A Textbook Case of the Nature of Science: Laws and Theories in the Science of Biology

The two concepts law and theory are among the most important elements of the nature of science. They represent both the tools and products of science itself. Unfortunately, the variable meanings and use of these terms in general discourse and in other school disciplines results in much confusion with respect to their proper application in a science context. The project included the design of a six-part model definition for law and theory based on a review of the literature of the philosophy of science with special reference to biology. These model definitions were then compared with those provided in a range of U.S. secondary school biology textbooks. The majority of all current major U.S. secondary school biology texts were reviewed and analyzed with respect to how the concepts of law and theory were defined and applied, in an attempt to determine whether students and teachers using such texts would gain an accurate impression of these terms and the distinction between them. This study focuses on biology instruction since a life science course is completed as a graduation requirement by virtually all U.S. high school students and as such serves as a widely shared educational experience across the nation. The term law is rarely defined in any text but various laws such as those found in genetics are frequently included as examples. The term theory is frequently defined but with a wide range of completeness of the definitions. Only rarely are theories in biology included as examples.     

Student Self-Assessment in HOCS Science Examinations: Is There a Problem?

A specially-designed self-assessment questionnaire (SAQHOCS), containing higher-order cognitive skills (HOCS)-type questions, was administered to 71 biology majors, enrolled in a four-year college program. The gap between students' self-assessment marking, and that of their HOCS-biased teachers (the authors), is accounted for by the prevailing LOCS-orientation and the testing culture—a total separation between testing and learning—in contemporary science teaching. The majority of the students in the study evaluated themselves as capable of self-assessment, and felt reasonably confident in doing so. They were quite reserved as far as the applicability of the self-assessment method to nonalgorithmic (correct/incorrect) questions is concerned. The results of this study suggest that the potential for student self-assessment within college science teaching and learning exists. However, still a great purposed effort in HOCS-oriented teaching and learning is required in order for the student self-assessment practice to become a routine integral component of HOCS science examinations.     

Science in the Trenches: An Exploration of Four Pre-service Teachers' First Attempts at Teaching Science in the Classroom

This paper explores four students' attempts at teaching science in the real world classroom during their initial student teaching practicum, including their struggles and successes. When pre-service teachers enter their initial practicum experience they are confronted with differing teaching philosophies of their own, their university professors, and their school mentors (Sullivan, Mousley & Gervasioni, 2000; John, 2001; Fu and Shelton, 2002). Within this situation, preservice teachers struggle to find their own niche of teaching science and learn to reflect as both learner and teacher (Kelly, 2000). Our goal as science teacher educators is to help pre-service teachers have an easy transfer from personal university experiences to teaching science in the real classroom environment while maintaining the integrity of newly learned teaching strategies (Segall, 2001). This work adds to and helps guide science teacher educators in identifying difficulties pre-service teachers' experiences in the transition from methods courses to practice.     

Whitehead and a new look at teaching elementary science

If Whitehead is right, science teachers who try to increase student interest by making the science they teach more pure and by covering more material are going about their work in just the wrong way. Science, for purposes of precision in measurement, translates the dynamic world of feeling and force, of causal efficacy (for example, the San Francisco earthquake), into a static representation spatialized and given presentational immediacy (for example, the Richter scale). But notice that the Richter scale isn't very interesting (even as abstract art) apart from its connection, via symbolic reference, to the earthquake. Such reference is essential to give both a sense of reality and a feeling of interes to the subject, but it makes the science less pure, and it takes more time to cover the material. An example of teaching pure and impure formal logic is given as a case study.     

Integrating Western and Aboriginal Sciences: Cross-Cultural Science Teaching

The article addresses issues of social power and privilege experienced by Aboriginal students in science classrooms. First, I present a rationale for a cross-cultural science education dedicated to all students making personal meaning out of their science classrooms. Then I describe a practical research and development project, Rekindling Traditions: Cross-Cultural Science & Technology Units, that modestly illustrates cross-cultural science teaching for years 6–11, in which Western and Aboriginal sciences are integrated. This integration is discussed in terms of the Rekindling Traditions units, including the assessment of students.     

Toward Identifying Pedagogical Knowledge for Mentoring in Primary Science Teaching

Final year preservice teachers' perceptions of their mentoring in primary science teaching were gathered through surveys from three separate studies. The three studies (n = 59, n = 331, n = 60) provided an indication of the degree of mentoring preservice teachers perceived they received with mentoring practices linked to Pedagogical Knowledge. This research argues that mentors require pedagogical knowledge of primary science for guiding mentees with planning, timetabling, preparation, implementation, classroom management strategies, teaching strategies, science teaching knowledge, questioning skills, problem-solving strategies, assessment techniques, and developing viewpoints on science pedagogy. The key study findings (n = 331, from nine Australian universities involved in primary teacher education) indicated that 55% or more mentees had not received Pedagogical Knowledge for primary science teaching in each of the associated mentoring practices (mean score range: 2.60–2.91, standard deviation range: 1.10–1.32). The study concludes that mentors require further professional development to ensure that preservice teachers (mentees) receive adequate pedagogical knowledge for teaching primary science, which will involve significant collaboration between universities and schools.     

A possible “orality” for science?

The paper attempts to look at how the present objective and detached discourse of science, a specialized product of the literate tradition, tends to negatively influence learning among children, especially those belonging to a signficantly oral culture. It calls for a fundamental redefinition of scientific discourse and urges school science to review its own communicability, to address the disparate linguistic and conceptual structures brought to the learning situtation by students of diverse cultures, and to allow for a smooth and unoppressive transition to the standardized register.     

Science education II: Scientific literacy and the Karplus taxonomy

In this essay we explore the role played by the conceptual structure of science in scientific literacy. It is shown that the taxonomy of scientific concepts elucidated by Karplus is a basic structural characteristic of science, and provides a natural means forengaging, as distinct from merely learning, scientific content. Special attention is given to the idea scientific model as being fundamental to the discipline and therefore essential to scientific literacy. The relationship between scientific models and common misconceptions is developed.Based on the second of two talks given at the Paedagogische Hochschule, Ludwigsburg, Germany, in November 1988.     

Science, Society, and Technology—Three Cultures and Multiple Visions

The article reviews the strikingly divergent viewpoints of intellectuals—scientists and non-scientists—about Science and Technology. It shows that while scientists implicitly accept the difference between Science and Technology, to non-scientists that difference is irrelevant. The most important differences between Science and Technology that lie in their relative scales, outputs and accuracy of predictions are highlighted. The complexity of and difficulty in trying to quantify the contribution of science and technology to economic growth are discussed. Views of science and technology that include their societal perceptions are recommended.     

Fostering Distributed Science Learning Through Collaborative Technologies

TACTICS (French and Spanish acronym standing for Collaborative Work and Learning in Science with Information and Communications Technologies) is an ongoing project aimed at investigating a distributed community of learning and practice in which information and communications technologies (ICT) take the role of collaborative tools to support social construction of knowledge. This community is composed of researchers, graduate students, and high-school teachers and their students, from six schools and four universities in Canada and Mexico. It set out in fall 2000 to develop a community around the general topic of integrating concepts in science school subjects. Once a prototype community is established, it can become a terrain where different aspects could be studied. Subsequently, researchers could gradually take a back seat allowing as well as ensuring the autonomy of the school members involved and, thereby, the viability of the learning community. The set up of the proposed prototype distributed science learning community was therefore an essential yet far from trivial first step. This paper discusses the process of setting up the community and the lessons learned.     

Enhancing Elementary Science Teachers’ Knowledge of Teaching: The Case of Designing and Implementing an Instructional Unit

This article provides a model for the professional development of elementary science teachers. The model focused on integrating different domains of knowledge into science teaching, including the knowledge of the science curriculum, especially scientific inquiry, teachers knowledge, and students knowledge. The two case studies in this article revealed that the teachers construct their knowledge in a social context. The constant reflections on the experiences helped them to generate alternative teaching approaches. The findings suggest that the model of the project had two functions. First, it provides a useful strategy to help science teachers to bridge the gap between theories of teaching and their own teaching practices. Second, it provides a social learning environment for learning how to teach science.     

The curriculum potential of Darwin's Theory of Evolution

Unity and diversity are best reconciled by Darwin's Theory of Evolution. Two major dilemmas related to the study of Evolution are described. The first, concerning pedagogy, can be solved by teaching the topic at an elementary level in the middle school so that the Theory may serve as an advanced oragnizer and returning with in-depth study in the last two years of high school. The second, concerning Faith, is a sensitive issue. Some successful approaches are discussed. The place of Darwin's Theory in the all-elective high school biology curriculum is described as well. The role of the Theory regarding explanations is especially highlighted.     

The scientist as Cracker-Barrel Philosopher: Implications for the concept of scientific literacy

This study aims to identify an internally consistent and readily teachable philosophical approach to the nature and practice of science. The primary sources are anecdotal material and oral reflections prepared for the popular media by and about an eminent contemporary scientist, the late physicist Richard Feynman. Examples of real people working on technological problems can provide a useful foil to the customary study of great men in the history of science, yet both of these approaches can have serious drawbacks. Feynman's anecdotal reflections provide an excellent middle ground case study: a pure scientist, yet with a personal background anchored in practical problems, who combines the traditional credentials of authority with an endearing humanity. There are striking similarities between the account of the nature of science, technology, and good teaching implied by Feynman's musings and that expressed more abstractly in the recent American Association for the Advancement of Science report,Science for All Americans.     

Implementing “real science” through microcomputers and telecommunications in project-based elementary classrooms

This is a study of an ongoing collaborative project in which science education faculty and upper elementary school teachers investigate the potential of a project-based, technologyrich, environmentally oriented approach to science education in an urban school serving a racially diverse population. Major conclusions based on the experience of participants in this study include: (1) teachers describe their instructional roles in terms highly consistent with student-centered, project-based, experiential learning; (2) teachers believe that what makes science real for students is the feeling that they are working on a truly current problem that is also being investigated by others outside their classroom. This is achieved by KidsNet, a microcomputer- and telecommunications-mediated curriculum, in a way that would not be possible without this technology; (3) teachers describe the actual and possible role of computer technology in terms which, while insightful and generally positive, are not clearly related to its flexible use in project-based learning; and (4) while teachers recognize meaningful connections between off-line science activities and the use of computer and telecommunications technologies, their students often do not.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, April 16, 1993, Atlanta, Georgia.This work was partially supported by a Higher Education Grant from the Dwight D. Eisenhower Mathematics and Science Education Improvement Program.     

Inquiry-Events as a Tool for Changing Science Teaching Efficacy Belief of Kindergarten and Elementary School Teachers

Researchers agree that science education should begin at childhood, due to its contribution to later cognitive skill development. However, in most cases only a small portion of kindergarten and elementary school activities is related to science. Given the tremendous impact teachers have on children and on the success or failure of their curriculum, teachers' efficacy belief toward science teaching (TEBTST) should be of significant concern. It is suggested herein that in order to improve TEBTST, the science curriculum should be developed not only from the perspective of the child's needs, but will explicitly consider the teachers' needs as well. Such an approach is described in this study, and is labeled as the Inquiry Events (IE) teaching method. This method involves relating to an open-ended problem situated in real life, that encourages investigation of a variety of issues—ethical, economic, scientific, etc.—which both kindergarten and elementary school teachers are accustomed to considering. The method encourages teachers to relate to these daily situations by introducing scientific questions, which they would ordinarily ignore or omit. Using the STEBI (Science Teaching Efficacy Beliefs Instrument) questionnaire before and after a 4-day workshop introducing the IE method, it was found that IE improved TEBTST and increased their confidence in teaching science.     

Error factors: A missing link between cognitive science and classroom practice?

Cognitive scientists are now able to model the errors of learners on simple, well-specified topics such as subtraction. Unfortunately, the associated techniques are too involved, and the analyses too fine-grained, for teachers to apply them to general classroom topics. Deficiencies are also apparent in current curriculum theories, which do not pay sufficient attention to the consequences of untreated errors. The most immediately usable and integrative approach of which I am aware is in terms of Error Factors (EFs)-promoters of underlying confusion in learning. I show here how this framework helps us understand the failure of classical attempts to arrange error-free learning or to provide diagnostic or remedial tests and exercises. Further, anecdotal evidence I present confirms that it is rare for teachers who are peripherally aware of such factors to deal systematically with them; more often, teachers are both ignorant of and unable to recognize typical error factors, whether in their teaching (itself commonly a source of confusion for students) or in their students' learning. Accordingly, this paper provides an overview of the more significant facets of EFs, together with such psychological explanations for their occurrences as exist. It is hoped that a fuller and more cogent appraisal of errors will be seen in classrooms as a result.     

“It's Easier to Be Yourself When You Are Invisible”: Female College Students Discuss Their Online Classroom Experiences

There has been considerable scholarly interest in issues related to gender in the classroom, especially in terms of finding ways in which classrooms might be configured to be more welcoming--and less chilly--to female students. There is some evidence to suggest that the online learning environment may provide educators with opportunities to achieve a more female-friendly classroom, and this study was designed to gather information about that question. 125 female college students who had completed at least one online, college-level class were invited to discuss their experiences learning online. These data show that female college students respond to the online environment in a variety of ways. A small group of students indicated that they did not enjoy learning online, while others expressed mixed feelings. The majority, however, had positive things to say about their online classroom experiences; and of these, a large number identified anonymity as the most important positive aspect of the online learning environment.     

Teaching Discourses: Science Teachers' Responses to the Voices of Adolescent Girls

The purpose of this study was to provide an opportunity for science teachers to listen to adolescent girls discuss their ideas and feelings about the contemporary structure of middle-level science education. The reflections of these teachers were then analyzed to capture how the teachers interpreted what adolescent girls had to say and the action that they will take in the classroom as a result of those interpretations. This qualitative study investigated 11 teachers and 51 Grade 7 and 8 girls from various states across the continental USA. The girls discussed such things as their favorite science topics, comfort level in science classrooms, and curiosities about the physical world. The study revealed that adolescent girls strive to make a connection to science. They can see how science can help them to understand better themselves and their world, but they seldom find such understandings in contemporary science classrooms. In addition, adolescent girls not only need to have choices in their studies, but they understand that need. The study revealed that the teachers interpreted the girls' request from an assimilative perspective by seeking ways to help the girls fit into the existing structure of science education. The implications of the study suggest that science education will need to change in response to the voices of the others, but that change will only happen if we prepare teachers better to be prepared to listen and change practice in light of what they hear.     

Towards a process theory of learning: Feeling the beauty of the world

Alfred North Whitehead's theory of learning is best understood in the overall context of his process philosophy. The rhythmic cycles of growth forming the basis of human learning (romance, precision, and generalisation) are organically connected to the characteristics of life typifying all entities in the universe (self-enjoyment, creative activity, and aim).The kind of balanced education which best enhances growth and connectedness is one in which art and aesthetic appreciation in the broadest sense are dominant. By experiencing the beauty of the sunset, for example, children and adults have access to feelings that flow through them from the world and connect them to distant events taking place in space and time. These bodily feelings at the base of all experience provide concrete ways in which human beings can appreciate the intrinsic value of the world around them.By way of contrast, the methods of 17th century science replace our concrete experience of the sunset with abstract categories that are used to measure the phenomena in question and deny the importance of that experience in understanding the world. Schools' and universities' emphasis upon this methodology produces an imbalanced education with minds in a groove.A renewal of balance in education helps us to understand the false dichotomy between child-centered and and curriculum-centered education. Education for Whitehead must pay attention to both. Moreover, he understands that the academic freedom enjoyed by bands of imaginative scholars in universities is not an article of commerce to be sold to the highest corporate bidder but something to be valued for its intrinsic worth.     

Museum Experience — a Resource for Science Teacher Education

In this study, the researcher included an extensive science museum experience for the pre-service secondary science teachers within a teaching methods course to enhance their learning to teach science. The extensive museum experience covered four aspects: the visit, discussion with museum educators, the development of lesson plans, and practising teaching in the science museum. Twenty-one pre-service science teachers attended this course. Qualitative methods were used for data collection and analysis. The data sources included field notes, reports, diaries, and interviews. The findings show that this course connecting museum resources and context had created a novel situation for pre-service science teachers to learn how to teach science. The discourses with the museum educators also provided them with innovations in education beyond the gains from traditional teacher education. Through developing and practising teaching activities, they improved their understanding of the meanings and effective ways to use museum resources in science teaching. Pre-service science teachers reported that getting feedback from peers and observing modeling teaching was helpful. This course provided an alternative way to view how scientific activities were developed for junior high students. In general, the use of museum settings provides a new profile of learning and teaching course for pre-service science teachers in Taiwan. Based on the findings, this study makes suggestions for those science teacher educators who would like to use science museum resources and contexts to nurture prospective science teachers.