The philosophical basis of observation in science and science education

Observation plays a fundamental role in scientific investigation. Scientific observation sometimes involves relatively simple activities requiring little preparation and unsophisticated interpretation. At other times, however, scientific observation is an extremely complex activity, indeed among the most challenging enterprises in which human beings engage. The science education field typically portrays only that segment of scientific observation at the simple end of this spectrum. In doing this, there is a risk that students will acquire a distorted image of scientific observation, and develop observational skills which are not at all adequate for the role which observation plays in science. An alternative account of observation in science is presented and its implications for science teaching are discussed.     

FORUM: Giving oneself over to science – Exploring the roles of subjectivities and identities in learning science

In this piece, Elizabeth Moje discusses with the authors of FORUM: Giving oneself over to science: Exploring the roles of subjectivities and identities in learning science (Tucker-Raymond, Varelas, & Pappas) the challenges and potentials of theorizing about the role of identities in learning science. The authors debate how identities and subjectivities should be conceptualized, and whether learning science requires people to change identities and/or subjectivities. In particular, the authors discuss the potential for thinking about how identities are enacted in practices, and how teachers might construct practices that evoke the identities associated with science as a way of developing opportunities for deep science learning. Elizabeth Birr Moje is an Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of Literacy, Language, and Culture in Educational Studies, a Faculty Associate in the Institute for Social Research and a faculty affiliate with Latina/o Studies at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Moje teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in secondary and adolescent literacy, cultural theory, and qualitative research methods. Her research interests revolve around the intersection between the literacies and texts youth are asked to learn in the disciplines and the literacies and texts they engage outsIDe of school. Moje also studies how youth construct cultures and enact IDentities via their literacy practices outsIDe of school. Eli Tucker-Raymond is a doctoral student in the Literacy, Language, and Culture program at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He sees his evolving status as a social scientist fraught with similarities and differences between himself and social scientists “out in the world.' He is working toward a designated researcher and teacher IDentity that includes a focus on critical media literacy, collaborative action research, and developing praxis-oriented, critically-conscious learning communities in urban K-8 school settings. One evolutionary, co-constructed step toward that IDentity are these publications, his first. Maria Varelas is Professor of Science Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Her research, teaching, and service are highly interrelated, focusing on classroom-based teaching and learning of science in urban settings with linguistically and socio-culturally diverse populations, collaborative teacher action research, discourse in science classrooms, integration of science and literacy, and science education reform in elementary school and college science classrooms. She currently co-leads with colleagues in Education, Natural Sciences, and Computer Science, three US NSF multi-year grants. Her research has appeared in a variety of journals and edited books. Christine C. Pappas is Professor of Language and Literacy at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Her teaching and research focus on classroom discourse, genre (especially informational and science ones), teacher inquiry, collaborative school-university action research (CSUAR), and the development of culturally responsive pedagogy. She is a co-author of the 4th edition of An Integrated Language Perspective in the Elementary School: An Action Approach, which emphasizes the use of language and literacy and other modes of meaning as tools for inquiry and learning across the curriculum. She has co-edited two volumes on a Spencer-sponsored CSUAR project, Working with Teacher Researchers in Urban Classrooms: Transforming Literacy Curriculum Genres and Teacher Inquiries in Literacy Teaching-Learning: Learning to Collaborate in Elementary Urban Classrooms, and her research has been published in book chapters and various journals.     

Sociocognitive roles in science group discourse

The purpose of this study was to examine students' roles during a long-term collaborative task that required them to master complex sets of cognitive, regulatory and social skills needed for building knowledge largely from their own and their peers' ideas and observations. Samples of discourse were collected from 24 8th grade students in eight groups within four classrooms throughout a 12-week unit on constructing and testing mental models of the nature of matter. Eight prominent sociocognitive roles that served socio-emotional, conceptual and metacognitive functions are described. The roles are related to individual students' perspectives on learning, and to the levels of reasoning each group achieved. The results can be used to raise students' and teachers' awareness of the personal resources, interactive processes and norms that can support or derail knowledge construction in collaborative groups.     

Theory-building and theory-confirming observation in science and science education

A paper by Norris presents scientific observation as a highly inferential activity in which human senses have become secondary to instrumentation. Norris takes examples from elementary and secondary curricula to support his position. This paper examines Norris's contentions from two perspectives, that of cognitive psychology and that of the philosophy of science. It is argued here that Norris has discussed only one aspect of observation, theory-confirming observation. Another, pretheoretic or theory-building observation, is more closely related to the curriculum activities he criticized. From a cognitive psychology perspective the theory-confirming observation is of use to the expert, but for novices the absence of domain-specific knowledge and of sophisticated problem-solving processes may render theory-building observation more meaningful for instruction.     

应用写作对现代管理科学的重要作用

现代管理科学是一门综合性、实用性很强的科学，它运用的知识范围包括哲学、政治经济学、系统论、信息论、控制论、应用数学等，而应用文章则是存储和传播这些知识的载体，是把这些知识有机地结合起来并运用于管理实践的“粘合剂”，是促进体制改革，提高管理水平，使管理转化为生产力的必备条件。因此，学好应用写作是搞好现代管理工作的必要前提。     

Specifying a curriculum for biopolitical critical literacy in science teacher education: exploring roles for science fiction

In this essay I suggest some ways in which science teacher educators in Western neoliberal economies might facilitate learners’ development of a critical literacy concerning the social and cultural changes signified by the concept of biopolitics. I consider how such a biopolitically inflected critical literacy might find expression in a science teacher education curriculum and suggest a number of ways of materializing such a curriculum in specific literatures, media, procedures, and assessment tasks, with particular reference to the contributions of science fiction in popular media.     

Embracing the essence of inquiry: New roles for science teachers

“This is the thing I really get excited about. There are some great ideas here, some really neat projects. Wanda and Joan are working on amphibian decline. Ann is interested in territorial behavior or some sort of feeding behavior in crawdads. That is a good one to study because crawdads are an important decomposer in the stream. We're looking at what kinds of criteria in a stream make it habitable for different kinds of organisms. And when you see those different combinations of organisms, what do they mean? How do you interpret them? I mean we're really getting into higher levels of thinking, because we're looking at different kinds of organisms and interpreting them in terms of stream health.” Jake, biology teacher, Northwestern High School. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 37: 916–937, 2000     

Reproductive and resistant pedagogies: The comparative roles of collaborative learning and feminist pedagogy in science education

The underrepresentation of women (and men of color) in science has motivated many science educators to develop innovate classroom pedagogies aimed at making science courses and curricula more attractive and inviting to all students. One dominant approach to reforming science education is to transform how students learn by implementing collaborative approaches to learning in the classroom. Feminist pedagogy is an alternative approach to science education reform that is concerned with transforming both how students of science learn and the science curriculum that students are expected to learn. This article first compares and contrasts collaborative learning and feminist pedagogy. It then addresses the implications and consequences of each for science education. The theoretical and epistemological foundations of each approach demonstrates that choosing a classroom pedagogy is not an apolitical act. Collaborative approaches to science education serve to reproduce the dominant discourse of existing science systems. In contrast, feminist pedagogy resists the dominant discourse and invites all students to learn science, but more important, it invites them also to critically analyze existing scientific systems and the relationship of those systems to power, oppression, and domination. J Res Sci Teach 35: 443–459, 1998.     

Differential response to structure of advance organizers in science instruction

In an experiment designed to investigate individual differences in learning from written materials preceded by advance organizers, 89 fourth-grade subjects were randomly assigned to treatment conditions in which programmed material on insects was preceded by one of three introductory passages containing: (1) higher level generalizations and specific examples; (2) higher level generalizations without examples; or (3) a control passage. Membership in treatment groups was determined by random assignment. Criterion performances were immediate and delayed posttest performance and errors during instruction. Analysis of variance results of treatment effects showed that the three treatments were about equally effective in terms of promoting retention and program errors. Simple regression analysis of Aptitude × Treatment interactions disclosed that Otis-Lennon IQ scores interacted significantly with instructional treatments for program errors showing a negative relationship between IQ scores and the degree of structure provided by the advance organizers.