Cathy Buntting

International, National and Classroom Assessment: Potent Factors in Shaping What Counts in School Science

In this chapter, we examine the potential influences of international, national and classroom assessment programmes on what counts in school science. To do this, we develop a multilayered framework that considers the interactions between levels of assessment (international, national and classroom) and how science is articulated at the national, school and classroom levels. International and national science assessments as well as broader assessment policies are considered in relation to their potential influences on school science. Drawing on the New Zealand context, we illustrate how assessment policies and procedures act to both broaden, but more often constrain, what counts in school science. The international and New Zealand picture is complex, but emerging evidence suggests that multilayered assessment initiatives have significant impact on the way in which science education is operationalised at the national, school and classroom level, including the nature of the curriculum, classroom approaches and the time spent on science.

Valuing Assessment in Science Education: An Introductory Framework

In this volume, a range of authors explore assessment philosophies and practices and possibilities from different sociocultural contexts and across educational levels, from early childhood through to tertiary level. This chapter introduces and gives some context for the remainder of the volume. It briefly lays out a framework for considering the multilevel and multidirectional/multicausal interactions that exist between assessment and each of pedagogy, curriculum and policy. Each chapter is then outlined and its place in this framework and the sequence of the chapters is explored.

Much Remains to Be Done

Much has been accomplished over the last three decades or so in terms of technology education becoming established as a distinct discipline both in school and research communities. However, on-going innovation is needed if effective technology education practice is to reach its potential as a key vehicle for equipping students to make responsible contributions in the global society of the knowledge age. This book introduces several frameworks that can be used to guide decision-making in the on-going development of technology education, and will, we hope, contribute usefully to the debate.

The More Things Change, the More (Some) Things Stay the Same

Introducing the book, this chapter takes as its starting point five key variables driving the technology education that students experience in schools: curriculum, pedagogy, assessment, how the nature of technology is interpreted, and how students’ cultural ways of knowing and acting (their cultural capital) are understood—and that it is the interactions between these that become important in the provision of a meaningful form of technology education. Politics—at both national and school levels—can act to balance (as well as distort) these interactions. Readers are invited to use this framework to consider how technology education might develop as a learning area for the knowledge age.

Futures Thinking in the Future of Science Education

In a world of unprecedented scientific and technological advancement there is increasing need for students to become equipped and empowered to contribute meaningfully to social change, both at a socio-political level and as contributors in the work-place. Within this context of rapid change, futures thinking is starting to find a place in school curricula as ‘futures education’. This chapter considers the potential place for futures education in school science. Classroom-based case study with 13 year old students of lower mixed ability highlights the potential of a futures thinking framework to engage reluctant learners in thinking about science—including the social, cultural and political milieu to which science contributes, and the relationship between science and technology.

Assessment: Where to Next?

At the end of Chap. 1 of this book, the authors of that chapter observe that ‘The concluding messages expressed in each of the chapters in this volume also provide a basis for consideration of where the gaps might be in thinking about assessment in science education and research. In the final chapter of this volume we therefore offer our analysis of what these gaps are, and suggest possible fruitful areas for further investigation in order to enhance assessment’s role in relation to science education policy, curriculum and pedagogy’. This concluding chapter provides such analysis. In particular (but not only), the lack of a student voice in much of the preceding chapters is noted, a lack that the next volume in this series (currently under development) seeks to address.

Using a Digital Platform to Mediate Intentional and Incidental Science Learning

This chapter challenges the distinction between informal and formal science learning in the context of learning science from online resources, arguing instead for consideration of intentional and incidental science learning. The New Zealand Science Learning Hub (sciencelearn.org.nz) is used as an example to demonstrate how both intentional and incidental learning can be supported. The aim of the Hub, which is Government-funded, is to make contemporary science research and development more accessible to teachers, students and the wider community through presenting the stories of science and scientists in multimedia format, supported by resources for teaching and learning. To foster ongoing engagement of teachers, as a key target audience, the Hub has a deliberate strategy to support both intentional and incidental learning through website design and through connecting with topical science-related events and news. The embedded social media strategy in particular is a tool that mediates incidental engagement with the Hub content.

Navigating the Changing Landscape of Formal and Informal Science Learning Opportunities

A Google Scholar search of outreach, informal, non-formal, and out-of-school science education highlights a prolific and rich area of experiences offered by education institutions (e.g., universities), educational centres (e.g., zoos, museums), libraries, the broadcast media, workplaces and other community-based organisations to enhance individual understandings of science (Falk JH, Dierking LD, Museum experience revisited. Left Coast Press, Walnut Creek, 2012).

The Future in Learning Science: Themes, Issues and Big Ideas

This chapter places the book in a number of contexts. First, and most straight forward, the place of this book in the sequence of books edited through the partnerships\between Monash University and University of Waikato and King’s College London is briefly described. Then we argue the continuing differences between the changing nature of science itself in these times and the continued unchanging nature of science that is still portrayed in school science education. The need to consider this and related issues from the perspective of the learner is advanced, and the foci of the remaining chapters of this book, a book focussed on considering learning with the learner in mind, are outlined.

The Alignment of Technology with Other School Subjects

This chapter examines the traditional separation, or siloing, of knowledge domains into distinct school subjects—languages, mathematics, science, social science, the arts, and technology—and considers the benefits and challenges of breaking down these silos and bringing about closer alignment between technology as a school subject, and other subject areas. One key purpose for aligning technology with other subjects is to increase the scope and opportunities for students to develop relevant skills and dispositions to address ‘wicked problems’—complex problems with multiple causes and interdependencies that are difficult or even impossible to solve, or even define, using the tools and techniques of only one organisation or discipline.