Perceptions of chemistry: Why is the common perception of chemistry,the most visual of sciences,so distorted?

Chemistry has evolved from a science dominated by mathematics into a science highly dependent on spatial-visual intelligence. Yet the chemical content of introductory courses remains taught essentially the same as 40–50 years ago. Chemistry, today, is recognized by chemists as the molecular science. Yet, school chemistry is alienated from that perception. Thanks to the computer, young people are more comfortable with visual imaging than their instructors were at the same age. Thus the time is rife to reinvigorate chemistry education by means of the visual-spatial approach, an approach wholly in conformance with the way modern chemistry is thought about and practiced.     

Teacher development in advanced educational technology

Advanced educational technology promises to improve science teaching and learning. To achieve the posited outcomes, however, teachers must have access to, know how to, have the skills to, and want to use the proposed advanced educational technologies in their teaching. In response, for the past eight years with support from the National Science Foundation, BSCS has conductedENLIST Micros — a teacher development to help science teachers improve their use of microcomputers.ENLIST Micros has three phases — Phase one (1984–1986): BSCS designed, tested, and producedENLIST Micros (Ellis and Kuerbis, 1987, 1989) teacher development materials (text, video, and tutorial software) for helping science teachers improve their use of educational technology. Phase two (1986–1989): BSCS designed, developed, tested, and disseminated a staff development model for helping science teachers integrate educational technology into instruction. Phase three (1989–1992): BSCS established Teacher Development Centers to implement theENLIST Micros teacher development materials and staff development model with science teachers throughout the United States.ENLIST Micros has served more than 1500 science teachers in 15 states. Teachers who have participated in the program have improved their knowledge, attitude, and self-efficacy about computer usage and have improved their use of microcomputers in their science courses. Furthermore, as part of the project, BSCS has described the implementation process and has developed recommendations to support improvements in the use of educational technology in science programs.     

Paul F-Brandwein 2004 Lecture: Regarding the Ecology of Science Education: Connections to Environmental and Distance Education

Paul F-Brandwein was a visionary who looked at education broadly. He left us with an insightful view of the ecology of education in which he identified three ecological systems: school–family–community, postsecondary, and cultural. The first part of this lecture, by Dean B. Bennett, examines Brandwein's ideas related to environmental education and explores the relationship of environmental education with science teaching in the K-12 school–family–community ecosystem. Focusing particularly on the middle-secondary level, evidence suggests that the goals of environmental education, since their emergence in the late 1960s, are today strongly evident in science curricula, instructional resources, educational assessment, and teacher education. But the author points out that more must be done and provides some fundamental suggestions. The second part of the lecture, by Sheila K. Bennett, examines the role of distance education in the teaching of science in the postsecondary ecosystem and addresses its value as a viable tool in promoting scientific literacy. The lecture focuses on a successful statewide, interdisciplinary laboratory science course delivered by interactive television, the Internet, and computer network. Now in its ninth year, the course reflects Brandwein's thinking about effective classroom teaching and is based on national standards for scientific literacy.     

Pseudohistory and Pseudoscience

The dangers of pseudoscience – parapsychology, astrology,creationism, etc. – are widely criticized. Lessons in the history of science are oftenviewed as an educational remedy by conveying the nature of science. But such histories canbe flawed. In particular, many stories romanticize scientists, inflate the drama of their discoveries,and oversimplify the process of science. They are, literally and rhetorically, myths.While based on real historical events, they distort the basis of scientific authority and fosterunwarranted stereotypes. Such stories are pseudohistory. Like pseudoscience, they promotefalse ideas about science – in this case, about how science works. Paradoxically, perhaps,the history of pseudosciences may offer an excellent vehicle for remedying such impressions. Characteristically, textbooks of science contain just a bit of history, either in an introductory chapteror, more often, in scattered references to the great heroes of an earlier age. From suchreferences both students and professionals come to feel like participants in a long-standinghistorical tradition. Yet the textbook-derived tradition in which scientists come to sensetheir participation is one that, in fact, never existed. –Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions     

Resources for Science Learning: Tools,Tasks, and Environment

This article addresses the question of how science learning can be improved. It recognizes that, while learners themselves are responsible for their own learning, the quality of this learning is greatly influenced when appropriate resources are available to learners. These resources are provided through a partnership between teachers and learners. Three different types of resource are discussed. Tools, in the form of computer tools and conceptual tools, make tasks easier and allow learners to undertake tasks they would not otherwise be able to do. Tasks can facilitate effective learning by creating effective spaces for learners to work in, embodying key aspects of the disciplines of science, providing effective and authentic opportunities for learners to learn, and facilitating a dialogue between learners ideas and their experiences of the natural world. Environment – the ecology in which learning happens – provides three sources of information through the human, social, and conceptual worlds. When key aspects of these worlds are manifested in the environment, they scaffold the learning of science content, the nature of science, and the learning process itself, all of which are required for the deep understanding of science that constitutes improved science learning.     

Science and Education in a Totalitarian Regime: The Case of Slovakia

In this paper we attempt to reflect on the past period in which we have lived and worked; more specifically to examine the role played by science and science education in the two recent Slovakian totalitarian regimes (1939–1945, 1948–1989).     

The NOMA of Yishayahu Leibowitz

Stephen Jay Gould presented his position on science and religion – Non-Overlapping Magisteria (NOMA) – without justification. A detailed justification of the NOMA position can be found in the earlier work of scientist and philosopher Yishayahu Leibowitz; his work is especially interesting because it comes from a religious person. This paper summarizes Leibowitz's philosophical and theological position, and claims that his version of NOMA, and by implication similar versions of NOMA, are not applicable in science education.     

Physics Teaching in the Search for Its Self

The crisis in physics education necessitates searching for new relevant meanings of physics knowledge. This paper advocates regarding physics as the dialogue among discipline-cultures, rather than as a cluster of disciplines to be an appropriate subject of science education. In a discipline-culture one can distinguish elements of knowledge as belonging to either (1) central principles and paradigms – nucleus, (2) normal disciplinary area – body of knowledge or (3) rival knowledge of the subject – periphery. It appears that Physics cannot be represented as a simple dynamic wholeness, that is, cannot be arranged in a single tripartite (triadic) structure (this result presents a deconstruction), but incorporates several discipline-cultures. Bound together by family similarity, they maintain a conceptual discourse. Teaching physics as a culture is performed in polyphonic space of different worldviews; in other words, it is performed in a Kontrapunkt. Implications of the tripartite code are suggested with regard to representation of scientific revolutions, individual conceptual change, physics curricula and the typology of students learning science.     

Documenting Science Teachers' Pedagogical Content Knowledge Through PaP-eRs

This paper examines science teachers' pedagogical content knowledge and ways in which that knowledge might be captured, articulated and portrayed to others. The research from which this paper is drawn has involved interviews with experienced science teachers in an attempt to make the tacit nature of their practice explicit. Initially, case methodology was envisaged as being a way of documenting these teachers' pedagogical content knowledge. However, over time, the form of knowledge and information that we were gathering and attempting to portray extended beyond that which could reasonably be described as being case-based. Hence we have developed an approach to articulation and portrayal based on what we call the CoRe (Content Representation) – which represents the particular content/topic of the science teaching – and PaP-eRs (Pedagogical and Professional experience Repertoire) – which help to illuminate specific aspects of the CoRe and therefore offer insights into pedagogical content knowledge itself. The results of this study offer new ways of conceptualising what pedagogical content knowledge is and how it might be captured, documented and disseminated.     

How in Spite of the Rhetoric,History of Chemistry has Been Ignored in Presenting Atomic Structure in Textbooks

Recent research in science education has recognized the importance of history and philosophy of science. This study has the following objectives:(a) To show how the importance of history of chemistry has been recognized in theclassroom, starting from the 1920s to the present; (b) How criteria based on history andphilosophy of science can be used to evaluate presentation of atomic structure in generalchemistry textbooks; (c) Comparison of the new (1970–1992) and old textbooks (1929–1967)with respect to the presentation of atomic structure. Results obtained show thatmost of the new and old textbooks not only ignore the history and philosophy of sciencebut also present experimental findings as a `rhetoric of conclusions'. It isconcluded that such presentations are not conducive towards a better understanding of scientificprogress. It is suggested that history and philosophy of science can be introduced in theclassroom not necessarily through formal courses in the history of chemistry or commentsand anecdotes, but rather by incorporating the `heuristic principles' that guided thescientists to elaborate their theories.     

Employment Outcomes of Science Graduates in Australia: Implications for Choice and Diversity in the Curriculum

In this paper, we compare employment outcomes of science graduates in Australia with information about survey respondents' courses of study to determine the nature and extent of employment-curriculum match (or mismatch). Outcomes of student preferences are also explored to see which course structures – specifically generalist or specialist – are more successful than others. Six different measures of employment-curriculum matching are used to argue that mismatching is likely to be minimal. The paper suggests implications for the structure of undergraduate science degrees.     

Student and Teacher Perceptions of the Use of Multimedia Supported Predict–Observe–Explain Tasks to Probe Understanding

This paper discusses student and teacher perceptions of a new development in the use of the predict–observe–explain (POE) strategy. This development involves the incorporation of POE tasks into a multimedia computer program that uses real-life, digital video clips of difficult, expensive, time consuming or dangerous scenarios as stimuli for these tasks. The program was created by the first author to be used by pairs of secondary physics students to elicit their conceptions of force and motion and encourage discussion about these views. In this computer learning environment, students were required to type full sentence responses that were recorded by the computer for later analysis by the researcher. Other data sources for this study included audio and video recordings of student discussions, interviews with selected students and their teachers, classroom observations, and student questionnaires. This paper will report on some findings from the study, focussing on student and teacher perceptions of the computer-mediated POE tasks. The findings have implications for the effective use of multimedia to enhance meaningful learning in science classrooms.     

Klein's Model of Mathematical Creativity

My purpose in this paper is to show how modelling and othernon-deductive forms of reasoning, as employed by a highly creative mathematician, can be productiveof important conceptual innovations, and, by the same token, can serve as effective tools for stimulatingconceptual development in the process of learning mathematics. After a – necessarily brief – characterizationof Klein's model-based practice and its philosophical underpinning, the educational implications of the `model view'of mathematics are discussed. Models typically establish connections between different parts of our knowledgeand are therefore highly expedient for the construction of anintegrated conceptual framework for understanding mathematics,its relations with science and technology, and its practical uses.     

Revisiting the pressure-volume law in history-what can it teach us about the emergence of mathematical relationships in science?

In this article the pressure-volume law is reviewed from the point of view of its historical emergence from 1644–1662 and its application in the science classroom. It is contended that mathematical laws in science have value as rich conceptual tools in addition to their role in computation. A classification scheme for algebraic mathematical expressions, based on their historical context, is proposed as a means of assigning significance to the mathematical expressions commonly used in science.     

The Nature of Science and Science Education: A Bibliography

Research on the nature of science and science education enjoys a longhistory, with its origins in Ernst Mach's work in the late nineteenthcentury and John Dewey's at the beginning of the twentieth century.As early as 1909 the Central Association for Science and MathematicsTeachers published an article – A Consideration of the Principles thatShould Determine the Courses in Biology in Secondary Schools – inSchool Science and Mathematics that reflected foundational concernsabout science and how school curricula should be informed by them. Sincethen a large body of literature has developed related to the teaching andlearning about nature of science – see, for example, the Lederman (1992)and Meichtry (1993) reviews cited below. As well there has been intensephilosophical, historical and philosophical debate about the nature of scienceitself, culminating in the much-publicised Science Wars of recent time. Thereferences listed here primarily focus on the empirical research related to thenature of science as an educational goal; along with a few influential philosophicalworks by such authors as Kuhn, Popper, Laudan, Lakatos, and others. Whilenot exhaustive, the list should prove useful to educators, and scholars in otherfields, interested in the nature of science and how its understanding can berealised as a goal of science instruction. The authors welcome correspondenceregarding omissions from the list, and on-going additions that can be made to it.     

“Don't Tell Me,I'll Find Out” Robert Karplus—A Science Education Pioneer

Robert Karplus (1927–90), who began his career as a brilliant theoretical physicist, switched to science education in the early 1960s. He made many substantial contributions to this field in addition to developing a complete K–6 hands-on science curriculum. Karplus provided his curriculum with a sound epistemological foundation, based on the work of Piaget. He developed an effective classroom teaching strategy, the learning cycle. He and his team used a scientific approach to curriculum development. They focused on teacher development. Karplus was committed to science for ALL students. Through science activities he sought to share the joy of discovery. A recent book collects some of his important papers and enables you to examine his work for yourself and see what you discover.     

A Remote Sensing Class Exercise to Study the Effects of El Niño in South America

Satellite remote sensing techniques can be used for conducting environmental change detection studies following a natural disaster. Modern computer technology and free access to global satellite imagery allows educators to introduce undergraduate students to the fields of remote sensing and encourage their scientific participation through a research assignment that also serves as an educational exercise. The undergraduate physical science laboratory manuals used in higher education that contain printed remote sensing material often fail to effectively achieve these goals. This class exercise utilizes digital satellite imagery for studying the floods that resulted in the Paraná River region in South America during El Niño 1997–98. In addition, it examines vegetation cover and spectral profiles from the study area in order to further understand and assess the changes that were caused by this recurrent climatic anomaly.     

Future teacher scholarship programs for science education: Rationale for teaching in perceived high-need areas

Data from Oklahoma Future Scholarship Recipients were collected covering awards over a seven-year period. Scholarships ($1000–$1500 per year) were awarded by the State Regents for Higher Education to attract and retain potential teachers into the teaching of science. The study focused on the reasons that these teachers (N=58) went into the teaching of science. From the survey teachers went into teaching because (in ranked order) they want to teach subject matter; they were committed to social change; they liked to work with and be a positive force in the life of children (adolescents), etc. They did not go into teaching for money, because it was easy, because they drifted into it, or because it was not their first choice. The teachers who received scholarships like teaching science, liked teaching, and are (they say) likely to stay in the field, but they would have gone into teaching anyway: 82% were not enticed into either the field or the discipline of science by their scholarships. Those who would use scholarships in the $1000–$1500 per year range, as a marketing strategy, to attract students to a discipline such as science should rethink the efficacy of this approach.     

Between Printed Past and Digital Future

Peer review – processes of quality control and certification – is well established in most sciences. In this contribution we limit ourselves to peer review in scientific journals. The main idea of peer review – to keep science free from individuals' and groups' interests and impact, and to select and publish only what is the best in a special field of research – is briefly summarized. Though peer review has a significant impact in the sciences, it is obviously hard to realize its objects. Highly publicized cases of fraud, large amounts of time necessary for the review process, the continued power of old boys' networks, and so forth – such factors led to many debates, and while some demanded to abolish peer review completely, others looked for possibilities to revise the review process. The Internet appears to provide tools to improve the organisation of peer review and to afford the transparency of the review process and its results. But even if the use of the Internet leads to significant changes in peer review there is no value-free scientific knowledge and evaluation that are separate from (predominant and/or competing) paradigms and their proponents.     

Future teacher scholarship programs for science education: Rationale for teaching in perceived high need areas

Data from Oklahoma Future Teachers Scholarship (OFTS) recipients were collected covering awards over a seven-year period. Scholarships ($1000–$1500 per year) were awarded by the State Regents for Higher Education to attract and retain potential teachers into the teaching of science. The study focused on the reasons that these teachers (N=58) went into the teaching of science. From the survey, teachers went into (in ranked order) teaching because they wanted to teach specific subject matter, they were committed to social change, they liked to work with and be a positive force in the life of children (adolescents), etc. They did not go into teaching for money, because it was easy, because they drifted into it, or because it was not their first choice. The teachers who received scholarships like teaching science, like teaching and say they are likely to stay in the field. However, the OFTS recipients indicated they would have gone into teaching anyway, 82% were not enticed into either the field or the discipline of science by their scholarships. Those who would use scholarship(s) in the $1000–$1500 per year range, as a marketing strategy, to attract students to a discipline such as science should rethink the efficacy of this approach.