Michèle Stears

Exploring alternative assessment strategies in science classrooms

The knowledge children bring to the classroom or construct in the classroom may find expression in a variety of activities and is often not measurable with the traditional assessment instruments used in science classrooms. Different approaches to assessment are required to accommodate the various ways in which learners construct knowledge in social settings. In our research we attempted to determine the types of outcomes achieved in a Grade 6 classroom where alternative strategies such as interactive assessments were implemented. Analyses of these outcomes show that the learners learned much more than the tests indicate, although what they learnt was not necessarily science. The implications for assessment are clear: strategies that assess knowledge of science concepts, as well as assessment of outcomes other than science outcomes, are required if we wish to gain a holistic understanding of the learning that occurs in science classrooms.

Exploring Biology Education Students' Responses to a Course in Evolution at a South African University: Implications for Their Roles as Future Teachers.

The present study was prompted by the introduction of evolution in the school curriculum and reports on student teachers’ responses to a course in evolution at a South African university. The concepts framing the study are conceptual change, nature of science (NOS) and the science/religion conflict. The research may be described as a qualitative study with a quantitative element. The sample was purposive as a cohort of final-year students in biology education participated in the study. Data were collected through two sets of questionnaires – pre-course and post-course – as well as interviews with a number of students. The findings show that while there was limited improvement in content knowledge, the considerable improvement in their understanding of the NOS was encouraging. Furthermore, they had altered their views of the conflict between science and religion, with students expressing a better understanding of evolution. This has implications for teacher education as it suggests that teacher education programmes in biology should not only focus on conceptual understanding but should focus on improving understanding of the NOS as well as supporting students in understanding how to deal with possible conflicts that may arise in their classrooms.

An analysis of children’s drawings of what they think is inside their bodies: a South African regional study

The purpose of the study is to find out what a group of seven-year-old South African children understand of their internal anatomy. The research is based on the premise that young children obtain most of their science knowledge through personal experience. Drawings are used to determine the level of young children’s knowledge of systems and organs. The study also investigates whether there are significant differences between boys and girls’ understanding as well as between children from a range of schooling contexts. Teachers were instructed to ask children to draw what they think is inside their bodies, using the language that is most familiar to the children (English, isiZulu, or isiXhosa). The findings show that children are able to draw individual organs, but are unable to show relationships between them. There were significant differences between different schools, but these differences were not due to different contexts. At Grade 1 level, boys were better able to represent what they thought was inside their bodies than girls. The findings show that the informal knowledge children hold of what is inside their bodies appears to be acquired by informal means, outside the school.

Rhetoric and reality : science teacher educators' views and practice regarding science process skills

The importance of teaching science process skills in science education is well documented in the literature. Yet the issue of process skills had also been associated with debates on validity of a process approach to science education. This research was conducted to explore views of science teacher educators in initial teacher education programmes with regard to the importance of science process skills and how their beliefs of teaching influence their teaching of these skills. The study is located within an interpretive paradigm as an in-depth study of the views of six teacher educators was undertaken. Written responses to questions and interviews produced the necessary data. While the findings reveal that teacher educators have differing opinions regarding what constitutes process skills and differ with regard to the importance of such skills, they do identify a number of core skills as being most important, including some generic skills. The findings further show that, while science process skills are regarded as important, lecturers hold pedagogical beliefs that privilege the development of conceptual understanding rather than the acquisition of science process skills within their teaching practice. Their rhetoric regarding the importance of process skills does not therefore always match their self-reported practice, lending support to the continuing debate around science process skills.

Changes in Children’s Knowledge about their Internal Anatomy Between First and Ninth Grades

Effective teaching in science requires insight into students’ personal understanding of natural phenomena (Bennett, 2003). Students come to school with numerous personal experiences and beliefs as well as personal knowledge about how the world works. Such personal knowledge may be regarded as their own scientific ideas (Colburn, 2000). Children’s own ideas tend to persist after formal instruction because they are based on their everyday experience of these natural phenomena.

Exploring the professional identities of physical science teachers enrolled in an advanced certificate in education programme

Abstract The South African National Curriculum for schools envisages teachers as qualified, competent, dedicated and caring. If policy documents hold such high expectations of what teachers should be, the question arises as to how professional development programmes contribute to developing teachers with such attributes? One of the aspects teachers may want to address in an effort to meet the expectations of policymakers is to improve their qualifications. This research focused on teachers who were registered for an Advanced Certificate in Education (Physical Science). The framework of Beijaard, Verloop and Vermunt (2000), which describes the professional identity of teachers as: the teacher as subject specialist; the teacher as pedagogical expert and the teacher as didactical expert, is used to interpret the kinds of identities teachers in the study hold. Six teachers were interviewed and observed teaching physical science to determine whether their identities are constituted in the same way as the ident...

Towards Socially Responsible Biology: Two Cases in a Teacher Education Programme

Abstract Science teacher education has traditionally presented science as a body of knowledge to be mastered, along with the methods that may be used to help learners to master this body of knowledge. With pressure mounting on higher education institutions to engage more actively with communities, avenues have opened up to facilitate the development of teacher education courses that incorporate education for the empowerment of communities. This paper reports on two cases of socially responsible biology courses which enable students to interact with their communities. The two cases were applied in two biology education modules, using education for sustainable development (ESD) as a concept to define the content and activities incorporated in the above-mentioned modules. The first case incorporates ESD in a method module where students are required to develop an environmental policy for a school in collaboration with the school. The second case incorporates ESD in a biology education research module where students are required to direct their research activities in such a way that their research contributes to communities living healthier and more sustainable lives. By incorporating this approach in science education courses, the opportunity arises to promote personal growth and social responsibility through science learning. While developing their knowledge and skills pertaining to science education, they are able to reflect on their roles as educators in a broader community and in particular their roles of agents of change in that community.

Producing storied accounts from data - a teacher's narrative

The research described in this paper is aimed at exploring the knowledge teachers have of their learners, using a particular approach to data analysis and presentation. The participants of the study were three classes of learners from townships in the Western Cape. The first step in data collection was to find out more about the participants in the study, from three teachers and the learners themselves. In the analysis I presented the first level as a story, using Polkinghornes (1995) approach. Instead of presenting the data as a number of narratives, it was presented as a story of a fictitious teacher. This narrative shows the nature of the knowledge these teachers have of their learners and how they use this knowledge in the design and delivery of their lessons. This produced a storied account of who these learners were, what they were interested in and what they regarded as useful knowledge. A number of themes which provide a useful guide for teachers in this context emerged from this account.