Time for Science Education

Time for Science Education
Author: Michael Matthews
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 459
Release: 2012-12-06
Genre: Education
ISBN: 9401139946

The book's argument depends, as do most proposals in education, upon cer tain positions in the philosophy of education. I believe that education should be primarily concerned with developing understanding, with initiation into worth while traditions of intellectual achievement, and with developing capacities for clear, analytic and critical thought. These have been the long-accepted goals of liberal education. In a liberal education, students should come to know and appre ciate a variety of disciplines, know them at an appropriate depth, see the interconnectedness of the disciplines, or the modes of thought, and finally have some critical disposition toward what is being learned, to be genuinely open minded about intellectual things. These liberal goals are contrasted with goals such as professional training, job preparation, promotion of self-esteem, social engineering, entertainment, or countless other putative purposes of schooling that are enunciated by politicians, administrators, and educators. The book's argument might be consistent with other views of education especially ones about the training of specialists (sometimes called a professional view of education)-but the argument fits best with a liberal view of education. The liberal hope has always been that if education is done well, then other per sonal and social goods will follow. The development of informed, critical, and moral capacities is the cornerstone for personal and social achievements.

Internet Environments for Science Education

Internet Environments for Science Education
Author: Marcia C. Linn
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 374
Release: 2013-07-04
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1135631832

Internet Environments for Science Education synthesizes 25 years of research to identify effective, technology-enhanced ways to convert students into lifelong science learners--one inquiry project at a time. It offers design principles for development of innovations; features tested, customizable inquiry projects that students, teachers, and professional developers can enact and refine; and introduces new methods and assessments to investigate the impact of technology on inquiry learning. The methodology--design-based research studies--enables investigators to capture the impact of innovations in the complex, inertia-laden educational enterprise and to use these findings to improve the innovation. The approach--technology-enhanced inquiry--takes advantage of global, networked information resources, sociocognitive research, and advances in technology combined in responsive learning environments. Internet Environments for Science Education advocates leveraging inquiry and technology to reform the full spectrum of science education activities--including instruction, curriculum, policy, professional development, and assessment. The book offers: *the knowledge integration perspective on learning, featuring the interpretive, cultural, and deliberate natures of the learner; *the scaffolded knowledge integration framework on instruction summarized in meta-principles and pragmatic principles for design of inquiry instruction; *a series of learning environments, including the Computer as Learning Partner (CLP), the Knowledge Integration Environment (KIE), and the Web-based Inquiry Science Environment (WISE) that designers can use to create new inquiry projects, customize existing projects, or inspire thinking about other learning environments; *curriculum design patterns for inquiry projects describing activity sequences to promote critique, debate, design, and investigation in science; *a partnership model establishing activity structures for teachers, pedagogical researchers, discipline experts, and technologists to jointly design and refine inquiry instruction; *a professional development model involving mentoring by an expert teacher; *projects about contemporary controversy enabling students to explore the nature of science; *a customization process guiding teachers to adapt inquiry projects to their own students, geographical characteristics, curriculum framework, and personal goals; and *a Web site providing additional links, resources, and community tools at www.InternetScienceEducation.org

Scientists in the Classroom

Scientists in the Classroom
Author: J. Rudolph
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 265
Release: 2002-05-02
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0230107362

During the 1950s, leading American scientists embarked on an unprecedented project to remake high school science education. Dissatisfaction with the 'soft' school curriculum of the time advocated by the professional education establishment, and concern over the growing technological sophistication of the Soviet Union, led government officials to encourage a handful of elite research scientists, fresh from their World War II successes, to revitalize the nations' science curricula. In Scientists in the Classroom , John L. Rudolph argues that the Cold War environment, long neglected in the history of education literature, is crucial to understanding both the reasons for the public acceptance of scientific authority in the field of education and the nature of the curriculum materials that were eventually produced. Drawing on a wealth of previously untapped resources from government and university archives, Rudolph focuses on the National Science Foundation-supported curriculum projects initiated in 1956. What the historical record reveals, according to Rudolph, is that these materials were designed not just to improve American science education, but to advance the professional interest of the American scientific community in the postwar period as well.

Improving How Universities Teach Science

Improving How Universities Teach Science
Author: Carl Wieman
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 179
Release: 2017-05-22
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0674978927

Too many universities remain wedded to outmoded ways of teaching science in spite of extensive research showing that there are much more effective methods. Too few departments ask whether what happens in their lecture halls is effective at helping students to learn and how they can encourage their faculty to teach better. But real change is possible, and Carl Wieman shows us how it can be brought about. Improving How Universities Teach Science draws on Wieman’s unparalleled experience to provide a blueprint for educators seeking sustainable improvements in science teaching. Wieman created the Science Education Initiative (SEI), a program implemented across thirteen science departments at the universities of Colorado and British Columbia, to support the widespread adoption of the best research-based approaches to science teaching. The program’s data show that in the most successful departments 90 percent of faculty adopted better methods. Wieman identifies what factors helped and hindered the adoption of good teaching methods. He also gives detailed, effective, and tested strategies for departments and institutions to measure and improve the quality of their teaching while limiting the demands on faculty time. Among all of the commentary addressing shortcomings in higher education, Wieman’s lessons on improving teaching and learning stand out. His analysis and solutions are not limited to just one lecture hall or course but deal with changing entire departments and universities. For those who want to improve how universities teach science to the next generation, Wieman’s work is a critical first step.

A History of Ideas in Science Education

A History of Ideas in Science Education
Author: George DeBoer
Publisher: Teachers College Press
Total Pages: 424
Release: 2019-07-05
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0807778095

By allowing key scientists, researchers, professors, and classroom teachers of science to speak for themselves through their published writings about what is best and needed for the field, Dr. DeBoer presents a fascinating account of the history of science education in the United States from the middle of the 19th century to the present. The book relates how science first struggled to find a place in the school curriculum and recounts the many debates over the years about what that curriculum should be. In fact, many of what we consider modern ideas in science education are not new at all but can be traced to writings on education of one hundred years ago. The book is aimed at all those interested in science education: classroom teachers and science education leaders concerned about the historical justification of the goals and strategies proposed for the field. The book should be enjoyed not only by the researcher but also by anyone curious about just how curriculum is decided upon and implemented on a national scale. “This is without question the finest book of its kind on the market. It deserves to be widely read by current and future science teachers, supervisors, science education faculty in colleges and universities, curriculum developers, and program officers in funding agencies.” —The Science Teacher “Adds a significant dimension to the history of American schooling and curriculum.” —History of Education Quarterly

Handbook of Research on Science Education

Handbook of Research on Science Education
Author: Sandra K. Abell
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 1345
Release: 2013-03-07
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1136781218

This state-of-the art research Handbook provides a comprehensive, coherent, current synthesis of the empirical and theoretical research concerning teaching and learning in science and lays down a foundation upon which future research can be built. The contributors, all leading experts in their research areas, represent the international and gender diversity that exists in the science education research community. As a whole, the Handbook of Research on Science Education demonstrates that science education is alive and well and illustrates its vitality. It is an essential resource for the entire science education community, including veteran and emerging researchers, university faculty, graduate students, practitioners in the schools, and science education professionals outside of universities. The National Association for Research in Science Teaching (NARST) endorses the Handbook of Research on Science Education as an important and valuable synthesis of the current knowledge in the field of science education by leading individuals in the field. For more information on NARST, please visit: http://www.narst.org/.

Science Education Through Multiple Literacies

Science Education Through Multiple Literacies
Author: Joseph Krajcik
Publisher: Harvard Education Press
Total Pages: 268
Release: 2022-10-18
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1682536645

Science Education Through Multiple Literacies explores how the use of project-based learning in elementary science education fosters a lifelong scientific mindset in students. The book provides educators with the teaching practices to help students develop an overall science literacy that aligns with Next Generation Science Standards. Editors Joseph Krajcik and Barbara Schneider and the book’s contributors offer a comprehensive overview of the multifaceted approach to science learning. Multiple Literacies in Project-Based Learning (ML-PBL) interweaves scientific ideas and practices, language literacy, and mathematical thinking. ML-PBL supports the teaching of science by paralleling what scientists do: it engages students and their teachers in investigating real-world questions, constructing models, and using evidence to evaluate claims. The book presents compelling case studies of ML-PBL, how teachers use this approach, and how the ML-PBL transforms the classroom into an environment that builds and supports academic and student social-emotional learning. Representing both urban and suburban schools, the case studies include classroom observations, student and teacher interviews, and student artifacts to illustrate how to make science relevant in students’ lives. Krajcik and Schneider note that application of ML-PBL requires intentional instructional practices and new ways of thinking about what it means to learn. Easing this challenge, the editors equip elementary science teachers with curricular resources including high-quality instructional materials, professional-learning exercises, and formative assessments. Science Education Through Multiple Literacies provides the necessary elements to transform science teaching and learning so that students learn the skills to navigate with confidence through our complex world.

Unsettling Responsibility in Science Education

Unsettling Responsibility in Science Education
Author: Marc Higgins
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Total Pages: 350
Release: 2020-11-20
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9783030612986

This open access book engages with the response-ability of science education to Indigenous ways-of-living-with-Nature. Higgins deconstructs the ways in which the structures of science education—its concepts, categories, policies, and practices—contribute to the exclusion (or problematic inclusion) of Indigenous science while also shaping its ability respond. Herein, he undertakes an unsettling homework to address the ways in which settler colonial logics linger and lurk within sedimented and stratified knowledge-practices, turning the gaze back onto science education. This homework critically inhabits culture, theory, ontology, and history as they relate to the multicultural science education debate, a central curricular location that acts as both a potential entry point and problematic gatekeeping device, in order to (re)open the space of responsiveness towards Indigenous ways-of-knowing-in-being.