Developing School-Scientist Partnerships: Lessons for Scientists from Forests-of-Life

The concept of partnerships between schools and practicing scientists came to prominence in the United States in the mid 1980s. The call by government for greater private sector involvement in education to raise standards in science achievement saw a variety of programmes developed, ranging from short-term sponsorships through to longer-term, project-based interactions. Recently, school-scientist partnerships (SSPs) have been rekindled as a means of assisting schools to motivate and inspire students in science, improve levels of teachers’ science knowledge, and increase awareness of the type and variety of career opportunities available in the sciences (Rennie and Howitt, 2009). This article summarises research that used an interpretive case study method to examine the performance of a two-year SSP pilot between a government-owned science research institute, and 200 students from two Intermediate (years 7 and 8) schools in New Zealand. It explored the experiences of scientists involved in the partnerships, and revealed difficulties in bridging the void that existed between the outcomes-driven, commercially-focused world of research scientists, and the more process-oriented, tightly structured, and conservative world of teachers and schools. Findings highlight the pragmatic realities of establishing partnerships, from the perspective of scientists. These include acute awareness of the nature of school systems, conventions and environments; the science, technological and pedagogical knowledge of teachers; teacher workload issues and pressures, curriculum priorities and access to science resources. The article identifies areas where time and effort should be invested to ensure successful partnership outcomes.     

Associations among Attachment Classifications of Mothers, Fathers, and Their Infants

Associations are reported among classifications of Adult Attachment Interviews (AAIs) obtained from expectant parents and subsequent classifications of their infants in the Strange Situation Procedure (SSP). Mothers' AAIs predicted infant-mother SSPs ( X ²= 41.87, N = 96, df = 9, ρ≤ .0001), and fathers' AAIs predicted infant-father SSPs ( X ²= 18.94, N = 90, df = 6, ρ≤ .005). Associations between parents' AAIs and infant-parent SSPs were lessened by the failure to predict the insecure-resistant pattern with mother and the absence of this pattern with father. Counter to expectation, infant-father SSPs were associated with infant-mother SSPs ( X ²= 3.78, N = 90, df = 1, ρ≤ .05), which could not be accounted for in terms of an overlap between parental AAIs. A secondary analysis of the data suggested that this dependency effect of SSPs may be explained by the influence of maternal AAIs upon child-father SSPs. Results are discussed in terms of intergenerational and relationship-specific influences upon attachment during infancy, the possible influence of infant temperament, and the relative influence of mother and father upon the child's evolving representations of attachments within the family.     

科学家视域中的大学人文教育

一段时期以来,人们把科学教育作为衡量成功大学的标准,忽略了人文教育的功能,想当然地认为科学家们应站在自己的立场和角度上阐扬科学教育.然而事实却相反,一般有造诣的科学家不仅对科学教育有深刻的理解,而且对人文教育也有独到的见解和体悟,他们不仅是人文教育的受益者,而且还是人文教育的捍卫者.从爱因斯坦、彭加勒、居里夫人到中国科学家陈省身、杨振宁、丘成桐等,无一例外,他们都把大学人文教育看成是塑造科学家品格、培育受教育者创造潜能、自觉担当社会责任重要载体,他们对人文教育的理解和实践,是我们大学建设和大学教育可资借鉴的精神财富.     

Impact of a Scientist–Teacher Collaborative Model on Students,Teachers, and Scientists

Collaborations between the K-12 teachers and higher education or professional scientists have become a widespread approach to science education reform. Educational funding and efforts have been invested to establish these cross-institutional collaborations in many countries. Since 2006, Taiwan initiated the High Scope Program, a high school science curriculum reform to promote scientific innovation and inquiry through an integration of advanced science and technology in high school science curricula through partnership between high school teachers and higher education scientists and science educators. This study, as part of this governmental effort, a scientist–teacher collaborative model (STCM) was constructed by 8 scientists and 4 teachers to drive an 18-week high school science curriculum reform on environmental education in a public high school. Partnerships between scientists and teachers offer opportunities to strengthen the elements of effective science teaching identified by Shulman and ultimately affect students’ learning. Mixed methods research was used for this study. Qualitative methods of interviews were used to understand the impact on the teachers’ and scientists’ science teaching. A quasi-experimental design was used to understand the impact on students’ scientific competency and scientific interest. The findings in this study suggest that the use of the STCM had a medium effect on students’ scientific competency and a large effect on students’ scientific individual and situational interests. In the interviews, the teachers indicated how the STCM allowed them to improve their content knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), and the scientists indicated an increased knowledge of learners, knowledge of curriculum, and PCK.     

The Relationship Between Preservice Early Childhood Teachers’ Cultural Values and their Perceptions of Scientists’ Cultural Values

This paper describes research that compares preservice early childhood teachers’ cultural values and the values they believe are held by scientists. Using the Schwartz Values Inventory (SVI) (Schwartz (1992) Adv Exp Soc Psychol 25:331–351) preservice early childhood teachers cultural values were assessed, followed by an assessment of the values they believed were held by scientists. Schwartz postulated that cultural values could be aggregated into 11 domains (universalism, benevolence, tradition, self-direction, stimulation, hedonism, achievement, power, conformity, spirituality, and security). Paired T-tests indicated significant differences between preservice early childhood teachers’ cultural values from those they believed scientists held on the domains of power, achievement, stimulation, benevolence, conformity, and security. The discussion explores the meaning of these results and provides implications for early childhood science teacher education.     

Scientists’ Ontological and Epistemological Views about Science from the Perspective of Critical Realism

Including the perspectives of scientists about the nature and process of science is important for an authentic and nuanced portrayal of science in science education. The small number of studies that have explored scientists’ worldviews about science has thus far generated contradictory findings, with recent studies claiming that scientists simultaneously hold contradictory sophisticated and naïve views. This article reports on an exploratory study that uses the framework of Bhaskar’s critical realism to elicit and separately analyse academic scientists’ ontological and epistemological views about science in semi-structured interviews. When the views of scientists are analysed through the lens of critical realism, it is clear that it is possible to hold a realist ontological commitment about what knowledge is of, simultaneously with a fallibilist epistemological commitment about knowledge itself. The apparent incongruence of scientists’ so-called naïve and sophisticated views about science is resolved when analysed using a critical realist framework. Critical realism offers a simple and coherent framework for science educators that avoids many of the problems of positivism and social constructivism by finding a middle ground between them. The three pillars of critical realism: ontological realism, epistemological fallibilism and judgmental rationality help to make sense of how socially constructed scientific knowledge can be anchored in an independent reality.     

Knowledge Building Expertise: Nanomodellers’ Education as an Example

The content of the expertise which young natural scientists try to gain by doing science in research groups is a relatively little-explored subject. What makes learning in such settings challenging is that a central part of the expertise is tacit. This study employs empirical methods together with a contextualized approach and interdisciplinary cooperation in order to reveal practicing nanomodellers’ (N = 10) perspectives on their knowledge-building expertise, and on young scientists’ expertise education. Modelling in the virtual world plays a major role in the science of these nanomodellers, as it increasingly does in many fields of science. This study therefore adds to our understanding of the nature of recent scientific knowledge building and expertise development, which can be used in the education of the scientists of the future.     

Identity Matching to Scientists: Differences that Make a Difference?

Students' images of science and scientists are generally assumed to influence their related subject choices and aspirations for tertiary education within science and technology. Several research studies have shown that many young people hold rather stereotypical images of scientists, making it hard for them to see themselves as future scientists. Adolescents' educational choices are important aspects of their identity work, and recent theories link individual choice to the perceived match between self and prototypical persons associated with that choice. In the present study, we have investigated images of scientists among the segment of the upper secondary school students (20 % of the cohort) from which future Danish scientists are recruited. Their images were rather realistic, only including vague and predominantly positive stereotypical ideas. With a particular Science-and-Me (SAM) interview methodology, we inquired into the match between self- and prototypical-scientists (N?=?30). We found high perceived similarity within a core of epistemological characteristics, while dissimilarities typically related to a social domain. However, combining interview data with survey data, we found no significant statistical relation between prototype match and aspirations for tertiary education within science and technology. Importantly, the SAM dialogue revealed how students negotiate perceived differences, and we identified four negotiation patterns that all tend to reduce the impact of mismatches on educational aspirations. Our study raises questions about methodological issues concerning the traditional use of self-to-prototype matching as an explanatory model of educational choice.     

Gender Equality in Science: A Philosophical Perspective

Arguments used to justify gender equality in higher education often appeal to values which belong to the social context of science (human rights, efficient use of human resources, economic growth), and hence, may appear to practicing scientists as policy interventions from the outside. The author suggests that arguments which appeal to the values internal to scientific communities (objectivity, rationality, and truth) can be used to bring the goal of gender equality in higher education closer to practicing scientists and academics. Two such arguments in support of gender equality in higher education are presented.     

Portraying Science Accurately in Classrooms: Emphasizing Open‐Mindedness Rather Than Relativism

Constructivist science education typically presents a relativist image of scientific knowledge that is not shared by scientists. Truth and time are defined differently by scientists than by postmodern observers of science; a theoretical definition of truth is often applied to scientific knowledge within science education, whereas a practical definition, supported by evidence, is used within science. Similarly, time is sometimes taken out of context within science education when scientific concepts that have developed slowly and are well accepted by scientists are treated as though they were tentative. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 37: 225–236, 2000.     

Individual and contextual variables among creative scientists: The new work paradigm

This article discusses the individual and contextual factors that are salient to high levels of creativity among scientists working in organizational settings in the modern world. The article contrasts such scientists with traditional depictions of creative scientists and draws implications for future directions for creativity research and for the education and development of young scientists.     

关于我国工程教育培养目标的思考

工程教育历来是我国最受重视的高等教育组成之一，工程教育的改革与发展也是工程界和教育界人士十分关注的问题。“工程教育”究竟是培养科学家，还是培养工程师?这既涉及工程教育的定位，又涉及到工程教育的改革和发展问题。本文从工程教育与社会经济发展的关系，分析了我国工程教育培养目标的变化与发展。     

Technology education and science education: Engineering as a case study of relationships

Technology education and science education are seen to be related in a particular fashion by many science educators, a relationship exemplified by the common pairing of the two areas in labels such as “Science-Technology-Society” and “Science and Technology Curriculum”. At the heart of this common science education perspective is a view of technology education as dependent on and subservient to science education. In this paper engineering, often seen by scientists as a form of applied science dependent on and subservient to science, is considered. An analysis of the arguments that engineering, far from being an applied science, is a unique way of knowing (that engineering has a unique epistemology) is used to consider the technology education view of the relationships between science education and technology education. It is suggested that science educators need to rethink their perceptions of this relationship if they are to understand the arguments of technology educators. Specializations: science education, teacher education.     

Drawing Scientists

Research has indicated that pupils view scientists predominantly as white, male and dressed in laboratory coats. To investigate this belief, pupils in schools, and some postgraduate certificate in education students, were asked to draw a picture of two scientists. This is a procedure that gives more information about pupils' perceptions than the usual request for pupils to draw one. The results of this study, this paper argues, indicate that the image that pupils have of scientists is changing to show less gender bias, and to be more realistic.     

The Nature of Scientific Explanation: Examining the perceptions of the nature,quality, and “goodness” of explanation among college students,science teachers,and scientists

Issues regarding scientific explanation have been of interest to philosophers from Pre-Socratic times. The notion of scientific explanation is of interest not only to philosophers, but also to science educators as is clearly evident in the emphasis given to K-12 students' construction of explanations in current national science education reform efforts. Nonetheless, there is a dearth of research on conceptualizing explanation in science education. Using a philosophically guided framework—the Nature of Scientific Explanation (NOSE) framework—the study aims to elucidate and compare college freshmen science students', secondary science teachers', and practicing scientists' scientific explanations and their views of scientific explanations. In particular, this study aims to: (1) analyze students', teachers', and scientists' scientific explanations; (2) explore the nuances about how freshman students, science teachers, and practicing scientists construct explanations; and (3) elucidate the criteria that participants use in analyzing scientific explanations. In two separate interviews, participants first constructed explanations of everyday scientific phenomena and then provided feedback on the explanations constructed by other participants. Major findings showed that, when analyzed using NOSE framework, participant scientists did significantly “better” than teachers and students. Our analysis revealed that scientists, teachers, and students share a lot of similarities in how they construct their explanations in science. However, they differ in some key dimensions. The present study highlighted the need articulated by many researchers in science education to understand additional aspects specific to scientific explanation. The present findings provide an initial analytical framework for examining students' and science teachers' scientific explanations.     

Societal Differentiation and Educational Differentiation

Comparative education is frequently concerned with the dynamics of educational change and with educational change in the context of social change. One concept widely recognized by social scientists in the study of change but relatively untapped in educational studies is differentiation. In this paper explorations will be made into the nature of societal differentiation and into the meaning and measurement of educational differentiation. A tentative evaluation will also be offered of the utility of differentiation as an analytic tool for scholars in comparative education.⁽¹⁾     

Teacher education: Wasteland or watershed?

It is established that the literature presents diverse positions on the impact of teacher education on beginning teacher practices. Teacher education is seen as a wasteland, a watershed for conservatism or progressivism, or a temporary influence quickly washed out by institutional and social conditions of school settings. The literature is unanimous in declaring teacher education inadequate. Data from a small scale interpretive study of entry into secondary school teaching are used to support two major claims. First, teacher education can function as a watershed equipping some beginning teachers with the competence and confidence to attempt reconstruction of existing school conditions. Second, no simple linear relationship exists between teacher education and beginning teacher practices; rather, they exist along with many other personal, institutional and social factors in a complex, interconnected network.     

The science curriculum; the decline of expertise and the rise of bureaucratise

The content for the school science curriculum has always been an interplay or contest between the interests of a number of stakeholders, who have an interest in establishing it at a new level of schooling or in changing its current form. For most of its history, the interplay was dominated by the interests of academic scientists, but in the 1980s the needs of both future scientists and future citizens began to be more evenly balanced as science educators promoted a wider sense of science. The contest changed again in the 1990s with a super-ordinate control being exerted by government bureaucrats at the expense of the subject experts. This change coincides with the rise in a number of countries of a market view of education, and of science education in particular, accompanied by demands for public accountability via simplistic auditing measures. This shift from expertise to bureaucratise and its consequences for the quality of science education is illustrated with five case studies of science curriculum reform in Australia.     

Examining Educational Climate Change Technology: How Group Inquiry Work with Realistic Scientific Technology Alters Classroom Learning

This study with 79 students in Montreal, Quebec, compared the educational use of a National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) global climate model (GCM) to climate education technologies developed for classroom use that included simpler interfaces and processes. The goal was to show how differing climate education technologies succeed and fail at getting students to evolve in their understanding of anthropogenic global climate change (AGCC). Many available climate education technologies aim to convey key AGCC concepts or Earth systems processes; the educational GCM used here aims to teach students the methods and processes of global climate modeling. We hypothesized that challenges to learning about AGCC make authentic technology-enabled inquiry important in developing accurate understandings of not just the issue but how scientists research it. The goal was to determine if student learning trajectories differed between the comparison and treatment groups based on whether each climate education technology allowed authentic scientific research. We trace learning trajectories using pre/post exams, practice quizzes, and written student reflections. To examine the reasons for differing learning trajectories, we discuss student pre/post questionnaires, student exit interviews, and 535 min of recorded classroom video. Students who worked with a GCM demonstrated learning trajectories with larger gains, higher levels of engagement, and a better idea of how climate scientists conduct research. Students who worked with simpler climate education technologies scored lower in the course because of lower levels of engagement with inquiry processes that were perceived to not actually resemble the work of climate scientists.