Roald P. Verhoeff

Systems Modelling and the Development of Coherent Understanding of Cell Biology

This article reports on educational design research concerning a learning and teaching strategy for cell biology in upper‐secondary education introducing systems modelling as a key competence. The strategy consists of four modelling phases in which students subsequently develop models of free‐living cells, a general two‐dimensional model of cells, a three‐dimensional model of plant cells, and finally they are engaged in formal thinking by modelling life phenomena to a hierarchical systems model. The strategy was thought out, elaborated, and tested in classrooms in several research cycles. Throughout the field‐tests, research data were collected by means of classroom observations, interviews, audio‐taped discussions, completed worksheets, written tests, and questionnaires. Reflection on the research findings eventuated in reshaping and formalizing the learning and teaching strategy, which is presented here. The results show that although acquiring systems thinking competence at the metacognitive level needs more effort, our strategy contributed to improving learning outcomes; that is, acquisition of a coherent conceptual understanding of cell biology and acquisition of initial systems thinking competence, with modelling being the key activity.

Genomics in school. Science & society series on convergence research.

School curricula always lag behind scientific innovations; modern science has made so many great advances that the quantity of ‘basic’ science to be taught in the classroom increases year on year. Major breakthroughs and new research are obvious in a range of scientific disciplines, including medicine, forensics, biofuels, vaccine research and the mitigation of pollution (NGI, 2006). Moreover, fundamental biological concepts and practices have themselves advanced and school curricula need to be revised; for example, in evolutionary biology (Moore, 2007), probable evolutionary relationships are now being constructed by comparing proteins and genome sequences between organisms, rather than by searching for similarities in anatomy, embryology and physiology. > …modern science has made so many great advances that the quantity of ‘basic’ science to be taught in the classroom increases year on year The conceptual and practical changes that have taken place in scientific theory and research in relation to genomics have also not yet found their place in the science curriculum, at least not in the Netherlands. It is now a few years since the publication of the human genome, and genomics research is continually generating large and complex data sets that have transformed the study of virtually all life processes (Collins, 2003). Despite this, and although a range of outreach programmes offer a temporary solution, such as the Dutch ‘mobile DNA labs’ (van Mil, 2007), greater efforts are needed to embed genomics into the standard science curriculum. Two important characteristics of genomics are immediately apparent for inclusion in new educational materials. First, genomics combines the expertise and techniques of many disciplines—for example, molecular biology, physical sciences and bioinformatics—in order to study genome–environment interactions in relation to phenomena at many biological levels from the molecular up to that of patient communities or ecosystems. Second, genomics research programmes are often accompanied by studies …

Good Intentions, Stubborn Practice: A critical appraisal of a public event on cancer genomics

Science communication has shifted considerably in Europe over the last decades. In the theoretical realm, one-way information has been replaced by models of science communication that stress public engagement and public participation in science and technology. Dialogue seems to have become a communication target on its own, beside such things as public understanding or awareness of science. This article articulates different notions of science communication and explores to what extent they can coexist in practice by presenting an empirical analysis of a public event on cancer genomics. The event brought together cancer patients, scientists and (para)medical professionals. Data on the intended and actual communication at the event were collected by document-based research, interviews, observation of communication processes and a written questionnaire. The results show that the event proved to be successful in terms of creating awareness and understanding of cancer genomics research and its implications for diagnosis and treatment of cancer. The results also illustrate that despite the intentions of those organising public communication activities, achieving the ideal of a two-way public dialogue in practice is not self-evident. This is partly due to a lack of commitment to societal issues at the institutional as well as the (inter)personal level. Drawing from our experiences and literature, we suggest that in science communication literature the role of dialogue moderators is underexposed. We argue that in doing and evaluating science communication, analytical attention should be focused on the interaction among the public(s) and invited experts and the opportunities for empowering both for decision-making in their everyday lives.

Inquiry-based science education: towards a pedagogical framework for primary school teachers

ABSTRACT Inquiry-based science education (IBSE) has been promoted as an inspiring way of learning science by engaging pupils in designing and conducting their own scientific investigations. For primary school teachers, the open nature of IBSE poses challenges as they often lack experience in supporting their pupils during the different phases of an open IBSE project, such as formulating a research question and designing and conducting an investigation. The current study aims to meet these challenges by presenting a pedagogical framework in which four domains of scientific knowledge are addressed in seven phases of inquiry. The framework is based on video analyses of pedagogical interventions by primary school teachers participating in open IBSE projects. Our results show that teachers can guide their pupils successfully through the process of open inquiry by explicitly addressing the conceptual, epistemic, social and/or procedural domain of scientific knowledge in the subsequent phases of inquiry. The paper concludes by suggesting further research to validate our framework and to develop a pedagogy for primary school teachers to guide their pupils through the different phases of open inquiry.

Inquiry-based science education: scaffolding pupils’ self-directed learning in open inquiry

ABSTRACT This paper describes a multiple case study on open inquiry-based learning in primary schools. During open inquiry, teachers often experience difficulties in balancing support and transferring responsibility to pupils’ own learning. To facilitate teachers in guiding open inquiry, we developed hard and soft scaffolds. The hard scaffolds consisted of documents with explanations and/or exercises regarding difficult parts of the inquiry process. The soft scaffolds included explicit references to and additional explanations of the hard scaffolds. We investigated how teacher implementation of these scaffolds contributed to pupils’ self-directed learning during open inquiry. Four classes of pupils, aged 10–11, were observed while they conducted an inquiry lesson module of about 10 lessons in their classrooms. Data were acquired via classroom observations, audio recordings, and interviews with teachers and pupils. The results show that after the introduction of the hard scaffolds by the teacher, pupils were able and willing to apply them to their investigations. Combining hard scaffolds with additional soft scaffolding promoted pupils’ scientific understanding and contributed to a shared guidance of the inquiry process by the teacher and her pupils. Our results imply that the effective use of scaffolds is an important element to be included in teacher professionalisation.

Multiple Representations in Modeling Strategies for the Development of Systems Thinking in Biology Education

For biological researchers, systems thinking is a basic conceptual framework, and many educationalists consider systems thinking as a metacognitive skill that enables students to understand and cope with the new scientific advancements that reach our society. With this in mind, we investigated the implementation of systems thinking in upper secondary biology education in several studies. In this chapter, we report a critical appraisal of our systems modeling approach that emerged from these studies. We first lay a theoretical foundation under our emergent modeling approach which prescribes the sequence in which multiple representations should be placed in a bottom-up educational strategy. Second, we articulate two studies that both designed and evaluated the development of a learning and teaching strategy that engaged students in developing multiple representations of living systems with increasing complexity. One study focused on the development of an initial systems model in cell biology, and the other addressed the use of computer modeling as a tool in the understanding of the dynamics in ecosystems. We conclude by critically looking back at these study results in the formulation of some general recommendations about the use of multiple representations in the development of systems thinking.

The Use of Drama in Socio-Scientific Inquiry-Based Learning

Drama is relatively unexplored in academic science education. This chapter addresses in what way drama may allow science students to explore socio-scientific issues on neuro-technologies. We connect to the educational framework, socio-scientific inquiry-based learning (SSIBL), which integrates inquiry-based science education, socio-scientific issues and citizenship education. We explore the use of drama to enhance reflexivity in embracing and critiquing socio-scientific issues on emerging technologies. So far, only few empirical studies have been published concerning the effectiveness of drama in science education. In most papers describing the use of drama, students are typically involved as spectators. In our case, 22 students from various science disciplines were involved in a drama experiment, performing multiple roles as authors, actors, reviewers and audience. Qualitative data was collected on the educational process and student performance during the course and the performed one-act play. The drama experiment showed to be an effective SSIBL approach in activating students to open up a future lifeworld which they could relate to. It allowed them to acquire insights in social and ethical implications of neuro-technologies and created awareness of different viewpoints, primarily in everyday life settings. The results presented in this chapter underline the potential of the SSIBL approach in stimulating students to take a reflexive position on the socio-scientific particularities of science and technology. However, they also illustrate some difficulties in combining drama and science education. Using drama faces the challenge of learners perceiving the design and performance of a play to be less effective as opposed to more traditional ways of learning.