批判性思维视角下科学知识与人文知识的融合及其教学启示

科学知识和人文知识的分化逐渐加深了两类知识之间的隔阂与对立。将批判性思维引入两类知识的探讨旨在以批判性思维作为弥合两类知识分裂之突破口。科学知识中的批判性思维重在对客观真理的追寻,具体指向对逻辑思维不足、神学和迷信的批判。人文知识中的批判性思维重在对精神世界的观照,具体指向对技术主义弊端和绝对客观主义的批判。尽管科学知识和人文知识中批判性思维的特点不尽相同,但批判性思维强调科学知识和人文知识的自我反思,这为批判性思维促进两类知识的融合提供了可能性。从起点、过程、目的三个层面建构批判性思维促进科学知识和人文知识融合的路径,并在此基础上进一步提出构建"科学—人文"知识教学联合体以达成批判性思维视角下知识融合的教学。     

Fostering conceptual change and critical reasoning about HIV and AIDS

One of the challenges of science education is for students to develop scientific knowledge that is personally meaningful and applicable to real‐life issues. This article describes a middle‐school science intervention fostering adolescents' critical reasoning in the context of HIV by strengthening their conceptual understanding of HIV biology. The intervention included two components: critical reasoning activities that fostered knowledge integration and application to real‐world problem solving, and science writing activities that promoted argument building. Two seventh‐grade classes participated in the study. One class participated in the critical reasoning and writing activities (CR&W); the other class participated in critical reasoning activities only (CR group). Results demonstrate significant pre‐ and posttest improvements on measures of students' HIV knowledge, HIV understanding, and critical reasoning about realistic scenarios in the context of HIV, with the improvements being greater in the CR&W group. The discussion focuses on the role of conceptual knowledge in health reasoning, the role of science writing in fostering knowledge integration, and the benefits of a “thinking curriculum” approach to integrated health and science education. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 44: 844–863, 2007     

Multimodal Literacies in Science: Currency, Coherence and Focus

Since the 1990s, researchers have increasingly drawn attention to the multiplicity of representations used in science. This issue of RISE advances this line of research by placing such representations at the centre of science teaching and learning. The authors show that representations do not simply transmit scientific information; they are integral to reasoning about scientific phenomena. This focus on thinking with representations mediates between well-resolved representations and formal reasoning of disciplinary science, and the capacity-limited, perceptually-driven nature of human cognition. The teaching practices described here build on three key principles: Each representation is interpreted through others; natural language is a sign system that is used to interpret a variety of other kinds of representations; and this chain of signs or representations is ultimately grounded in bodily experiences of perception and action. In these papers, the researchers provide examples and analysis of teachers scaffolding students in using representations to construct new knowledge, and in constructing new representations to express and develop their knowledge. The result is a new delineation of the power and the challenges of teaching science with multiple representations.     

The development of scientific reasoning skills in conjunction with collaborative writing assignments: An interpretive study of six ninth-grade students

In this investigation, three classes of ninth-grade general science students participated in a collaborative report-writing intervention. The purpose of this portion of the study was to evaluate students' collaboratively written laboratory reports for evidence of the use of scientific reasoning skills and to document qualitative changes in reasoning skill use over time. The participants in the study were 6 ninth-grade students, representing three collaborative writing pairs. During the intervention, students wrote 10 laboratory reports over a 4.5-month period. The author and classroom teacher designed report guideline prompts to scaffold students in the use of relevant scientific reasoning skills. The results indicated that students used reasoning skills to assess their current models of scientific understanding, make observations, interpret the meaning of results, and generate new models based on their data and relevant information. Participants showed the most improvement in writing that reflected the reasoning skills of (a) selecting and processing textbook passages, (b) drawing conclusions and formulating models, and (c) comparing/contrasting. Over time, participants improved their ability to compose explanations that represented a synthesis of prior knowledge, activity observations, and other sources of information. Collaborative writing encouraged students to construct their own understandings of science concepts by creating an environment in which thinking, reasoning, and discussion were valued.     

Nonverbal Ability and Scientific Vocabulary Predict Children's Causal Reasoning in Science Better than Generic Language

Verbal and nonverbal forms of thinking exhibit widespread dissociation at neural and behavioral level. The importance of this for children's causal thinking and its implications for school science are largely unknown. Assessing 5‐ to 10‐year‐olds' responses (N = 231), verbal ability predicted causal reasoning, but only at lower levels, while nonverbal ability was the strongest predictor at higher levels of causal inference. We also distinguished between generic and scientific vocabulary use (n = 101). The results showed that use of scientific vocabulary predicted causal reasoning beyond generic, and connected more to nonverbal thinking. The findings highlighted the importance of elementary school science activities supporting application of nonverbal ability in thinking about causal processes; the benefits of linking nonverbal imagery to scientific vocabulary; and shortcomings in understanding of the forms/sources of nonverbal ability and their role in learning.     

后现代科学实在论及其对教育研究的启示

后现代科学实在论是当代科学实在论在后现代主义思潮背景下的一种思想倾向或方法论趋向.它虽然仍高举着科学理性的大旗,但却对其进行了深刻的反思与批判.后现代科学实在论在科学主义的精神中引入人文主义的精神,把科学的社会化和社会化的科学看作是一致的,从而在科学哲学的研究中推进科学主义与人文主义的相互渗透和融合.后现代科学实在论的许多思想、观念对教育研究的认识论、方法论及方法等有重要的启示.     

History of Science in the Physics Curriculum: A Directed Content Analysis of Historical Sources

Although history of science is a potential resource for instructional materials, teachers do not have a tendency to use historical materials in their lessons. Studies showed that instructional materials should be adaptable and consistent with curriculum. This study purports to examine the alignment between history of science and the curriculum in the light of the facilitator model on the use of history of science in science teaching, and to expose possible difficulties in preparing historical materials. For this purpose, qualitative content analysis method was employed. Codes and themes were defined beforehand, with respect to levels and their sublevels of the model. The analysis revealed several problems with the alignment of historical sources for the physics curriculum: limited information about scientists’ personal lives, the difficulty of linking with content knowledge, the lack of emphasis on scientific process in the physics curriculum, differences between chronology and sequence of topics, the lack of information about scientists’ reasoning. Based on the findings of the analysis, it would be difficult to use original historical sources; educators were needed to simplify historical knowledge within a pedagogical perspective. There is a need for historical sources, like Harvard Case Histories in Experimental Science, since appropriate historical information to the curriculum objectives can only be obtained by simplifying complex information at the origin. The curriculum should leave opportunities for educators interested in history of science, even historical sources provides legitimate amount of information for every concepts in the curriculum.     

Towards a Comprehensive Account of Effective Thinking

Due to its strong focus on reasoning and argumentation, critical thinking lacks the breadth required of a comprehensive account of higher order thinking. In particular, critical thinking does not promote reflection on the underlying problems or situations that people think about. This paper reviews various proposed additions to and reorientations of the critical thinking paradigm. It presents a conceptual framework that encompasses the most promising extensions as topics in a broadened account of higher order thinking. This account can be understood as an elaboration of problem solving along two dimensions: Problem types, which are generic thinking situations; and problem solving functions, which are generic thinking tasks. The proposed topic-level account of higher order thinking offers a greatly enlarged view of what should be taught in general thinking skills programs.     

Elementary students' views of explanation,argumentation, and evidence,and their abilities to construct arguments over the school year

Science includes more than just concepts and facts, but also encompasses scientific ways of thinking and reasoning. Students' cultural and linguistic backgrounds influence the knowledge they bring to the classroom, which impacts their degree of comfort with scientific practices. Consequently, the goal of this study was to investigate 5th grade students' views of explanation, argument, and evidence across three contexts—what scientists do, what happens in science classrooms, and what happens in everyday life. The study also focused on how students' abilities to engage in one practice, argumentation, changed over the school year. Multiple data sources were analyzed: pre‐ and post‐student interviews, videotapes of classroom instruction, and student writing. The results from the beginning of the school year suggest that students' views of explanation, argument, and evidence, varied across the three contexts with students most likely to respond “I don't know” when talking about their science classroom. Students had resources to draw from both in their everyday knowledge and knowledge of scientists, but were unclear how to use those resources in their science classroom. Students' understandings of explanation, argument, and evidence for scientists and for science class changed over the course of the school year, while their everyday meanings remained more constant. This suggests that instruction can support students in developing stronger understanding of these scientific practices, while still maintaining distinct understandings for their everyday lives. Finally, the students wrote stronger scientific arguments by the end of the school year in terms of the structure of an argument, though the accuracy, appropriateness, and sufficiency of the arguments varied depending on the specific learning or assessment task. This indicates that elementary students are able to write scientific arguments, yet they need support to apply this practice to new and more complex contexts and content areas. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 48: 793–823, 2011     

The Public's Bounded Understanding of Science

This introduction to the special issue Understanding the Public Understanding of Science: Psychological Approaches discusses some of the challenges people face in understanding science. We focus on people's inevitably bounded understanding of science topics; research must address how people make decisions in science domains such as health and medicine without having the deep and extensive understanding that is characteristic of domain experts. The articles reflect two broad streams of research on the public understanding of science—the learning orientation that seeks to improve understanding through better instruction and the communications orientation that focuses on attitudes about science and trust in scientists. Challenges to understanding science include determining the relevance of information, the tentativeness of scientific truth, distinguishing between scientific and nonscientific issues, and determining what is true and what is false. Studying the public understanding of science can potentially contribute to psychological theories of thinking and reasoning in modern societies.     

Diagnosing Competency Mastery in Science: An Application of GDM to TIMSS 2011 Data

Numerous diagnostic studies have been conducted on large-scale assessments to illustrate the students’ mastery profile in the areas of math and reading; however, for science a limited number of investigations are reported. This study investigated Iranian eighth graders’ competency mastery of science and examined the utility of the General Diagnostic Model (GDM) to produce diagnostic information using TIMSS 2011 data. Eight diagnostic attributes were extracted, using documentary analysis of the major large-scale assessment frameworks, including basic science knowledge, using models, reasoning, using science, representing data, explaining of phenomena, predicting, and scientific inquiry. These attributes were then assigned to each item in order to construct the Q matrix, through focus group discussions, survey of head science teachers, think-aloud verbal protocol, and analysis of written answers. Results show the utility of GDM to generate rich diagnostic information for a national large-scale assessment. Moreover, the findings indicated that students performed relatively well in using science, but performed weakly in reasoning, explaining of phenomena, and scientific inquiry, which all required complex skills and higher-order thinking abilities.     

科学呼唤人文,人文导引科学

本文从发展科学角度阐述人文对科学的重要性。主要是从科学研究的动机、目标、态度、方法和科学应用等几个方面说明科学必须以人文为主导。文章从界定科学与人文的概念出发，以理论分析和实例印证两个方面提出并讨论了四个问题。即：人文是科学创造的动力源，人文是科学态度的试金石，人文是科学途程的指路灯，人文是科学应用的方向盘。     

Re-designing Science Pedagogy: Reversing the Flight from Science

This article takes as its starting point the ongoing downturn in student interest in, and engagement with, the enabling sciences. We make a case that embedding of creative pedagogies in science education has significant potential to arrest the flight from modern science. Five propositions are explored in order to argue the case: that young people are more engaged by active tasks than with a passive consumption approach to transfer of core knowledge; that it is boredom, not rigour, that disengages them––the difference is between static and dynamic sources of knowledge; that creativity is not the antithesis of scientific rigour but the core business of scientific thinking; that we now have new understandings of creative pedagogies that make teaching strategies visible and effective; and, that these strategies can build academic, digital and social capacity simultaneously and this is the new core business of the science educator. We conclude by flagging implications for leading such pedagogical change in science faculties.     

German influences on the Spanish academic discourse in educational sciences between 1945 and 1990

The idiosyncrasy of national academic discourses in educational sciences and the flow of ideas between them is a topic that has inspired recent research, even though it has not been treated very exhaustively. This study presents some results of an investigation into German influences on the Spanish academic discourse in educational sciences between 1945 and 1990. Considering system theory as a tool, which makes it possible to widen the knowledge of educational science about itself, the research is based on the idea that all communications between scientists, who represent a certain discipline, constitute the core of a scientific discourse. In this perspective, scientific disciplines appear as social‐communicative networks of knowledge production, which regulate themselves. The basic element of communication, which produces and reproduces the self‐regulated context of the scientific discipline, is the publication. To that extent this study assumes that scientific reviews reflect truly the condition of a discipline and uses their analysis as a method to survey the possible influence of a national academic discourse on another, i.e. how certain ideas cross the boundaries of their own reference system. These assumptions constitute the background for the quantitative and qualitative analysis of two important Spanish reviews, the Revista Española de Pedagogía and the Revista de Educación. The register of all authors and titles of any article that contains the quotation of a German author, all quoted German authors and the titles of their works, all authors and titles related to German educational sciences and all reviews of books edited by German authors allows quantitative statements concerning the presence of German influences on Spanish academic discourse. Furthermore, the interpretation of some selected articles published by Spanish authors illustrates the quality of this reception. The analysis of these data shows as the most important result that the quantity and frequency of quotations of German authors in both Spanish reviews are positively related to the presence of a relatively small group of Spanish educationists among the authors of their articles. A prosopographic approach to these authors discovers that they share certain characteristics, such as for example high interest in German academic discourse, often due to longer stays at German universities. The interpretation of some selected articles identifies different types of reception of the German discourse. Besides a small number of articles that reflect the quoted ideas correctly in their context, there are a large number of studies that use the quotations of German literature only in order to strengthen their own point of view without regarding the original context of their sources. These cases shed light upon the structural differences between the German and Spanish academic discourse in educational sciences and illustrate the difficulties for the exchange of educational ideas between different national debates.     

Making inquiry-based science learning visible: the influence of CVS and cognitive skills on content knowledge learning in guided inquiry

ABSTRACT

Many science curricula and standards emphasise that students should learn both scientific knowledge and the skills associated with the construction of this knowledge. One way to achieve this goal is to use inquiry-learning activities that embed the use of science process skills. We investigated the influence of scientific reasoning skills (i.e. conceptual and procedural knowledge of the control-of-variables strategy) on students’ conceptual learning gains in physics during an inquiry-learning activity. Eighth graders (n?=?189) answered research questions about variables that influence the force of electromagnets and the brightness of light bulbs by designing, running, and interpreting experiments. We measured knowledge of electricity and electromagnets, scientific reasoning skills, and cognitive skills (analogical reasoning and reading ability). Using structural equation modelling we found no direct effects of cognitive skills on students’ content knowledge learning gains; however, there were direct effects of scientific reasoning skills on content knowledge learning gains. Our results show that cognitive skills are not sufficient; students require specific scientific reasoning skills to learn science content from inquiry activities. Furthermore, our findings illustrate that what students learn during guided inquiry activities becomes visible when we examine both the skills used during inquiry learning and the process of knowledge construction. The implications of these findings for science teaching and research are discussed.     

Associations Between Attitudes Towards Science and Children’s Evaluation of Information About Socioscientific Issues

Science educators are typically dismayed by the failure of students to use relevant scientific knowledge when reasoning about socioscientific issues. Except for the well-documented association between having more knowledge about a topic and a tendency to use that knowledge, the influences on students’ evaluation of information in socioscientific issues are not well understood. This study presents an initial investigation into the associations between upper elementary students’ attitudes towards science and their evaluation of information about a socioscientific issue. We surveyed the science attitudes of 49 sixth grade students and then asked them to evaluate information about a socioscientific issue (alternative energy use). Positive attitudes were associated with a more scientific approach to evaluating information in the task. When trying to make judgments, students with generally positive attitudes towards science were more likely to attend to scientific information than other sources. Scientific information, nonetheless, served a variety of socially oriented goals in students’ evaluations. These findings warrant further research on the relationship between science attitudes and reasoning about socioscientific issues and support the argument for connecting school science more clearly with everyday concerns.