Education Science

This book provides a comprehensive overview of humanistic approaches to science. Approaches that connect students to broader human concerns in their everyday life and culture. Glen Aikenhead, an expert in the field of culturally sensitive science education, summarizes major worldwide historical findings; focuses on present thinking; and offers evidence in support of classroom practice. This highly accessible text covers curriculum policy, teaching materials, teacher orientations, teacher education, student learning, culture studies, and future research.

In August 2003 over 400 researchers in the field of science education from all over the world met at the 4th ESERA conference in Noordwijkerhout, The Netherlands. During the conference 300 papers about actual issues in the field, such as the learning of scientific concepts and skills, scientific literacy, informal science learning, science teacher education, modeling in science education were presented. The book contains 40 of the most outstanding papers presented during the conference. These papers reflect the quality and variety of the conference and represent the state of the art in the field of research in science education.

The book presents key perspectives on teaching and learning science in India. It offers adaptive expertise to teachers and educators through a pedagogic content knowledge (PCK) approach. Using cases and episodes from Indian science classrooms to contextualise ideas and practices, the volume discusses the nature of science, and aspects of assessments and evaluations for both process skills and conceptual understanding of the subject. It examines the significance of science education at school level and focuses on meaningful learning and development of scientific and technological aptitude. The chapters deal with topics from physics, chemistry and biology at the middle- and secondary-school levels, and are designed to equip student-teachers with theoretical and practical knowledge abilities about science, science learning and the abilities to teach these topics along with teaching. The book draws extensively from research on science education and teacher education and shifts away from knowledge transmission to the active process of constructivist teaching-learning practices. The authors use illustrative examples to highlight flexible planning for inclusive classrooms. Based on studies on cognitive and developmental psychology, pedagogical content knowledge of science, socio-cultural approaches to learning science, and the history and philosophy of science, the book promotes an understanding of science characterized by empirical criteria, logical arguments and sceptical reviews. With its accessible style, examples, exercises and additional references, it will be useful for students and teachers of science, science educators, BEd and MEd programmes for education, secondary and higher secondary school teachers, curriculum designers and developers of science. It will interest research institutes, non-governmental organisations, professionals and public and private sector bodies involved in science outreach, science education and teaching and learning practices.

Too many universities remain wedded to outmoded ways of teaching. Too few departments ask whether what happens in their lecture halls is effective at helping students to learn and how they can encourage their faculty to teach better. But real change is possible, and Carl Wieman shows us how it can be done—through detailed, tested strategies.

Children’s learning and understanding of science during their pre-school years has been a neglected topic in the education literature—something this volume aims to redress. Paradigmatic notions of science education, with their focus on biologically governed development and age-specific accession to scientific concepts, have perpetuated this state of affairs. This book offers a very different perspective, however. It has its roots in the work of cultural-historical activity theorists, who, since Vygotsky, have assumed that any higher cognitive function existed in and as a social relation first. Accepting this precept removes any lower limit we may deem appropriate on children’s cognitive engagement with science-related concepts. The authors describe and analyze the ways in which children aged from one to five grapple with scientific concepts, and also suggest ways in which pre-service and in-service teachers can be prepared to teach in ways that support children’s development in cultural and historical contexts. In doing so, the book affirms the value of cultural-historical activity theory as an appropriate framework for analyzing preschool children’s participation in science learning experiences, and shows that that the theory provides an appropriate framework for understanding learning, as well as for planning and conducting training for pre-school teachers.

This book presents a collection of critical thinking that concern cultural, social and political issues for science education in the Nordic countries. The chapter authors describe specific scenarios to challenge persisting views, interrogate frameworks and trouble contemporary approaches to researching teaching and learning in science. Taking a point of departure in empirical examples from the Nordic countries the collection of work is taking a critical sideways glance at the Nordic education principles. Critical examinations target specifically those who are researching in the fields of science education research to question whether conventional research approaches, foci and theoretical approaches are sufficient in a world of science education that is neither politically neutral, nor free of cultural values. Attention is not only on the individual learner but on the cultural, social and political conditions and contexts in science education. The different chapters review debates and research in teacher education, school teaching and learning including when external stakeholders are involved. Even though the chapters are contextualized in Nordic settings there will be similarities and parallels that will be informative to the international science education research community.

This anthology contains selected papers from the 'Science as Culture' conference held at Lake Como, and Pavia University Italy, 15-19 September 1999. The conference, attended by about 220 individuals from thirty countries, was a joint venture of the International History, Philosophy and Science Teaching Group (its fifth conference) and the History of Physics and Physics Teaching Division of the European Physical Society (its eighth conference). The magnificient Villa Olmo, on the lakeshore, provided a memorable location for the presentors of the 160 papers and the audience that discussed them. The conference was part of local celebrations of the bicentenary of Alessandro Volta's creation of the battery in 1799. Volta was born in Como in 1745, and for forty years from 1778 he was professor of experimental physics at Pavia University. The conference was fortunate to have had the generous financial support of the Italian government's Volta Bicentenary Fund, Lombardy region, Pavia University, Italian Research Council, and Kluwer Academic Publishers. The papers included here, have or will be, published in the journal Science & Education, the inaugural volume (1992) of which was a landmark in the history of science education publication, because it was the first journal in the field devoted to contributions from historical, philosophical and sociological scholarship. Clearly these 'foundational' disciplines inform numerous theoretical, curricular and pedagogical debates in science education. Contemporary Concerns The reseach promoted by the International and European Groups, and by the journal, is central to science education programmes in most areas of the world.

The goal of this volume of Research in Science Education is to examine the relationship between science education policy and practice and the special role that science education researchers play in influencing policy. It has been suggested that the science education research community is isolated from the political process, pays little attention to policy matters, and has little influence on policy. But to influence policy, it is important to understand how policy is made and how it is implemented. This volume sheds light on the intersection between policy and practice through both theoretical discussions and practical examples. This book was written primarily about science education policy development in the context of the highly decentralized educational system of the United States. But, because policy development is fundamentally a social activity involving knowledge, values, and personal and community interests, there are similarities in how education policy gets enacted and implemented around the world. This volume is meant to be useful to science education researchers and to practitioners such as teachers and administrators because it provides information about which aspects of the science education enterprise are affected by state, local, and national policies. It also provides helpful information for researchers and practitioners who wonder how they might influence policy. In particular, it points out how the values of people who are affected by policy initiatives are critical to the implementation of those policies.