Antti Laherto

Exploring Teachers’ Concerns About Bringing Responsible Research and Innovation to European Science Classrooms

ABSTRACT The European Union pushes science education to orient toward the concept of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI; i.e., socially and ethically sensitive and inclusive processes of science and technology). Schools should further understanding on how science interacts with society and increase students’ engagement in science. This exploratory study analysed concerns of 67 active, forward-looking teachers from 10 European countries using a questionnaire based on the concerns-based adoption model (C-BAM) and open-ended questions regarding the adoption of RRI into teaching. In the context of an international professional development programme on RRI, a pre/post comparison was also carried out for 29 of the teachers. The results showed that the forerunner teachers were willing to find information and collaborate on RRI teaching and believed that RRI can engage students and be a worthwhile part of the curriculum. Yet the respondents voiced personal concerns about their ability to teach RRI, and only a few concerns were resolved during the professional development period. Teachers need extended support and networking to contextualise RRI into their science lessons. On the basis of the results, we discuss the possibilities of teaching RRI implicitly rather than explicitly in order to foster students’ own reasoning about RRI-related values. Our results also demonstrate that the customary questionnaire used with C-BAM gives a consistent picture of teachers’ concerns but does not differentiate teachers enough in order to formulate a statistically sound clustering of concern profiles. We argue that with proper adjustments the questionnaire can provide more diverse and informative profiling of teachers’ concerns.

Responsible Research and Innovation in secondary school science classrooms: experiences from the project Irresistible

Abstract Responsible Research and Innovation has become a core concept in many of the Horizon 2020 programs. In this article the concept of RRI is discussed in context of secondary education, and the interpretation used within the project ‘Irresistible’ is introduced. In the article several ways in which RRI can be incorporated in science classrooms are discussed, connected to the teaching of contemporary research taking place in universities as well as recent innovations coming from industry. The presented modules are designed in groups in which teachers work together with researchers, science educators and science center experts. As one of the educational approaches used in the modules, students created exhibits in which both the scientific content as well as the RRI concepts related to the content are demonstrated for the general public. These exhibits have been very successful as a learning tool.

Understanding first-year students’ curiosity and interest about physics—lessons learned from the HOPE project

This paper focuses on results of an interview based survey of first-year university physics students, carried out within the EU Horizons in Physics Education (HOPE) project (http://hopenetwork.eu/). 94 interviews conducted in 13 universities have been analyzed to investigate the factors that inspire young people to study physics. In particular, the main motivational factor, which was proven to consist of personal interest and curiosity, was unfolded into different categories and detailed interest profiles were produced. The results are arguably useful to help academic curriculum developers and teaching personnel in physics departments to provide guidance to students in developing and focusing their interest towards specific sub-fields and/or to design targeted recruitment and outreach initiatives.

Interdisciplinary Nature of Nanoscience: Implications for Education

A lot of expectations rest on the interdisciplinarity of nanoscience, and it has even been proposed as the deciding factor in the progress of the field. What opportunities and challenges does the interdisciplinary nature of nanoscience bring to science education at different levels? This chapter first analyzes the much-discussed interdisciplinarity of nanoscience today, and then discusses how and why those features should be addressed in education.

The I SEE project: An approach to futurize STEM education

In the world where young people feel that the future is no longer a promise but a threat, and science and technology are sources of fears and global problems, a challenging task for education is to support students in imagining a future for the world and for themselves. The aim of the EU-funded project “I SEE” is to create an approach in science education that addresses the problems posed by global unsustainability, the uncertainty of the future, social liquidity and the irrelevance of STEM education for young people. This way, we believe, STEM education can support young people in projecting themselves into the future as agents and active persons, citizens and professionals, and open their minds to future possibilities. In this paper we propose a teaching and learning approach for futurizing science education, and describe how that approach was used to develop the first I SEE module implemented in summer school in June 2017 with students from three countries. In sum, the I SEE teaching and learning approach consists of three stages and learning outcomes connected to each of them: encountering the focal issue; engaging with the interaction between science ideas and future dimensions, and synthesizing the ideas and putting them into practice. The middle stage of the model is the main part, involving future-oriented practices that turn knowledge into future-scaffolding skills. We describe four kinds of such future-oriented practices: a) activities to flesh out the future-oriented structure of scientific discourse, language and concepts; b) activities inspired by futures studies or by the working life and societal matters; c) exposure activities to enlarge the imagination about possible future STEM careers; and d) action competence activities. We conclude the paper by reflecting on our experiences of the implementation of the climate change module with upper secondary school students.

Tiedeopetuksen muuttuvat tavoitteet

Luonnontieteiden kouluopetuksen tavoitteita on jo pitkaan laajennettu tieteellisen sisaltotiedon ulkopuolelle. Perinteisen sisaltotietopainotuksen sijaan on alettu korostaa luonnontieteellista lukutaitoa (engl. scientific literacy), jonka tavoitteena on antaa oppilaille valmiuksia osallistua tieteeseen ja teknologiaan liittyvaan keskusteluun ja paatoksentekoon henkilokohtaisissa, yhteiskunnallisissa ja globaaleissa kysymyksissa. Suomen tuoreen opetussuunnitelmauudistuksen painotukset ja ilmiopohjaisuus ovat osa tata maailmanlaajuista kehitysta. Tassa artikkelissa esitamme, etta luonnontieteellisen lukutaidon opettamiseen ja ilmiooppimiseen liittyy ratkaisemattomia jannitteita. Vaikka nykyisissa tavoitteissa korostuu opetuksen relevanssi oppijan ja yhteiskunnan kannalta, sisaltotieto maaritellaan edelleen pitkalti oppiainelahtoisen autenttisuuden nakokulmasta. Me argumentoimme, etta opetusmenetelmien ja kontekstien lisaksi myos sisaltotieto on uudelleenmaariteltava muuttuneiden tavoitteiden mukaiseksi. The goals of science education expand beyond traditional scientific content knowledge. Scientific literacy has become an important goal, offering students knowledge and skills to engage in public discussion and decision making in personal, societal and global issues related to science and technology. The recent changes in Finnish Core Curricula towards phenomenon-based learning represent these global trends in science education. In this paper, we argue that there are unresolved tensions in the the pursuit for scientific literacy and phenomenon-based learning. While the current aims of science education emphasize relevance for the student and the society, content knowledge is still defined on the basis of disciplinary authenticity. We argue that in addition to the teaching methods and contexts also content knowledge needs to be redefined to reflect the changing goals of science education.