Stephen M. Ritchie

Metaphor and Analogy in Science Education

This book brings together powerful ideas and new developments from internationally recognised scholars and classroom practitioners to provide theoretical and practical knowledge to inform progress in science education. This is achieved through a series of related chapters reporting research on analogy and metaphor in science education. Throughout the book, contributors not only highlight successful applications of analogies and metaphors, but also foreshadow exciting developments for research and practice. Themes include metaphor and analogy: best practice, as reasoning; for learning; applications in teacher development; in science education research; philosophical and theoretical foundations. Accordingly, the book is likely to appeal to a wide audience of science educators –classroom practitioners, student teachers, teacher educators and researchers.

Metaphor as a tool for constructivist science teaching

A teachers personally created metaphor of constructivist science teaching can be used as a reflective tool for initiating and sustaining change in the classroom. This study reports how one experienced general science teacher used the metaphor tool during the implementation of constructivist approaches in both biology and physics topics. Three general assertions are discussed. Although these were based primarily on the qualitative data, the quantitative data arising from the administration of the Constructivist Learning Environment Survey were used to strengthen these data.

Student Positioning within Groups During Science Activities

Positioning theory was used in my interpretation of the social interactions between Year 6 children during science activities. By examining the unproductive journey taken by students in one female dyad as they interacted with students in both mixed-gender and same-gender groups, it was possible to consider how gender, status and power relations intersected during opportunities for science learning. In this context, positioning theory was helpful in making visible that which is usually invisible to both teachers and researchers.

Learning In-the-Making: A Case Study of Science and Technology Projects in a Year Six Classroom.

The integration of technology-based projects in the primary science curriculum has attracted recent international attention. Yet few case studies about what and how knowledge is constructed in this context have been reported. In this interpretive study of a Year Six classroom, we focused on how two contrasting groups of children designed ill-defined engineering structures. Of particular interest was how the groups appropriated ideas into their designs and constructed related scientific concepts. Our interpretations of the field, videotape and interview data during the semester-long observation period highlight the value of building learning communities in science and technology classes. As well as reporting our classroom-related findings we begin to explore the collaboration processes within our research team. A thick description of the genesis of the project and a brief revelation about our interpretive zone are provided.

Solidarity through collaborative research

While numerous publications signal the merits of collaborative research, few studies provide interpretive analyses of collaborative‐research practices or collaborative relationships. Through this multiple case study design of collaborative‐research teams, the authors attempt to provide such an analysis by focusing on the collaborative‐research experiences of seven qualitative researchers from two contrasting research teams in Australia and North America. They highlight how solidarity emerged from successful interactions between interdependent members, and how these were both professionally and personally rewarding for individuals and the teams. As well, they identify the opportunities for solidarity afforded to researchers from vertical collaborations (i.e. collaborations involving differential status between team members) that featured evolving and transforming mentoring relationships through the history of the research projects. They propose that solidarity can be stratified within large research teams through sub‐units like dyads. Finally, they suggest that collaborating researchers might benefit from reviewing case studies of collaborative relationships, and engaging in mutual interrogation and subsequent individual reflections of their articulated collaborative practices and relationships.

Learning Science Through Real-World Contexts

Curriculum developers and researchers have promoted context-based programmes to arrest waning student interest and participation in the enabling sciences at high school and university. Context-based programmes aim for connections between scientific discourse and real-world contexts to elevate curricular relevance without diminishing conceptual understanding. Literature relating to context-based approaches to learning will be reviewed in this chapter. In particular, international trends in curricular development and results from evaluations of major projects (e.g. PLON, Salters Advanced Chemistry, ChemCom) will be highlighted. Research projects that explore context-based interventions focusing on such outcomes as student interest, perceived relevance and conceptual understanding also will feature in the review. The chapter culminates with a discussion of current context-based research that interprets classroom actions from a dialectical socio-cultural framework, and identifies possible new directions for research.

Writing Stories to Enhance Scientific Literacy

In response to international concerns about scientific literacy and students’ waning interest in school science, this study investigated the effects of a science‐writing project about the socioscientific issue (SSI) of biosecurity on the development of students’ scientific literacy. Students generated two BioStories each that merged scientific information with the narrative storylines in the project. The study was conducted in two phases. In the exploratory phase, a qualitative case study of a sixth‐grade class involving classroom observations and interviews informed the design of the second, confirmatory phase of the study, which was conducted at a different school. This phase involved a mixed methods approach featuring a quasi‐experimental design with two classes of Australian middle school students (i.e., sixth grade, 11 years of age, n = 55). The results support the argument that writing the sequence of stories helped the students become more familiar with biosecurity issues, develop a deeper understanding of related biological concepts, and improve their interest in science. On the basis of these findings, teachers should be encouraged to engage their students in the practice of writing about SSI in a way that integrates scientific information into narrative storylines. Extending the practice to older students and exploring additional issues related to writing about SSI are recommended for further research.

Transforming an academy through the enactment of collective curriculum leadership

Although the transformation of relevant curriculum experiences for youth from impoverished backgrounds in large urban high schools in the US offers many leadership challenges for faculty, few studies have focused on the roles of students and teachers in the creation of distributed leadership practices to build and sustain improved learning environments. Through ethnography, this paper explores the leadership dynamics in one academy within a large urban high school whose students are mostly African‐American. Students in some classes had opportunities to participate in cogenerative dialogues and, in so doing, learned how to interact successfully with others, including their teachers and peers, and build collective agreements for future classroom roles and shared responsibility for their enactment. The study highlights the centrality of successful interactions among participants and the extent to which co‐respect and co‐responsibility for goals occur. Initially, a lack of trust within the community undermined tendencies to build solidarity throughout the community, despite a commitment of the academy’s co‐ordinator to be responsive to the goals of others, listen to colleagues and students, and strive for collective goals. It is argued that all participants in a field need to take responsibility for accessing and appropriating structures to achieve positive emotional energy through collective curriculum leadership and climates that create and sustain educational accomplishments. Furthermore, it is suggested that individual and collective actions should be studied dialectically in subsequent research on leadership dynamics in schools.

Creative thinking instruction for aboriginal children

Educational responses to the wide-spread failure of indigenous children in Westernised schools have not made the desired impact. In Australia, for example, an appropriate elementary education for many Aboriginal children cannot be guaranteed. Suggestions in the psychological literature that Aboriginal children might experience success in programs that value and promote creative thinking, motivated the design of the present study. This study, then, evaluates the effects of a general thinking skills program, de Bonos CoRT (Cognitive Research Trust) Program, which features divergent and creative thinking. The results reveal that the implemented CoRT program can enhance the creative thinking of Aboriginal children in mainstream classrooms, but not their scholastic aptitude, school achievement, thinking approaches, self-concept as a thinker, and internal locus of control. Issues of both implementation strategy, including the infusion of the thinking skills throughout the curriculum, and classroom practice are discussed with a view to enhance the childrens success in thinking performance and transfer to other class activities.

Student disclosures of fraudulent practice in school laboratories

The debate about the inclusion of laboratory practicals in the school curriculum is continued in this paper which reports on fraudulent practice by students. One of the widely accepted goals of school laboratory practicals is to teach students about the nature of scientific inquiry. This paper reports how student disclosures of their actual practice in school laboratories is at odds with such a goal. We identify and define the student practice of “fudging” which involves faking, fabricating, or stealing data. Five types of fudging behaviour are described. The factors contributing to and the motivations for such behaviour are also identified.