Editorial

Science &; Education -     

Student teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge for teaching systems thinking: effects of different interventions

ABSTRACT

Systems’ thinking has become increasingly relevant not only in education for sustainable development but also in everyday life. Even if teachers know the dynamics and complexity of living systems in biology and geography, they might not be able to effectively explain it to students. Teachers need an understanding of systems and their behaviour (content knowledge), and they also need to know how systems thinking can be fostered in students (pedagogical content knowledge (PCK)). But the effective development of teachers’ professional knowledge in teaching systems thinking is empirically uncertain. From a larger study (SysThema) that investigated teaching systems thinking, this article reports the effects of the three different interventions (technical course, didactic course and mixed course) in student teachers’ PCK for teaching systems thinking. The results show that student teachers’ PCK for teaching systems thinking can be promoted in teacher education. The conclusion to be drawn from our findings is that a technically orientated course without didactical aspects seems to be less effective in fostering student teachers’ PCK for teaching systems thinking. The results inform educators in enhancing curricula of future academic track and non-academic track teacher education.     

Implementing History and Philosophy in Science Teaching: Strategies, Methods, Results and Experiences from the European HIPST Project

This paper presents a rationale for utilizing HPS to teach physics and the NoS developed in the course of a project funded by the European Union. A core feature of this approach is formed by the development of historical case studies for the use in lessons. Furthermore, the learners?? perspectives are explicitly taken into account. Teaching methods comprise student-centered activities as creative writing for understanding science and scientists and role-play activities. Emphasis is laid on experimental work which is performed with the help of true-to-the-original replications of historical apparatus, especially built for this purpose. A new characteristic for NoS learning is introduced, namely the reflection corner giving the opportunity to explicitly discussing the relationship between history, knowledge acquisition, and the application of scientific findings. In order to make use of the special skills, creative potentials and experiences of teachers a symbiotic strategy for the development and evaluation process of the teaching material was adopted where a close and long-standing cooperation between science teachers and science educators could be established. On this basis the German partners were able to complete numerous case studies from the fields of mechanics, electricity, magnetism and heat.     

Effects of a training intervention to foster argumentation skills while processing conflicting scientific positions

Argumentation skills play a crucial role in science education and in preparing school students to act as informed citizens. While processing conflicting scientific positions regarding topics such as sustainable development in the domain of ecology, argumentation skills such as evaluating arguments or supporting theories with evidence are beneficial for developing deep understanding and well-grounded conclusions. We developed a 50-min training intervention to foster argumentation skills in the domain of ecology on topics related to sustainable development and analyzed its effects in a control-group design: (a) training intervention to foster argumentation skills (n = 41), (b) no such training intervention (n = 42). Results showed that this short-term training intervention successfully fostered three components of argumentation skills (i.e., evaluative knowledge, generative knowledge, and argument quality) and declarative knowledge about argumentation. The positive effect on declarative knowledge was stable 1 week after the training and it was mediated by learning processes during the training intervention: self-explaining the principles of argumentation underlying the video-based examples mediated the effect on declarative knowledge 1 week after the training. In short, the training intervention is an effective instructional method to enhance argumentation skills as well as declarative knowledge about argumentation.     

Photography and Film

Estelle Jussim's Visual Communication and the Graphic Arts: Photographic Technologies in the Nineteenth Century (New York: R.R. Bowker, 1974—$25.00)

Donald Chase's Filmmaking: The Collaborative Art (Boston: Little, Brown, 1975—$9.95)

D.J. Wenden's The Birth of the Movies (New York: Dutton Paperbacks, 1975—$5.95, paper)

Peter Bowen, Martin Hayden, and Frank Riess' Screen Test: A Quiz Book About the Movies (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1974—$2.50, paper)     

Historical and Pedagogical Perspectives on Entertainment,Popularization and Learning in Science

This is an introduction to the following papers of a conference: From Itinerant Lecturers of the 18th Century to Popularizing Science for the 21st Century.     

Training Interventions to Foster Skill and Will of Argumentative Thinking

Argumentative thinking requires not only the skill to apply argumentative strategies such as supporting theories with evidence but also the will to apply these strategies by considering argumentative thinking to be both reasonable and worthwhile. Focusing on direct instruction for the initial acquisition of both skill and will, we developed a new short-term computer-based training intervention. We tested its effects on learning processes and learning outcomes in an experimental study with 147 German high school students. Our intervention fostered facets of both skill (i.e. a declarative knowledge about argumentation) and will (i.e., epistemic orientation, intellectual values, and epistemic knowledge). We gained additional insights into learning mechanisms, such as the mediating effects of the learners' self-explanation activities and the advantage of addressing will before skill.     

Comparative analysis of delayed alternation learning in cats,mice, and guinea pigs

The performance of cats, guinea pigs, and mice in a delayed alternation paradigm was compared both during initial learning and following a 10-day retention interval. The testing situation (a modified T-maze), the length of the delay period (10 sec), and the amount of training per session and per week were kept identical for all three species. The results indicated that (1) animals of all three species acquired the task within similar time spans, (2) a considerable variance was apparent in the performance of individual animals independent of their species, and (3) guinea pigs, as a group, appeared to need a somewhat longer time to acquire delayed alternation than did mice and cats. Relearning of the task following the 10-day interval seemed to follow similar laws in all three species.     

History of Physics in Science Teacher Training in Oldenburg

For several years Oldenburg University inGermany has offered a study program in History ofPhysics for physics teacher students. Some courses ofthe ordinary physics curriculum were modified with anemphasis on history and philosophy of science, andsome lectures focussed on historical subjects werenewly created. Moreover the candidates for final examscan choose a historical topic – usually centered on anexperiment – as the subject of their exam paper. Inthe following article the courses are shortlydescribed, some examples of the students' achievementsare presented, and the educational relevance ispointed out. Finally the experiences of the project sofar are described and assessed.     

Problems with German Science Education

The main problems of science (especiallyphysics) teaching in Germany are students' lack ofinterest and motivation in the subject, their poorunderstanding of scientific concepts, ideas, methods,and results, and their lack of comprehension of thesocial, political, and epistemological role ofscience. These circumstances result in a growing`scientific illiteracy' of the population and adecline in democratic quality concerning decisionmaking processes about scientific and technologicalprojects. One means of improving this situation liesin the use of history and philosophy of science inscience teaching. School science curricula undtextbooks neglect almost completely the importance ofhistory and philosophy of science. In this paper, themain empirical results concerning motivation andknowledge are given. Some examples from sciencecurricula and textbooks are presented, and some of thefew reform projects in Germany are listed. As aconsequence a compensatory program is proposed inorder to create the prerequisites for raising scienceeducation in Germany to an international standard.