use of the combined scales as a general ‘attitude towards science’ scale was supported by principal components analysis; reliability for the combined scale was 0.94. Comments made in response to the open-ended items supported the validity of the scales. For the student group as a whole, mean scores on all scales were slightly to moderately positive, with the highest mean being for the ‘science for young children’ scale. Students who had studied at least one science subject at Year 12 level had significantly higher scores on all scales than students who had not studied science at senior level. Australia.Specializations: early childhood science education, biological aspects of child development, conservation biology of gulls.     

Classroom behaviour settings for science: What can pre-service teachers achieve?

Routines are a fundamental aspect of classroom life and much attention in recent years has focused on routines for management. The concept of ‘behaviour settings’ and transitions between them as classroom routines is explained and exemplified. This view of routines provides an explanation for the difficulties faced by relieving teachers and student teachers who enter classrooms at mid year and suggests how new routines for complex science activity may be introduced. Specializations: Science curriculum science teacher education, teacher     

Professional Development of Physics Teachers in an Evidence-Based Blended Learning Program

The present study examined continuity of learning between face-to-face and online environments in a “blended” professional development program designed for 16 physics teachers. The program had nine face-to-face meetings as well as continuous online exchanges between them through a website. The program focused on “knowledge integration” (KI) innovative activities in physics classes using an “evidence-based” approach: The teachers implemented the activities, collected and analyzed data about their practice and their students’ learning, and reflected on the evidence with their peers. Five reflective tools were used to promote continuity: Your Comments, Hot Polls, Smashing Sentences, Hot Reports, and Mini Research. Continuity was assessed with regard to the ideas discussed by the teachers and the reasoning patterns that they employed. Analysis of the online exchanges in relation to teachers’ face-to-face discourse revealed that the teachers discussed the same ideas (KI, evidence and learner-centered pedagogies), employed the same reasoning patterns (e.g., forming generalizations), and extended ideas in re-visitation. The online and face-to-face environments played different and complementary roles in the teachers’ learning. This study shows that appropriate use of an online environment in a blended program can lead to a continuous course of learning and can transform a “9 once-a-month-meetings” workshop into a “9-month” workshop.     

The Influence of Education Major: How Diverse Preservice Teachers View Pseudoscience Topics

Pseudoscience beliefs (e.g., astrology, ghosts or UFOs) are rife in American society. Most research examines creation/evolution among liberal arts majors, general public adults, or, infrequently, middle or high school science teachers. Thus, research truncates the range of ersatz science thinking and the samples it studies. We examined diverse beliefs, e.g., extraterrestrials, magic, Biblical creation, and evolution, among 540 female and 123 male future teachers, including 325 elementary education majors. We study how these cognitions related to education major and, because popular media often present pseudoscience “information”, student media use. Future elementary educators most often rejected evolution and endorsed “creationism” or Intelligent Design. Education majors held similar beliefs about astrology, UFO landings, or magic. Compared with other education students, elementary education majors watched less news or science television and read fewer popular science magazines. However, religious and media variables explained more variation in creation/evolution beliefs than education major. We discuss implications of our findings for elementary school science education and how teacher educators may be able to affect pseudoscience beliefs among their elementary education students.     

Progression in learning science

A national curriculum comprising statements of attainment at different levels must be underpinned by some idea of “progression” in learning. Questions arise as to the nature and meaning of progression. To gain a deeper insight into how children progress in their understanding of science, this research involves the construction and testing of a hypothetical learning sequence for the topic of forces. This interim report explains how children aged 7 to 13 are being interviewed to explore their explanations of phenomena involving forces. These explanations will be mapped onto the sequence to provide a multi-dimensional model of progression. Specializations: assessment, curriculum development. Specializations: assessment, investigations in science, progression in learning science.     

Mathematics-for-Teaching: an Ongoing Investigation of the Mathematics that Teachers (Need to) Know

In this article we offer a theoretical discussion of teachers' mathematics-for-teaching, using complexity science as a framework for interpretation. We illustrate the discussion with some teachers' interactions around mathematics that arose in the context of an in-service session. We use the events from that session to illustrate four intertwining aspects of teachers' mathematics-for-teaching. We label these aspects “mathematical objects,” “curriculum structures,” “classroom collectivity,” and “subjective understanding”. Drawing on complexity science, we argue that these phenomena are nested in one another and that they obey similar dynamics, albeit on very different time scales. We conjecture (1) that a particular fluency with these four aspects is important for mathematics teaching and (2) that these aspects might serve as appropriate emphases for courses in mathematics intended for teachers.     

Student teachers' entry perceptions about teaching primary science: Does a first degree make a difference?

It is problematic whether primary teachers benefit by completing a first degree especially when the teaching of specific subjects, here science, is the focus of attention. This study reports the comparative results of interviewing thirteen Canadian and ten Australian student teachers, both about to commence their Bachelor of Education. The Canadian students had completed an initial degree while nine of the Australian students were school leavers. The interviews, which explored views about teaching primary science, were analysed with this factor in mind. Student teacher perceptions reported include: how to recognise a “good” primary science teacher; perceptions of self as a “good” primary science teacher; expectations of how the teacher education program could assist their science teaching; and whether (for the Canadian students) the initial degree will help in becoming a primary science teacher. Analysis of the interviews suggests possible influences a first degree (among other factors) may have on perceptions related to primary science teaching and raises questions about what is the best general approach for preparing primary teachers to teach science effectivly.     

How consistently do students use their alternative conceptions?

Existing research indicates that many students hold an alternative conception that “an object in motion must have a force pushing it along”, but they do not apply this conception consistently to problems involving different types of motion. This project was designed to investigate the degree of consistency of student responses to questions concerned with linear motion. The results indicated that most students were unable to consistently apply either the alternative conception or the correct scientific response. The students appeared to have a general problem in recognising similarities between contexts, even when the contexts were closely related. The results also suggested that the responses of some students were influenced by contextual factors such as the nature of the moving body, the direction of the motion and the speed of the motion. Specialization: science education.     

Research into the environment of science laboratory classes in australian schools

Existing instruments for assessing student or teacher perceptions of characteristics of actual or preferred classroom psychosocial environment are unsuitable for one of the most important settings in science teaching, namely, the science laboratory class. Consequently, the Science Laboratory Environment Inventory (SLEI), was designed to assess student or teacher perceptions of seven scales:Teacher Supportiveness, Student Cohesiveness, Open-Endedness, Integration, Organization, Rule Clarity andMaterial Environment. An important feature of the design of the study was that the new instrument was field tested simultaneously in six countries: Australia, USA, Canada, England, Nigeria and Israel. This paper is based on a sample of 4643 students in 225 individual laboratory classes, together with the teachers of most of these classes. Preliminary analyses were used to shed light on various important research questions including the differences between Actual and Preferred environments, gender differences in perceptions of Actual and Preferred environment, the relationship between the science laboratory environment and attitude towards science laboratory work, differences between school and university laboratory classes, differences between teachers’ and students’ perceptions of the same laboratory classes, and differences between laboratory classes in different science subjects (Physics, Chemistry, Biology). Specializations: Science education, educational evaluation. Specializations: Curriculum, science education, science laboratory teaching. Specializations: Learning environments, science education, educational evaluation, curriculum.     

The relevance of “recent and relevant” experience

The importance of recent and relevant experience is being asserted for teacher educators though not others responsible for education policy and curriculum. The paper will review the “self evident” value of recent and relevant experience from the perspective of researcher/teacher educator returning to classroom teaching. The potential and implications for research on teaching and learning and the opportunities for more significant school experience in teacher education are outlined. Specializations: teacher education, science education, health education, curriculum evaluation and research.     

Kindergarten Teachers’ Conceptual Framework on the Ozone Layer Depletion. Exploring the Associative Meanings of a Global Environmental Issue

This paper reports on a study conducted among Greek kindergarten teachers aiming to explore their conceptual frameworks on a major environmental issue of our times: the ozone layer depletion. The choice of this particular issue was premised on its novelty, complexity and abstractness which present teachers with difficulties in its teaching. A free word association task was employed to identify the associative meaning of the issue among the participant teachers. The study’s results revealed the existence of a simplistic, linear, cause-and-effect scheme in the teachers’ conceptual frameworks, the two poles of which are “solar radiation” and “its harmful results for human health”. Some of the well-known misconceptions and misunderstandings already emerged in previous research also arise in this study. Prominent among them are the deeply rooted confusion between the “ozone hole” and “greenhouse effect”, a general fusion of ideas concerning all environmental problems and an overemphasis on the harmful consequences of the ozone depletion on human health. Implications for kindergarten teacher education are also discussed.The present study is part of a research project that is co-funded by the European Social Fund and National Resources – (EPEAEK II) PYTHAGORAS II.     

The Contribution of Constructivist Instruction Accompanied by Concept Mapping in Enhancing Pre-service Chemistry Teachers’ Conceptual Understanding of Chemistry in the Laboratory Course

The present study aimed to evaluate whether a chemistry laboratory course called “Laboratory Experiments in Science Education” based on constructivist instruction accompanied with concept mapping enhanced pre-service chemistry teachers’ conceptual understanding. Data were collected from five pre-service chemistry teachers at a university in Ankara by means of a concept test and semi-structured interviews. Results showed that pre-service teachers had some alternative conceptions about chemistry topics. Moreover, using constructivist instruction accompanied with concept maps as an instructional tool was effective to promote conceptual understanding. Participants thought that concept maps were useful especially in recognizing the relation between different chemistry concepts.     

Children Making Sense of Science

This study explored the effects that the incorporation of nature of science (NoS) activities in the primary science classroom had on children’s perceptions and understanding of science. We compared children’s ideas in four classes by inviting them to talk, draw and write about what science meant to them: two of the classes were taught by ‘NoS’ teachers who had completed an elective nature of science (NoS) course in the final year of their Bachelor of Education (B.Ed) degree. The ‘non-NoS’ teachers who did not attend this course taught the other two classes. All four teachers had graduated from the same initial teacher education institution with similar teaching grades and all had carried out the same science methods course during their B.Ed programme. We found that children taught by the teachers who had been NoS-trained developed more elaborate notions of nature of science, as might be expected. More importantly, their reflections on science and their science lessons evidenced a more in-depth and sophisticated articulation of the scientific process in terms of scientists “trying their best” and “sometimes getting it wrong” as well as “getting different answers”. Unlike children from non-NoS classes, those who had engaged in and reflected on NoS activities talked about their own science lessons in the sense of ‘doing science’. These children also expressed more positive attitudes about their science lessons than those from non-NoS classes. We therefore suggest that there is added value in including NoS activities in the primary science curriculum in that they seem to help children make sense of science and the scientific process, which could lead to improved attitudes towards school science. We argue that as opposed to considering the relevance of school science only in terms of children’s experience, relevance should include relevance to the world of science, and NoS activities can help children to link school science to science itself.     

Developing a taxonomy of science concepts based on a scale of empirical distance

The term ‘concept’ is used in different ways within educational literature and has at least two different, although related, referents in relation to science knowledge, namely, public knowledge and private understandings. A taxonomic structure for ‘science concepts’ (public knowledge) has been developed to provide a rationale for the choice of phenomena to be used in the investigation of students’ ‘concepts’ and also to act as a frame of reference for generating insights about the data to be collected. Furthermore, it may be a useful heuristic to predict other science concepts likely to be highly problematic in school teaching situations and thus worthy of detailed research. The taxonomy, called a ‘Scale of Empirical Distance’ (SED), enables science concepts to be mapped according to their degree of closeness to concrete realities. The scale shows a recognition of the empirical basis of science concepts and the role of human senses in the perception of the material world even though “absolute objectivity of observation is not a possible ideal of science” as Harre (1972) has noted. The scale uses two binary variables, namely, ‘visual’ and ‘tactile’, to generate four categories of science concepts ranging on a continuum from concrete to abstract. Some concepts related to ‘matter’ will be classified and discussed. Specializations: science teacher education, primary science curriculum and methods, students’ personal meanings of phenomena.