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1.
Science Activities That Work: Perceptions of Primary School Teachers   总被引:2,自引:0,他引:2  
Many primary school teachers in Australia tend to be reluctant to teach science, partly because they are not confident in science and have limited science background knowledge. However, quite a number of primary school teachers still manage to teach some science. When they plan to teach science, many of them use the term science activities that work. Such activities seem to be related to science pedagogical content knowledge for some primary teachers. In order to better understand what the term activities that work means, twenty teachers from several schools were interviewed and asked what they understood by this expression. Themes that emerged suggest that activities that work are hands on, are interesting and motivating for the children, have a clear outcome or result, are manageable in the classroom, use equipment that is readily available, and are preferably used in a context where science is integrated into themes. Implications for curriculum and for preservice teacher education are considered.  相似文献   

2.
Constructivist Science Teaching: Intellectual and Strategic Teaching Acts   总被引:1,自引:0,他引:1  
This paper attempts to provide some productive starting points for discussion in the context of science teaching. Embedded in the current practice of methodologies such as messing about, hands-on, minds-on activities, science-technology-society related approaches, and inquiry-based learning, is often a sense of confusion and frustration. Such current methodologies in elementary science teaching are founded on constructivist learning theory. This paper attempts to pinpoint possible ways in which this child-centered, interactive learning theory can lead to confusion for students and teachers alike. It attempts to distinguish the necessary criteria for successful science teaching from much of today's practice in the elementary school science class. It does not attempt to draw conclusions on the reasons behind some of the practices.  相似文献   

3.
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.  相似文献   

4.
The investigators sought to design an instructional unit to enhance an understanding of the nature of science (NOS) by taking into account both instructional best practices and suggestions made by noted science philosopher Thomas Kuhn. Preservice secondary science teachers enrolled in a course, Laboratory Techniques in the Teaching of Science, served as participants in action research. Sources of data used to inform instructional decisions included students written reaction papers to the assigned readings, transcribed verbal comments made during class discussions and other in-class activities, and final reflection essays. Three iterative implementations of the instructional unit were attempted. The objectives of the study were essentially met. The instructional unit was able to provoke preservice teachers into wrestling with many substantive issues associated with the NOS. Implications concerning the design of explicit reflective NOS instruction are included.  相似文献   

5.
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.  相似文献   

6.
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.  相似文献   

7.
Explorations in Middle School Science is a set of 72 computer-simulated laboratory lessons in life, earth, and physical Science for grades 6–9 developed by Jostens Learning Corporation with grants from the California State Department of Education and the National Science Foundation.3 At the heart of each lesson is a computer-simulated laboratory that actively involves students in doing science improving their: (1) understanding of science concepts by applying critical thinking to solve real problems; (2) skills in scientific processes and communications; and (3) attitudes about science. Students use on-line tools (notebook, calculator, word processor) to undertake in-depth investigations of phenomena (like motion in outer space, disease transmission, volcanic eruptions, or the structure of the atom) that would be too difficult, dangerous, or outright impossible to do in a live laboratory. Suggested extension activities lead students to hands-on investigations, away from the computer. This article presents the underlying rationale, instructional model, and process by whichExplorations was designed and developed. It also describes the general courseware structure and three lesson's in detail, as well as presenting preliminary data from the evaluation. Finally, it suggests a model for incorporating technology into the science classroom.  相似文献   

8.
This study investigated whether enrichment activities would improve achievement in science.

One hundred and eighty subjects took part in the study. They were assigned to two experimental, two control and one Hawthorne control groups. Experimental subjects participated in enrichment activities held outside the school. Control subjects were not given these activities while the Hawthorne control group was taken out on excursions unrelated to their science lessons.

The Cooperative Science Test (COST) was used to assess the acquisition of science concepts while science achievement was based mainly on school science examination scores.

The results indicated that the experimental subjects showed significantly greater improvement in concept attainment and science achievement. Correlations between science concept attainment and science examination scores were positive and significant.

The study concluded that participation in enrichment activities relevant to school science would improve science achievement.  相似文献   


9.
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.  相似文献   

10.
This study emerged from a consideration of how some beginning primary school teachers cope when faced with teaching science. Primary teachers typically lack science content knowledge and therefore the science pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) that enables them to teach science. Aspects of a group of beginning primary school teachers' science teaching practices were consequently examined in order to understand better the basis of their practice. In particular, science PCK and its relationship to activities that work were considered, illuminated by findings about activities that work from a separate study with practicing teachers. The main assertion arising from this study is that activities that work have a close relationship with science PCK. A number of implications for primary science curriculum emerge from this assertion, such as considerations for preservice teacher education science courses and the nature of the primary science curriculum.  相似文献   

11.
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.  相似文献   

12.
Roscoe  Keith 《Science & Education》2004,13(6):541-551
Recent research literature in science education, sciencecurriculum documents, and science methods texts have been highly influenced by constructivist views ofhow students learn science. But the widespread and often uncritical acceptance of constructivism in scienceeducation does not reflect the heated debate between constructivists and realist science educatorsover its underlying philosophy, and the curricular and pedagogical implications of constructivism. This paperaims to show that Bernard Lonergan's theory of cognition can inform this debate by (a) suggesting ways tosee the merit in the views of constructivists and realists and bridge the gap between them, (b) illustratinghow Lonergan's thought can be brought to bear on science curriculum documents and teaching-learning resourcesfor science teachers. Lonergan's Theory of Cognition suggests that human knowing is not a singleoperation, but a dynamic and integral whole whose parts are sensory experience, understanding, and judging.  相似文献   

13.
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.  相似文献   

14.
This article refers to a framework to teach the philosophy of science to prospective and in-service science teachers. This framework includes two components: a list of the main schools of twentieth-century philosophy of science (called stages) and a list of their main theoretical ideas (called strands). In this paper, I show that two of these strands, labelled intervention/method and context/values, can be taught to science teachers using some of the instructional activities sketched in Michael Matthewss Time for Science Education. I first explain the meaning of the two selected strands. Then I show how the pendulum can be used as a powerful organiser to address specific issues within the nature of science, as suggested by Matthews.  相似文献   

15.
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.  相似文献   

16.
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.  相似文献   

17.
After an impressive development throughout the last two decades, supported by a greatamount of research and innovation, science education seemed to be becoming a newscientific domain. This transformation of Science Education into a specific field of researchand knowledge is usually associated with the establishment of what has been called anemergent consensus about constructivist positions. However, some voices have begunto question these constructivist positions and therefore the idea of an advancementtowards a coherent body of knowledge in the field of science education. The goalof this work is to analyse some of the current criticisms of the so-called constructivistorientations and to study their implications for the development of science education asa coherent body of knowledge.  相似文献   

18.
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.  相似文献   

19.
Nott  Mick  Wellington  Jerry 《Science & Education》1998,7(6):579-594
This paper covers three main areas : eliciting teachers' views of the nature of science; interpreting and understanding these views; and developing them in the context of initial or in-service teacher education. The three areas clearly overlap but we begin with eliciting : this section includes a look at past probes, and then presents the notion of critical incidents, with a range of examples. We argue throughout that critical incidents can be used partly as a means of probing teachers' views of science, but also have value as a tool for professional development. We then discuss interpreting and understanding teachers' responses to critical incidents, based on our research with over 300 teachers and student teachers who have worked with them. In the third section, on developing, we pursue the argument that teachers' understandings of the nature of science are located in their professional experience. We argue that if teachers' understandings are embedded within their professional practice this has important consequences for appropriate teacher education and professional development in the area of the nature of science.  相似文献   

20.
In everyday language we tend to think of knowledge as reasoned belief that a proposition is true and the natural sciences provide the archetypal example of what it means to know. Religious and ideological propositions are the typical examples of believed propositions. Moreover, the radical empiricist worldview so often associated with modern science has eroded society's meaningful sense of life. Western history, however, shows that knowledge and belief have not always been constructed separately. In addition, modern developments in the philosophy and history of science have seriously undermined the radical empiricist's excessive confidence in scientific methods. Acknowledging in the science classroom the parallel structure of knowledge and belief, and recognizing that science requires a presuppositional foundation that is itself not empirically verifiable would re introduce a valuable discussion on the meaning of science and its impact on life. Science would less likely be taught as a `rhetoric of conclusions'. The discussion would also help students to gain a firmer integration of science with other important knowledge and beliefs that they hold.  相似文献   

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