Peter J. Fensham

Time To Change Drivers for Scientific Literacy.

RésuméIl y a maintenant une décennie que sont apparus les premiers curriculums qui relevaient sérieusement le défi d’axer les sciences scolaires, en particulier celles de la formation obligatoire, avant tout sur l’alphabétisation scientifique générale, c’est-à-dire sur un apprentissage des sciences en mesure de préparer les étudiants et les étudiantes à la vie en société, une vie de plus en plus influencée par les sciences et la technologie. Dans presque tous les cas, ces curriculums proposent des objectifs d’apprentissage et d’enseignement scientifique tellement vastes qu’ils ne sont guère réalistes. En effet, ils sont jugés difficiles par les enseignants et enseignantes et peu attirants par les élèves. De plus, cette élaboration des contenus scientifiques scolaires a conduit à une remise en question de la notion même d’alphabétisation scientifique. Les scientifiques et les didacticiens sont les premiers responsables des contenus plus vastes ajoutés aux programmes. Le présent article analyse ce phénomène comme conséquence d’une perception scientifique de la société. Il est donc temps de considérer la vie en société comme point de départ dans la détermination des savoirs scientifiques auxquels il faut accorder la priorité dans les curriculums de sciences à l’école. Nous donnons un exemple actuel de ce type d’analyse tel qu’il s’applique à la vie en société dans trois villes chinoises.

School science and public understanding of science

In this paper we trace how the idea of measuring the connection between school science and the public awareness of science has evolved. In doing so, we draw the science education communitys attent...

Approaches to the teaching of STS in science education

The Science, Technology and Society movement is a movement within higher and school education that seeks to bring the science education of students at these respective levels more closely to their needs as members of increasingly technological societies. As far as school science education is concerned, two parallel developments have been occurring since the mid 1970s. The first is an evolving conception of the ways in which these interactions between Science, Technology and Society may be dealt with in science education. The other is the development of text and other curriculum materials that provide assistance for teachers wishing to teach science with these emphases. This paper outlines these two developments and brings them together by using an epistemological typology from the first to classify the varieties of curriculum materials now available.

Science content as problematic - issues for research

In this lecture in tribute to Rosalind Driver, you will hear me inevitably refer a number of times to aspects of her research work. This will not be at all in the sense of a retrospective review, but because her research provides vantage points from which to see some directions science education research could well take in the next few years.

De nouveaux guides pour l'alphabétisation scientifique

It is now a decade since the first major curricula began to appear that were serious responses to the challenge that school science, particularly in the compulsory years, should be concerned primarily with general scientific literacy, that is, with a learning of science that would empower all students for life in societies increasingly influenced by science and technology. In almost all cases, these curricula have expectations for science teaching and learning that are quite unrealistically extensive. They are already proving difficult for teachers and unattractive to students. Furthermore, this elaboration of the content for school science has led to a questioning of the notion of scientific literacy itself. Scientists and science educators have been primarily responsible for suggesting the expanded curriculum content. In this paper it is argued that this is a consequence of seeing society through scientifically attuned eyes. It is time, therefore, to consider life in society itself as the starting point for determining the scientific knowledge that should be given priority in the school science curriculum. A current example of this type of analysis of life in society in three Chinese cities is given. ©2002 La Revue canadienne de l’enseignement des sciences, des mathématiques et des technologies

The use of cognitive mapping in teaching and learning strategies

SummaryIn this exercise the first five criteria of Table 3 were probably met. Our subsequent checks may enable us to claim that criterion 6 is also met, and there is little doubt that without it most chemistry teachers would remain sceptical about the worth of such an “extra” set of activities.The exercise also indicates that it is possible with modifications to move research techniques like 5 and 8 in Table 3 into at least the realm of possibility of teacher-centred or didactic classrooms.

Learning achievement in upper secondary school chemistry in Thailand: some remarkable sex reversals

The problems of girls’ underachievement in school science and in particular the physical sciences, has been widely documented in recent years. The findings of this study in Thailand do not confirm the previous findings. Girls in upper secondary schools outperform their boy counterparts in practical skills, theoretical knowledge of chemistry and attitudes to science. The differences in practical skills are greater in the earlier grades, but in theoretical knowledge the larger differences are in the later grades. These findings negate the possible validity of a biological interpretation of these sorts of sex differences. Some of the possible social sources of bias common in the school systems of Western societies are not present in Thailand. The majority of chemistry teachers are women and curriculum development was in the hands of women. However, the content of the course and its accompanying materials are not obviously very different from modern chemistry courses elsewhere. On the other hand, there does a...

Quality Learning of Physics: Conceptions Held by High School and University Teachers.

This paper reports an exploration of the conceptions of quality learning held by two samples of physics teachers – final year, high school physics teachers and academics teaching first year university physics. We begin by outlining our view of quality learning, that is a view of learning in which learners take control of their own learning and engage with active construction and reconstruction of their own meanings for concepts and phenomena. This view of quality learning recognises the crucial role of the affective dimension of learning on the extent to which students engage with and maintain such constructivist and metacognitive approaches to learning. The study explored the qualitatively different ways in which individuals conceptualise quality learning in physics, using semi structured interviews that explored aspects of learning that the respondents regarded as worth fostering in their classrooms. The interview approach was a modification of the Interview-About-Instances approach that allowed the possibility of interviewees suggesting instances of particular relevance to their view of quality learning. This process resulted in a considerable quantity of rich and complex data related to a large range of aspects of physics learning. These data are summarised here, and the qualitatively different conceptions of the respondents with respect to four significant aspects of physics learning are discussed. These aspects are: doing experimental work; linking physics to the real world; students taking responsibility for their own learning and being confident/feeling proud of what you can do.

A general strategy for solving high school electrochemistry problems

This study was designed to investigate the strategies used by teachers and students for solving problems of varying familiarity in electrochemistry. Ten teachers and thirty‐three of their upper secondary school students (Grade 12, ages 16 to 18) were asked individually to think aloud while they were solving three problems. The protocols (transcripts of the oral and written solutions) were analysed to identify their problem solving strategies. A two‐phase general strategy of problem solving that encompasses the various approaches used by both the teachers and the students was identified. This consisted of seven significant processes.

Student Response to the TIMSS Test.

The Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) involved 47 countries, thousands of students, and their teachers and schools. Included in the battery of tests and other instruments was a Student Questionnaire that was concerned with the personal and school contexts of the students in relation to their mathematics and science learning. Quite late in the planning of this very expensive study, it transpired that no country had considered gathering data on the students’ sense of the relevance of the science topics in the achievement tests, of their science learning, or, their metacognitive awareness of this learning. This paper reports one last minute attempt to collect these data from one group of student in Population 3—the students in the final year of schooling. Like many other aspects of TIMSS, the psychometric dominance in its design meant that this study was logistically very difficult, but some interesting findings are reported.