This study considers the relationship between science, science teaching and the philosophy of science perceiving these three cultural phenomena as a semantic triad. This approach presents science teaching as being a form of a scientific reflection. The relationship of science teaching to the philosophy of science is advocated to be essential, revealing the conceptual meaning of science in the science curriculum and thus removing the semantic degeneracy taking place when the philosophy of science is ignored in science education. The study points at the bricolage as well as magic nature of the science curriculum preserving as long as science teaching preserves semantic degeneracy. Different types of meaning of Schwab’s commonplaces were recognized. The study challenges the common view of the relationship between science, science teaching and pedagogy and suggests effective representation of individual knowledge of science educators.

http://sites.huji.ac.il/science/stc/courses_materials/85801_files/Triangle-Galili.pdf

Science Teaching: What Does It Mean?

In this study, the structure and skill level of the tasks in the practical activities prescribed in eight process‐oriented integrated science textbooks for Caribbean pupils of grades 7‐9 were analysed using the Laboratory Structure and Task Analysis Inventory. The results suggest that most of the tasks (which are to be done individually by pupils) are structured and deductive in approach with an emphasis on low level inquiry skills. Moreover, it seems doubtful that the activities could facilitate the development in pupils of the inquiry skills they will need in order to carry out open‐ended scientific investigations in the future. Some implications of the study for the acquisition of science process skills by the users of the texts and similar integrated science textbooks or projects are highlighted.

An Assessment of Caribbean Integrated Science Textbooks’ Practical Tasks

The introduction of the new Physical Science curriculum in South Africa in 2006 has created challenges for physical science teachers and curriculum developers, including tertiary science educators. The curriculum recommends that the Nature of Science (NOS) has to be taught in an integrated manner in physical science lessons. In addition approximately one-third of all questions in class tests and examinations should be on NOS. Studies that were conducted nationally and internationally have shown that most science teachers‟ have inadequate views of NOS. This study, in particular, looks at postgraduate physical science teachers‟ knowledge and classroom practice of the Nature of Science in KwaZulu-Natal. Data was collected using a NOS questionnaire by a group of 38 FET physical science and life science teachers who had completed an honours module in NOS. Part of this module included the history and philosophy of science in classroom lessons, indigenous knowledge, and science and culture. Four physical science volunteers were then selected for in-depth classroom observations and interviews. This formed the main data for the study with fieldwork carried out in teachers‟ classrooms. Results indicated that postgraduate science teachers have an adequate understanding of NOS, mainly as a result of having completed modules covering NOS objectives, history of science and philosophy of science. Furthermore, evidence confirms that these teachers made positive attempts to plan and teach for the achievement of the NOS objectives during physical science class lessons and used materials and references from their post-graduate programmes.

Post-graduate physical science teachers' knowledge of and classroom practice in the nature of science in KwaZulu-Natal.

From the very beginning of formal science education in the schools, a fundamental dilemma has plagued the design of science curricula. As David Layton puts it, in his study of the origins of science teaching in the schools of nineteenth-century Britain, ‘The question of content or process, subject matter or method of inquiry, is a recurring and still unresolved issue in the relatively short history of science teaching’.1 In our own century the predominant approach prior to the 1960s was one which emphasized the content of science as a body of generally stable knowledge, of ‘patterns and structures that have been found by scientists to be useful ways of ordering the world’.2 In the last fifteen years, however, curriculum reform has led to the introduction of ‘discovery methods of learning’ which attempt to present science as ‘a system for helping people process new phenomena or events that may not be consistent with the patterns and structures they normally use or are not consistent with the accumulated body of science dogma’.3

Science Teaching or Science Preaching? Critical Reflections on School Science

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0031-9120/18/6/313/pdf

The two components of a formula in physics

http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0031-9120/13/7/312/pdf

David R Biggins

Papers

What is Science Teaching for