Climbing the Staircase: science education for the knowledge economy

Science and technology are widely regarded as the dominant drivers of transformation to a ‘knowledge’ economy and society — a transition in which higher education has a critical role. This paper reviews the influence of successive NZ governments intention to ‘proactively steer’ the tertiary education system towards the achievement of this critical role, and describes an initiative at the Auckland University of Technology (AUT) specifically designed to meet New Zealand's needs for a well trained, articulate and flexible workforce of scientists, engineers, technicians and support staff. The ‘staircasing’ model is the culmination of an effort to adapt, modify and extend traditional models of professional science and technology education to provide a mechanism for ‘life‐long learning’ through a flexible and responsive network of purpose‐built courses.     

Asia Pacific science education in a knowledge society

Science education, since the end of the nineteenth century has been a formal vehicle to ensure the perpetuation of scientific knowledge necessary for general scientific literacy and the creation of a society of scientists. However, since then, beliefs about knowledge and knowing have changed from science being described as being just a pile of chronologically documented facts, through the dynamic growth of scientific knowledge as explained by Kuhn in his Structure of Scientific Revolutions, to the present twenty-first century concept of knowledge societies by which new scientific knowledge is being interpreted. Science education perspectives in relation to teacher education and pedagogies need to be frequently revisited. Indeed, many nations in the Asia-Pacific region are doing just that. How then is the teaching and learning of scientific knowledge in the region? This article will review and compare research related to science achievement, quality of science education and approaches to teaching science in the Asia-Pacific region in particular five nations, in an attempt to answer this question.     

New challenges to education and research in a global economy

Education must meet the new challenges of a global economy. Globalization presents increasing demands not only on knowledge and ability but also on the environment of knowledge and ability. Globalization does not mean simply to homogenize the economy, markets and culture but rather to deal with differing environments. To act on a global scale entails being very familiar with local situations. Therefore, in almost all branches of learning, education must prepare the educated for changing demands. We do not leave the haven of school to enter a world to which we are accustomed. This holds true, especially for a world that is globalizing itself. The research triangle and transdisciplinarity are answers to this situation.     

Globalization and science education: The implications of science in the new economy

Science has seen considerable change in recent decades with the emergence of a new economic and sociopolitical contract between science, the nation, state, and private commercial interests. Generally regarded as having been precipitated by globalization, these changes in the sciences are beginning to be documented by a range of commentators. Clearly, science's changing forms hold profound implications for the development of science education. As there is little science education scholarship exploring the implications sciences' altering forms, this paper attempts to investigate the relationship at more depth. Detailing this relationship is important because it can help formulate new questions, and methods for their investigation, relevant to the work of science education in the newly global world. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 45: 617–633, 2008     

Rethinking environmental science education from indigenous knowledge perspectives: an experience with a Dene First Nation community

This auto-ethnographic article explores how land-based education might challenge Western environmental science education (ESE) in an Indigenous community. This learning experience was developed from two perspectives: first, land-based educational stories from Dene First Nation community Elders, knowledge holders, teachers, and students; and second, the author’s critical self‐reflections focusing on how land-based education could offer unlearning, rethinking, relearning, and reclaiming ESE. This auto-ethnography provides particular insights into who we are as environmental educators, the challenges in Western ESE, why land-based education matters, why and how a significant move should be made from Western ESE to land-based ESE, and how land-based education offers a bridge between Western and Indigenous education.     

Understanding the science of environmental issues: development of a subject knowledge guide for primary teacher education

In the light of an increased concern for environmental education (especially in the context of sustainable development) in the UK, this study used questionnaire surveys to explore the understanding of 170 practising primary school teachers, 120 primary trainees and 88 secondary science trainees in four areas: biodiversity, the carbon cycle, ozone and global warming. A methodological innovation in this research was the prior identification of basic scientific explanations of each area for a primary teacher and the use of these as benchmarks for judging understanding. Knowledge of the component parts of these explanations was tested in the questionnaires. Hence the study was able to identify those underpinning science concepts which were well understood, and those which were not so well understood. The frequencies of several misconceptions, uncovered in earlier interviews and also included in the questionnaires, are also reported. It is suggested that both the basic explanations and the difficulties of understanding displayed by the teachers in some areas can usefully inform programmes of professional development for sustainable development and environmental education. An outline of a guide for teachers adopting this approach is provided.     

Globalisation,knowledge economy and comparative education

This paper seeks to introduce this special issue by setting out what seem to be some of the major theoretical and methodological issues raised for comparative education by the increasing prominence of the discourses of the knowledge economy, which, it is argued, represent a particularly strong version of globalisation and its possible relationships to education systems, and hence an especially acute challenge to comparative education. It focuses on the possible implications of these changes for each of the three elements of ‘national education system’. In terms of the ‘national’ it discusses the nature and consequences of methodological nationalism, and emphasises the emerging pluri‐scalar nature of the governance of education. In terms of ‘education’, it argues that education is now being asked to do different things in different ways, rather than the same things in different ways. In terms of ‘system’, it is suggested that the constitution of education sectors may be in the process of changing, with a development of parallel sectors at different scales with different responsibilities. Overall, the article suggests that we may be witnessing the development of a new functional, scalar and sectoral (non zero sum) division of the labour of educational governance. Finally, it addresses the question ‘what is now to be compared’ and considers the consequences for both ‘explaining’ and ‘learning’ through comparative education.     

Scepticism and doubt in science and science education: the complexity of global warming as a socio-scientific issue

This article looks critically at the complexity of the debate among climate scientists; the controversies in the science of global temperature measurement; and at the role played by consensus. It highlights the conflicting perspectives figuring in the mass media concerned with climate change, arguing that science teachers should be familiar with them, particularly given the sharply contested views likely to be brought into classroom discussion and the importance of developing intellectual scepticism and robust scientific literacy in students. We distinguish between rational scepticism and the pejorative meaning of the expression associated with attitudinal opposition to global warming—similar to the way in which Bauer (2006) contrasts micro-scepticism and macro-scepticism in reasoning generally. And we look closely and critically at the approaches which teachers might adopt in practice to teach about global warming at this difficult time.     

树立知识经济时代的素质教育观

２１世纪是知识经济的世纪，说到底也是素质教育的世纪。我们应站在时代和社会发展的战略高度，树立适应知识经济时代需要的全新的素质教育观，即树立以学会认知、做事、合作和生存为主要内容，以学会做人为核心的素质教育观，全面实施党中央、国务院提出的“跨世纪素质教育工程”和“跨世纪园丁工程”，推进我国的素质教育。一、要树立学会关心、学会做人的素质教育观在知识经济时代，科学与文化的发展越来越呈融合的趋势，经济与社会的发展呈可持续发展趋势。可持续发展强调人与自然和人与社会持续、整体、协调、平等地发展。这两种趋势要…     

Asian lifelong learning in the context of a global knowledge economy: A task re-visited

This article revisits and reinterprets my previous paper. It is a snapshot of the lifelong learning system building in selected Asian countries, reflected in the mirror of the Asian Financial Crisis in the 1997s and the aftermath of that event. I reconsidered the arguments (1) the economic recession had delivered a global dimension of lifelong learning to the re-shaping of the local education system beyond local attributes; (2) and that the divergent tradition of adult education in this context was to meet the global market standards. Additionally, (3) I tried to further the discussion about the relationship between global forces and the lifelong learning system in the context of a knowledge economy, but with a number of different approaches. I argued that the lifelong learning system under the global forces of capitalism, as per the Asian experience in the 2000s, can be apart of a knowledge economy itself, not a tool of it, and in this sense, a knowledge economy sets the conditions of a lifelong learning system as an embryo of its attributes.     

Autobiography in science education: Greater objectivity through local knowledge

In our paper we argue that (1) autobiography ought to be considered both the telling of one's story and the using of that story with others to understand and use difference productively, and (2) autobiography (as telling and interacting) dismantles the universalistic tug of science and replaces it with a push for science as local knowledge. To accomplish this dual task, we share selective autobiographical accounts of lives (autobiography as telling), and then use these accounts to have a conversation about urban science education (autobiography as interacting). Following these autobiographical accounts we then discuss how our different stories apart and together provide a greater objective insight into what it means to come-to-know science. When talking about their lives, people lie sometimes, forget a lot, exaggerate, become confused, and get things wrong. Yet, they are revealing truths. These truths don't reveal the past “as it actually was,” aspiring to a standard of objectivity. They give us instead the truths of our experiences. (Personal Narratives Group (PNG), 1989, p. 261)     

Indigenous knowledge in environmental education processes: Perspectives on a growing research arena

What, then, is the problem? Indigenous knowledge has not, or not entirely disappeared from the collective memory. It has not lost any parcel of its age old efficiency either. Besides, it should not be considered a problem that it coexists today with so called modern science (i.e. an imported, supposedly rational system of knowledge and know-how). The real problem is elsewhere: about the very form of this coexistence. (Hountondji, 2002, p. 24, emphasis original)     

Pedagogical content knowledge in science education: perspectives and potential for progress

Pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), since its inception as teacher‐specific professional knowledge, has been researched extensively. Drawing on a wide range of literature, this paper seeks to clarify how the potential offered by PCK could be utilised to further develop science teacher education. An analysis of PCK models proposed by various researchers, together with methods of elucidating PCK in experienced and novice teachers, is provided. The paper argues that making PCK more explicit in the teacher education process may help novices adjust to teaching, as well as aiding experienced teachers in developing more reflective practices.