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A Theoretical Framework for Contextual Science Teaching

April 2006
Interchange 37(1):31-62

Authors:

University of Winnipeg

The contextual approach to teaching is generally recognized as a reasonable and desirable strategy to enhance student learning in science. Using several cognitive and learning theories together with various philosophical considerations, I identify five distinct contexts that are important in engaging learners: the theoretical, practical, social, historical, and affective. Based on these five contexts, I construct a model for teaching and learning, named the Story-Driven Contextual Approach (SDCA), in which the story assumes a major role in engaging the learner affectively. The teacher introduces the SDCA to students by means of a story, encouraging students to engage actively with the five contexts. In the SDCA, students function as novice researchers and the teacher as a research director.

A Schema for the Story-Driven Contextual Approach

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PAPERS

sci-ed.org

A Theoretical Framework for

Contextual Science Teaching 1

Stephen Klassen2

Abstract

The contextual approach to teaching is generally recognized as a reasonable and desirable strategy

to enhance student learning in science. Using several cognitive and learning theories together with

various philosophical considerations, I identify five distinct contexts that are important in engag-

ing learners: the theoretical, practical, social, historical, and affective. Based on these five contexts,

I construct a model for teaching and learning, named the Story-Driven Contextual Approach

(SDCA), in which the story assumes a major role in engaging the learner affectively. The teacher

introduces the SDCA to students by means of a story, encouraging students to engage actively with

the five contexts. In the SDCA, students function as novice researchers and the teacher as a re-

search director.

Keywords

Contextual teaching, contextual, context, story-driven contextual approach, narrative, story, theo-

retical, practical, social, historical, affective.

Contents

1. Introduction ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 2

1.1 The Nature of School Science ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2

2. The Contextual Approach --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3

3. Contexts that are Important to Science Learning -------------------------------------------------------------- 4

3.1 The Practical Context ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5

3.1.1 Task Isolation versus Contextualization -------------------------------------------------------------- 6

3.1.2 The Demise of Behaviorism --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 7

3.1.3 A New Approach to Student Practical Work --------------------------------------------------------- 8

3.2 The Theoretical Context ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 9

3.3 The Social Context ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 11

3.3.1 A Theoretical Basis for Cooperative Learning ------------------------------------------------------ 12

3.4 The Historical Context ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 13

3.4.1 Content Analysis of Original Sources --------------------------------------------------------------- 15

3.5 The Affective Context and Narrative --------------------------------------------------------------------- 16

4. A Schema for the Contextual Approach ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 17

5. Conclusion ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 18

6. References ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 19

About the Author -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 22

1 Author preprint DOI: 10.1007/s10780-006-8399-8. The original publication is available at www.springerlink.com

Klassen, S. (2006). A Theoretical Framework for Contextual Science Teaching. Interchange, 37(1), 31–62.

2 e-mail: dr.s.klassengmail.com

2 S. Klassen

1 Introduction

There is no denying the dry and decontextual-

ized manner in which much of science is taught

nowadays. The various reform movements in

science education, for example, scientific liter-

acy, science for everyone, critical thinking, con-

structivism, and contextual teaching can be

viewed as reactions against the present way of

delivering and organizing science education.

These movements generally seek to teach about

science as well as science content. Teaching

about science means to teach about how science

was developed and how one concept relates to

another, not the factual content of science alone.

The idea of contextualizing the material taught

has become a kind of mantra for the various re-

form movements. However, the recommenda-

tions in science education need to include more

practical strategies for improvement that are

also grounded in sound theoretical considera-

tions (Monk & Osborne, 1997, Nersessian, 1989,

Stinner, 1995). One such strategy that has

demonstrated anecdotal success is the large con-

text problem approach. In this paper, I propose

a theoretical framework to use in designing such

large contexts which I call the Story-Driven

Contextual Approach.

1.1 The Nature of School Science

The common observation of science educators

that the textbook is the dominant influence in

most of classroom teaching is borne out by the

TIMSS survey (Schmidt, et al., 1998). The seri-

ous shortcoming of the textbook-centered na-

ture of most of science education served as the

primary motivation for Stinner’s original incep-

tion of the LCPA. In his conclusion about the

overuse of textbooks, Stinner is in agreement

with many others, including, Whitehead (1929),

Siegel (1990), Monk and Osborne (1997), and

Van Berkel, DeVos, Verdonk, and Pilot (2000).

Van Berkel, et al., (2000) call Kuhn’s description

of the dominant methodology in science educa-

tion normal science education. Interestingly,

most of the above listed scholars would essen-

tially agree with Thomas Kuhn’s (1963) charac-

terization of science education but not with his

conclusions that “normal science” education is

a necessary requirement for the successful pro-

duction of scientists. Most of Kuhn’s critics, in

this regard, would agree with the earlier assess-

ment of Whitehead (1929) characterizing the

textbook as “an educational failure”.

One of the currently-dominant areas of re-

search in science education is the nature of sci-

ence. The emphasis on the nature of science

seeks to impart a more accurate picture of sci-

ence as characterized by philosophers of sci-

ence. Universally, research has shown that sci-

ence education does a very poor job at convey-

ing an accurate picture of the nature of science.

What exists, in effect, is a major incompatibility

between the nature of science and the nature of

school science. And, the nature of school sci-

ence can be identified with normal science edu-

cation as defined above.

In Kuhn’s 1963 characterization of normal

science he observes that

The single most striking feature of scientific edu-

cation is that, to an extent quite unknown in

other creative fields, it is conducted through text-

books, works written especially for students.

Even books that compete for adoption in a single

course differ mainly in level and pedagogic detail,

not in substance or conceptual structure. (1963,

pp. 350-351, italics in original)

Furthermore, Kuhn attributes this fact to an

apparent tacit agreement among scientists as to

what should be the elements of a pre-profes-

sional curriculum. Of course, this has led to the

overcrowded curriculum syndrome in which

the favorite topic of nearly everyone “has to be”

included in the curriculum. However, the most

important feature of textbooks, and the only

part that many students pay attention to is the

end of chapter problems. Kuhn claims that

Contextual Science Teaching 3

These books exhibit, from the very start, concrete

problem-solutions that the profession has come

to accept as paradigms, and they then ask the stu-

dent either with a pencil and paper or in the la-

boratory, to solve for himself problems very

closely modelled in method and substance upon

those through which the text has led him. (1963,

p. 351)

The whole point of this method is to strip all

“unnecessary” material and leave only the bare

decontextualized scientific facts, theories, and

laws along with the exemplar problems that

demonstrate them.

The claim implicit in textbook-centered

teaching that the “bare facts” and exemplars are

adequate for obtaining an understanding of sci-

ence seems to be based on a transmission model

of teaching and learning. The transmission

model treats information as a commodity that

can be transmitted unchanged from the teacher

to the mind of the student through the process

of “telling”. This view goes back at least to John

Locke in the seventeenth century. Locke, in his

Essay Concerning Human Understanding

(1690/1959), metaphorically speaks of the mind

as a tabula rasa, a clean slate, which is “written”

on by the sensory experience of listening to the

teacher speak. Learning theory has departed

radically from this traditional form during the

last quarter of the twentieth century. In the vein

of Locke's metaphor, today the mind of the

learner is seen not as a clean slate, but rather a

slate on which much is already “written”, where

the learner himself or herself “writes” new

words and phrases in appropriate spots and re-

arranges phrases to make room for new ones.

Current educational literature tends to utilize

the term “traditional” to embody all those ele-

ments of practice and theory that warrant criti-

cism. I will also use the term with that connota-

tion, however, I do not mean to imply that there

is nothing about past practice that warrants con-

tinuation or emulation.

The constructivist movement has produced

the main opposition to this “traditional” view of

learning. Von Glasersfeld, a major proponent

of constructivism, states the essence of the con-

structivist philosophy when he writes:

“Knowledge is the result of an individual sub-

ject’s constructive activity, not a commodity

that somehow resides outside the knower and

can be conveyed or instilled by diligent percep-

tion or linguistic communication” (1990, p. 37).

Learning is, in this view, a sense-making activity

by the learner whereby she or he tries to accom-

modate new information to existing mental

structures. New information is always con-

nected to similar information where conceptual

overlap or context is the dominant factor. By

this path of reasoning one arrives at the im-

portance of context to the learning process,

since information cannot exist in isolation in

long-term memory and, even in the reasoning

process, there are constant attempts to make

connections among concepts.

2 The Contextual Approach

In view of the preceding discussion, it is reason-

able to view the process of endeavoring to learn

as an attempt to find appropriate and desirable

contexts into which to fit new knowledge. Psy-

chologist Barbara Rogoff describes context as

“the integral aspect of cognitive events” (1984),

so that cognition and context are inseparable.

The current view of cognitive psychology about

the importance of context is strongly expressed

by Ryan Tweney when he writes that, “cognition

is contextually dependent and must be de-

scribed in that context before it is understood at

all” (1992). But what does the word “context”

convey in the science-educational setting?

Baker, O’Neil, and Linn explain two different

usages of the word “context”:

… the term context has different and somewhat

conflicting meanings. Some proponents use

context to denote domain specificity. Perfor-

mance in this context would presumably show

deep expertise. On the other hand, context has

4 S. Klassen

been used to signal tasks with authenticity for the

learner. The adjective authentic is used to denote

… tasks that contain true-to-life problems or that

embed … skills in applied contexts. (1994, p. 335)

Baker, O'Neil, and Linn see the knowledge-cen-

tered and the activity-centered contexts as

somehow incompatible. But in the constructiv-

ist view, knowledge development proceeds as an

activity of the learner. Hence, the argument can

be made that the two meanings of context are

not contradictory, but rather complementary

(Koul & Dana, 1997; Rogoff, 1984). This is also

born out in research reported by Ebenezer and

Gaskell (1995) who draw on the insight of Mar-

ton (1981) when they write that

… we often find variation in conceptions not

only between children but also within the same

individual. Depending on the context, children

may exhibit qualitatively different conceptions of

the very same phenomenon. Thus meanings are

context dependent. Conceptions are, therefore,

not characteristics of an individual; rather they

are characteristics of the relations between an in-

dividual, content, and context. Learning is both

context and content dependent. (Ebenezer &

Gaskell, 1995, p. 2)

Baker, O’Neil, and Linn’s dual meaning of con-

text—domain-specific and authentic—correlate

with Ebenezer and Gaskell’s “content” and

“context”. The domain-specific context relates

to disciplinary knowledge that the learner

wishes to acquire, and the true-to-life context

relates to the learner’s use of practical abilities in

the process of acquiring knowledge or in apply-

ing that knowledge.

In considering context, it would be useful to

construct a working definition to guide further

considerations. The word context originates

from the Latin contextus, denoting the connec-

tion of words or coherence (Merriam-Webster,

2003). Originally, “context” was used, in the

linguistic sense, to mean “the parts of a dis-

course that surround a word or passage and can

throw light on its meaning” (Merriam-Webster,

2003). Often the words “environment” and

“setting” are used as synonyms for context. Us-

ing the meaning and connotations of “context”,

“environment”, and “setting”, I propose a defi-

nition of “context” as the entities that connect to

or surround a focal entity and contribute to the

meaningfulness of the whole. The “focal entity”

in the formal definition would be either a scien-

tific understanding or ability, either a concept or

a skill. Meaningfulness then arises out of fac-

tors like familiarity, social interaction, activity,

reflection, logical relation, emotional response,

and so on, and, in the sense of the definition,

these constitute a context for a concept or skill.

3 Contexts that are Important to Science Learning

The contexts relevant to learning could be

viewed either from the perspective of the curric-

ulum and the teacher or from the perspective of

the student—originating either with the

knowledge being taught or with the way stu-

dents learn that knowledge. The scientific

knowledge being taught may be broken into

theoretical and experimental components, or, at

a simpler level, into logical and practical com-

ponents, in the same way that scientific research

breaks into two separate, but complementary,

streams. From the point of view of the student,

“science in context illuminates the theoretical

practices of science” (Koul & Dana, 1997, p.

132) and furthermore, having the opportunity

for hands-on science investigation will help

guard against “giv[ing] up science before it

starts getting interesting” (Koul & Dana, 1997,

p. 132). Arthur Stinner has characterized the

theoretical and experimental as the logical and

evidential aspects of teaching, two components

of his LEP or “Logical-Evidential-Psychologi-

cal” model of teaching and learning (Stinner,

1992, 1995). The LEP model was developed pri-

marily to address the problem of textbook-cen-

tered science education.

Contextual Science Teaching 5

3.1 The Practical Context

The first context important for teaching and

learning that will be considered, in detail, is the

practical context. The term “practical” is used

here in the sense expressed by Derek Hodson

(1993) who used it to refer to hands-on student

laboratory work. Often, laboratory work is de-

fined, after Hegerty-Hazel (1990), as “a form of

practical work taking place in a purposely as-

signed environment where students engage in

planned learning experiences … [and] interact

with materials to observe and understand phe-

nomena” (p. 4). What counts as practical work

is relatively uncontroversial, but what the pur-

poses of practical work should be is open to a

number of differing opinions (Hodson, 1993;

Lazarowitz & Tamir, 1994). Hodson (1993) cat-

egorizes the various objectives into five broad

areas: to teach 1) laboratory skills and 2) scien-

tific attitudes, 3) stimulate interest, and enhance

learning of 4) the scientific content and 5) the

nature of scientific methodology. Categorizing

objectives in a general sense such as done by

Hodson is one approach to understanding the

purposes.

The traditional laboratory concentrates pri-

marily on what Hodson (1993) categorizes as la-

boratory skills and secondarily on improved

content knowledge. The objective of providing

improved understanding of the nature of sci-

ence methodology, in Hodson’s terms, is a re-

cent addition to objectives in the university la-

boratory. Moreover, the more traditional stu-

dent laboratory approaches have tended not to

emphasize the psychological aspects of practical

work, like motivation and interest. Contempo-

rary developments in pedagogy have confirmed

that the psychological or affective domain has a

profound effect on learning. As an aspect of

practical work, the infusion of motivational ele-

ments seems to flow naturally from sound ped-

agogical and philosophical principles. A de-

tailed discussion of the affective context is re-

served for a later section.

An alternative way to categorize practical

work is by means of a methodological spectrum.

For example, Stinner (1995) divides laboratory

activities into three types: type I—instantiation

types of experiments that operate in “cook-

book” style; type II—research style experiments

that attempt to answer questions not familiar to

students in an open-ended approach; and type

III—thought experiments that attempt to illu-

minate questions about theory by constructing

hypothetical experiments or arguments that

support or disprove various fundamental hy-

potheses about nature. In a somewhat similar

fashion, Roth and Roychoudhury list four cate-

gories of laboratory activities on a scale of in-

creasing “openness”:

0 Problem area, methods of solution, and cor-

rect interpretation given or obvious. Includes

observation and experience labs, or labs designed

to teach new techniques.

1 Lab manual poses the problems; describes

ways and means by which the student can dis-

cover relations he doesn’t already know.

2 Problems are posed by the lab manual, but

methods and answers are left open.

3 Problems, answers, and method are left open.

The student is confronted with raw phenom-

ena. (Roth & Roychoudhury, 1993, p. 129)

Approaches such as those by Roth and Roy-

choudhury or Stinner tend to be practical inso-

far that they concentrate on the degree of en-

gagement of students in practical work. In their

view, all student practical work lies on a spec-

trum whose one extreme is represented by in-

stantiation or cookbook type experiments and

the other extreme by student research work.

Another way to characterize this spectrum is by

the degree to which student practical work is

like “real” science. Cookbook labs are not at all

like scientists’ science, whereas student re-

search, if teacher-directed, can be very much

like “real” science. This type of categorization

scheme lends itself to the development of the

large context, which, itself, is an open-ended or

research-like approach.

The student, however, sees practical work

from a completely different perspective than the

6 S. Klassen

teacher or researcher, in which the goals are pri-

marily to follow sometimes meaningless in-

structions and to get the “right” answers (Hod-

son, 1993; Lunetta, 1998; Petrosino, 1998). The

laboratory presents a daunting set of tasks for

the student, the purposes for which are not at all

clear in her or his mind. In the typical labora-

tory the student must a) understand the nature

of the problem, b) understand the procedure,

c) develop a theoretical perspective, d) read,

comprehend, and follow directions, e) insure

that they are getting along with their partner,

f) operate the apparatus and collect data, and g)

interpret results and write a report (Hodson,

1993). Hodson points out that the complexity

of the task is frequently beyond the capabilities

of the student, whereupon the student may re-

sort to various coping mechanisms. According

to Hodson, one way to deal with the complexity

is for the teacher to simplify and isolate the tasks

further (1993). Other researchers would disa-

gree with Hodson’s (1993) solution (Blumen-

feld, et al., 1991; Lunetta, 1998; Petrosino, 1998;

Roth & Roychoudhury, 1993; Stinner, 1995)

choosing instead to focus on producing a

greater degree of contextualization of the lab

work and on producing student motivation for

and engagement with the task. Basing the de-

sign of practical work on lists of objectives tends

to encourage breaking down the tasks into con-

stituent components, thereby compounding the

degree of isolation and decontextualization al-

ready present in much of science education.

3.1.1 Task Isolation versus Contextualization

In the face of the challenge that reforming stu-

dent practical work represents, it is a temptation

to simplify the work and break it into compo-

nents that represent the constituent objectives.

The tendency towards task isolation can be seen

as a holdover from behavioral psychology.

However, developments in psychology and phi-

losophy in the latter half of the twentieth cen-

tury show task isolation to be an unjustified tac-

tic, rooted in behaviorism.

Behaviorism, at least partly, grew out of an

empiricist philosophy of science, which held

that all knowledge originates in experience.

The empiricist view has its origins in Aristotle’s

notion, as stated by medieval scholars, nihil in

intellectu quod non prius in sensu-“There is

nothing in the mind except what has passed

through the senses.” If one accepts Aristotle’s

dictum, then it follows that the mind merely

consists of representations of sensory stimuli,

which are the result of verbal teaching and read-

ing. The implication of this early empiricist

view is that knowledge can be transferred intact

from teacher to student through the senses.

John Locke was a major proponent of early em-

piricism. What the student learns, in the empir-

icist view, is an exact representation, or at least

a subset, of what the teacher conveys, since no

further processing is involved beyond the sen-

sory transduction of information.

An implication of the empiricist-behaviorist

view is that knowledge can be “atomized” or

broken up into small, simple steps that are easy

to teach and learn. The atomistic view of

knowledge follows from the assumption that

knowledge-based sensory stimuli are associated

on a one-to-one basis with the cognitive repre-

sentations of these knowledge items. The rela-

tionship of one mental knowledge-representa-

tion to another cannot be changed at the cogni-

tive level in the behavioristic view. The influen-

tial Harvard psychologist, B. F. Skinner, devel-

oped and popularized the atomistic view of

knowledge and wrote: “The whole process of be-

coming competent in any field must be divided

into a very large number of very small steps, and

reinforcement must be contingent upon the ac-

complishment of each step” (Skinner, 1954,

p. 94). The sequence of knowledge presenta-

tion becomes very important under the assump-

tion that knowledge can be atomized and assim-

ilated piecemeal. If knowledge is structured by

the brain in the order that it is received (with no

Contextual Science Teaching 7

further internal re-processing), then relation-

ships must be pre-formed in order for that

knowledge to make sense. The sense-making,

sequential, logical structure of knowledge must

be pre-programmed into the process. Learning

is thus viewed as a linear sequential process.

Skinner details the formula for successful learn-

ing in the linear sequential view:

If a learner attains the objectives subordinate to a

higher objective, his probability of learning the

latter has been shown to be very high; if he misses

one or more of the subordinate objectives, his

probability of learning the higher one drops to

near zero. (1965, p. 30)

Finding out if the learner has missed learning

objectives is the short-range objective of tradi-

tional science instruction and has resulted in the

familiar teach-test-teach-test sequence.

As a result of the atomistic view of learning

the component skills or knowledge items may

be mastered independently and out of context as

long as they are in the correct logical sequence.

The contextualization of knowledge runs coun-

ter to the presuppositions of behaviorism since

any contextual factors are either irrelevant to the

items being taught or interfere with a narrow

and clear presentation of the knowledge item.

It should be no surprise, then, that the behavior-

istic view of learning has been characterized as

having two central assumptions—those of de-

composability and decontextualization (Res-

nick & Resnick, 1992).

Traditional instruction values simple factual

recall through rote memorization. Simple facts

that are memorized verbatim by the student

may be regurgitated on a test and come back to

the teacher unchanged. Strike and Posner reject

rote learning, stating that

the task of learning is primarily one of relating

what one has encountered … to one’s current

ideas… . To learn an idea any other way is to ac-

quire a piece of verbal behaviour which one emits

to a stimulus, rather than to understand an idea

which one can employ in an intellectually pro-

ductive way. (1985, p. 212)

Strike and Posner’s criticism of traditional

teaching and learning is typical of the view that

has brought about dissatisfaction with tradi-

tional instruction, which, to a large degree, relies

on simple factual recall. The factors that led to

these criticisms and to the abandonment of

some of the traditional presuppositions and

methods grew out of a psychological and philo-

sophical paradigm shift around the 1970’s. The

shift generally moved from the empiricist-be-

haviorist dominated paradigm to one based on

cognitive psychology, constructivism, and the

philosophical positions of philosophers of sci-

ence, such as Thomas Kuhn.

3.1.2 The Demise of Behaviorism

The course of the psychological and educational

paradigm was greatly affected in 1959 by the un-

likely field of linguistics and the involvement of

the influential linguist, philosopher, and activist

Noam Chomsky (Corsini, 1994; Houts & Had-

dock, 1992). Although linguistics is not directly

related to science education, Chomsky’s in-

volvement was a major initial factor in produc-

ing the paradigm shift that included science ed-

ucation. Chomsky published a review of

B. F. Skinner’s book Verbal Behaviour, in 1959.

In his book, Skinner had attempted to show that

behavioristic stimulus, response, and reinforce-

ment mechanisms govern language develop-

ment. Chomsky argued that Skinner’s model

was unable to account for the complexities of

language development. Moreover, Chomsky

maintained, to say that each language element is

a response to a stimulus is a scientifically mean-

ingless claim since a stimulus can always be pos-

ited to explain any response (Chomsky, 1959).

It was easy to see, in Chomsky’s account, that if

a process of hearing and repetition were to be

the exclusive mechanism in language learning,

it would take a person an incredibly long time to

hear and repeat enough variations of grammar

and syntax in order to learn a language—much

8 S. Klassen

longer than is the case. Chomsky’s paper

marked the beginning of the demise of behav-

iorism and the rise of cognitive psychology.

Much later, Chomsky’s critique was challenged

(Houts & Haddock, 1992), but by then it was too

late to change a historically established fact. It

was not long before the views of cognitive psy-

chologists, among them Piaget, and philoso-

phers of science, among them Thomas Kuhn,

began to gain prominence. Behaviorism gradu-

ally diminished as a viable theory. It is generally

accepted that behaviorism has been displaced as

a viable theory (Black, 1993; Shepard, 1991;

Willson, 1991), but some versions are still active

(Houts & Haddock, 1992).

3.1.3 A New Approach to Student Practical Work

Granted that the atomization of knowledge and

tasks is a discredited approach to teaching, the

goal of achieving a higher degree of contextual-

ization is an important aspect of reform in stu-

dent practical work (Gil-Pérez, 1996; Petrosino,

1998; Roth & Roychoudhury, 1993; Stinner,

1995). Similarly, the consideration of student

motivation should also play a much greater role

in the design of practical work (Blumenfeld, et

al., 1991; Gil-Pérez, 1996; Lunetta, 1998; Petro-

sino, 1998). Roth and Roychoudhury (1993)

identify a key reason that contextualization is

linked with motivation when they observe that

“the effects of motivation and context on stu-

dent learning … appear to interact with the au-

thenticity of situations and experience” (p. 147).

Student motivation is clearly enhanced by their

perception that practical work is authentic in

the sense of being like the work done by practic-

ing scientists. The authenticity of student work

is increased by its degree of open-endedness, as

was illustrated earlier in Roth and Roy-

choudhury’s classification scheme for practical

work. Blumenfeld, et al., (1991) shed further

light on authenticity by pointing out that prac-

tical work needs to be driven by motivating

questions, problems or issues. In this way, stu-

dents are aware, from the start, of the purpose of

the work and thereby are rescued from the di-

lemma of being confused about the purposes for

practical work in the first place (Hodson, 1993;

Lunetta, 1998; Petrosino, 1998). The driving

situation for practical work is not only the “mo-

tivation” for the student activities that follow, in

the sense of providing anticipation, but also

provides motivation, in a deeper affective sense,

for the students. For these reasons, motivating

questions or themes are central to the design of

practical tasks.

Another important aspect to developing an

overall philosophy, approach, or theoretical

structure behind practical work is the driving

metaphor for student learning in the laboratory

situation. A recurring metaphor in science ed-

ucation is that of student as early scientist.

Much has been written to support the conten-

tion that there are similarities (or differences) in

the thinking of students and early scientists.

Recently, the “theory theory” movement

(Brewer & Samarapungavan, 1991; Gopnik &

Meltzoff, 1997; Schwitzgebel, 1999) contends

that, essentially, the differences in theorizing be-

tween scientists and students are only differ-

ences of degree, not differences of kind. Gil-Pé-

rez and Carrascosa-Alis (1994) rescue the meta-

phor from serious challenges by proposing a

similarity between students engaged in authen-

tic practical work and novice researchers. In-

deed, if this metaphor is applied at the university

level it stops being a metaphor, becoming, in-

stead, a plausible model of the role of the stu-

dent. A plausible or realistic model in any the-

ory presents an interesting situation. Models in

theories have the role of representing problem-

atic phenomena in terms of better-understood

schemata. When the model becomes realistic it

assumes, or nearly assumes, identity with the

situation it is supposed to represent. According

to philosopher Rom Harré (1961), a model be-

comes realistic when its parent theory achieves

Contextual Science Teaching 9

a high degree of maturity, acceptance, and con-

firmation. In our case, since we are in the pro-

cess of constructing a theoretical framework,

Harré’s commentary can be noted as an encour-

aging perspective.

The model of student as novice researcher

helps to clarify the ambiguity in the purposes for

student practical work. In the large context, un-

der the guidance of the instructor, students gen-

erate their own questions and problems to in-

vestigate, and they design their own procedures.

In this respect, the process is more like that of

scientific research, where a research team func-

tions under the leadership of a research director

(the teacher). This type of classroom activity is

characterized by Ebenezer and Fraser (2001) as

“common knowledge construction” (p. 513)

and they maintain that

… to arrive at common knowledge, … we must

think of the science classroom as a forum for sci-

entific discourse. To characterize such a class-

room, the teacher should entertain qualitatively

different conceptions from students; assess stu-

dents’ conceptions; … help students collect evi-

dence to support knowledge claims; allow stu-

dents to generate, formulate, and evaluate their

arguments and other students’ arguments; and

help students make decisions among competing

knowledge claims so they may come to an agreed

upon “outcome space.” (p. 513)

The objective is to transform the classroom into

“a forum for scientific discourse” so that stu-

dents can function as novice researchers.

Ultimately, the practical context is meant to

replace traditional “labs” in the “normal sci-

ence” curriculum. Students who are potential

scientists benefit from practicing as novice sci-

entists, since they are only one step removed

from being apprentices. Even students who

have no intention of becoming scientists benefit

from participating in an authentic activity that

includes creativity and some intellectual chal-

lenge beyond guessing what the lab manual

wants.

3.2 The Theoretical Context

As in scientific research, in the large context

there is an opportunity for both the experi-

mental approach and theoretical model for a

problem to be worked out. There is good rea-

son for the practical and conceptual aspects of

science education to operate side by side. The

reasons go back to the insight that observations

in science tend to be theory-laden.

According to cognitive psychology, under-

standing is a mental process of perceiving and

knowing. Sensory stimuli, such as sight, as-

sume a secondary role. N. R. Hanson suc-

cinctly expressed the subordinate nature of sen-

sation to thought when he wrote,

People, not their eyes, see. Cameras and eye-

balls, are blind. Attempts to locate within the or-

gans of sight (or within the neurological reticu-

lum behind the eyes) some nameable called ‘see-

ing’ may be dismissed. That Kepler and Tycho

do, or do not, see the same thing cannot be sup-

ported by reference to the physical states of their

retinas, optical nerves or visual cortices: there is

more to seeing than meets the eyeball. (1958,

pp. 6-7)

What Kepler and Tycho Brahe understood

about the heavens was not dependent primarily

on the observations that they used in their work,

which were the same, but on their understand-

ings about those observations. That Kepler and

Brahe, using the same data, came to different

theories suggests that the process of under-

standing takes place beyond sensory perception.

Cognitive psychology turned the attention of

learning theory decisively to the active cognitive

processes of the individual, and early propo-

nents of this view, for example, Hanson, saw ev-

idence for active cognitive processes in the his-

tory of science.

Other early views of cognitive processes, like

that of Chomsky about inherent learning abili-

ties, implied that science understanding, like

language understanding, stemmed from a com-

plex cognitive structure. Piaget was sympa-

10 S. Klassen

thetic to Chomsky’s thesis about language learn-

ing and pointed out (1968) that his work, like

Chomsky’s, rejected the empiricist-behavioris-

tic view. Piaget reflected that “I find myself op-

posed to the view of knowledge as a copy, a pas-

sive copy, of reality” (1968, par. 24). The em-

piricists considered logic as a linguistic conven-

tion whereas Chomsky saw language as based

on innate reason (Piaget, 1968). Cognitive

structures, such as language learning ability,

were seen by Chomsky as innate to the learner.

This early static view of cognitive abilities may

be similar to the notion of innate abilities such

as “scientific ability”.

Piaget’s view of science learning, however,

emerged as a much more dynamic entity. The

alternative view of Piaget, which did much to

promote the cognitive-psychological and con-

structivist paradigms and the emerging philoso-

phy of science, is articulated by Piaget in the fol-

lowing excerpt:

The current state of knowledge is a moment in

history, changing just as rapidly as the state of

knowledge in the past has ever changed and, in

many instances, more rapidly. Scientific

thought, then, is not momentary, it is not a static

instance; it is a process. More specifically, it is a

process of continual construction and reorgani-

sation. This is true in almost every branch of sci-

entific investigation. (1968, par. 3)

Piaget and other members of the new cogni-

tive, constructivist, and philosophical para-

digms saw a similarity between historical

knowledge developments and knowledge struc-

tures of the mind as no accident (Duschl, Ham-

ilton, & Grandy, 1990; Piaget, 1968). The his-

torical development of scientific knowledge was

postulated to hold valuable information as to

how knowledge developed in the individual. In

this sense, the historical recapitulation thesis is

not unreasonable, seeing that both the science

student and the scientist use dynamic cognitive

processes to assimilate information about the

world. Although the scientist is a highly excep-

tional and gifted individual, she or he employs

cognitive processes similar to everyone else, ac-

cording to cognitive psychology.

The views of learning of Piaget had a pro-

found influence on Thomas Kuhn. Kuhn states:

“Part of what I know about how to ask questions

of dead scientists has been learned by examining

Piaget’s interrogations of living children”

(Kuhn, 1977, p. 21). One of Kuhn’s major con-

tributions was to challenge the separation of

philosophy and psychology (Giere, 1992). Two

notions on which philosophy of science and

cognitive psychology came to agree were in the

notions of theory-ladenness and the importance

of context. The philosophy of science, espe-

cially in Kuhn’s formulation, saw all experi-

mental observation as being theory-laden. Ac-

cording to Kuhn's thesis, the paradigm deter-

mines how a community of scientists will see the

world, what questions they will find interesting,

and what kinds of solutions to problems are

possible. The understandings of a paradigm

dictate the interpretation given to observations

and even what kinds of observations can be

made (Kuhn, 1962/1996). Hanson stated as

early as 1958 that “a theory is not pieced to-

gether from observed phenomena; it is rather

what makes it possible to observe phenomena as

being of a certain sort, and as related to other

phenomena” (p. 90). More recently, the philos-

opher of science Paul Churchland writes that

theory-ladenness is natural to all cognitive ac-

tivity (1992).

A moderate interpretation of theory-laden-

ness is that all observation must take place from

a particular conceptual perspective in order for

meaningful interpretation to take place. In this

form theory-ladenness is a fairly unproblematic

assumption and has important consequences

for student work. One would expect that in or-

der for students to develop an understanding of

science the theoretical aspects could not be di-

vorced from the practical aspects. In line with

this insight, Derek Hodson maintains that “stu-

dents can only develop their procedural

knowledge and process skills within particular

theoretical contexts” (1993, p. 111). Gil-Pérez

(1996) further proposes as a fundamental as-

sumption in science education that learning sci-

entific knowledge, learning about the nature of

Contextual Science Teaching 11

science, and doing science are inseparable. One

might say that in order for significant learning

to take place students must engage in practical

work together with the manipulation of ideas

(Lunetta, 1998).

The “manipulation of ideas” of the theoreti-

cal context is meant to replace paradigm exem-

plars of the type that students learn in normal

science education. As was discussed earlier,

normal science education relies heavily on end

of chapter questions to provide student learning

experiences. These problems are usually con-

trived and remote from students’ life experi-

ences. In contrast, problems in the theoretical

context emerge as a natural necessity in the

course of investigations. Ideas or concepts take

on meaning as they are naturally generated by

the context. The theoretical context, however,

is dependent on the practical context to provide

a well-rounded learning opportunity. As in the

practical context, students are cast into the role

of being novice researchers.

3.3 The Social Context

The process of learning also contains a number

of important contextual factors or influences.

Many psychologists and educators have pointed

out the importance of the social element in pro-

moting learning. Especially influential in advo-

cating the positive social influence on learning

is the Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky (1978)

who developed a cognitive theory of learning,

before his premature death in 1934, which pos-

tulates a social context of varying strength that

facilitates learning, which he called the zone of

proximal development. According to Vygot-

sky, students, when they operate within their

“zone of proximal development”, facilitate the

learning of concepts and the solving of problems

in a particularly efficient manner. Canadian

science educator Jeffrey Bloom (1992) compares

the manner in which students learn science in

groups to the manner in which scientists “do

science”. In both situations, common beliefs of

the social group contribute to its cohesiveness.

The resulting social structure reinforces the de-

velopment of a “school science” or Kuhn’s “nor-

mal science”, as the case may be, where anoma-

lies or contradictions can place stresses on either

the school or professional scientific social struc-

ture by introducing divergent views.

Again, the analogy of student as novice re-

searcher requires that the school experience

should contain real-life elements implying that

learning together with others should be a major

element in classroom activity. The term “coop-

erative learning” is generally applied to groups

of students from the same class working to-

gether (Herreid, 1998; Johnson & Johnson,

1989). Cooperative learning, as a movement,

began with the American desegregation process

in junior high schools (Slavin, 1980). One of the

major goals then was the facilitation of positive

ethnic relations. Since then, other potential

benefits of cooperative learning have come to

light and dominate the reasons for employing

the technique. Cooperative learning has grown

to be a major educational movement in its own

right and may be one of the most investigated

classroom methods in educational research

(Herreid, 1998). David and Roger Johnson of

the University of Minnesota are probably the

most cited in the field of cooperative learning

and their five elements of cooperative learning

are universally quoted when introducing the

topic. The five essential elements of successful

cooperative learning as formulated by Johnson

and Johnson (1989) are 1) positive interdepend-

ence 2) individual accountability 3) face-to-face

promotive interaction, 4) use of teamwork

skills, and 5) group processing.

In a cooperative learning group, each mem-

ber must believe that she or he cannot succeed

without the other members and that others can-

not succeed without her or him, yet any group

member cannot ride on the coattails of another,

and each one must make a genuine contribu-

tion. Face-to-face interaction makes possible

oral explanations of how to solve problems and

generally fosters a supportive atmosphere. As

12 S. Klassen

the group members learn to work together, they

will develop skills in leadership, organization,

communication, and conflict management. As

the work progresses, it is essential that the group

assesses how well they are doing and whether

they are likely to meet their goals.

Although cooperative learning is a very ac-

tive field with numerous published strategies on

its implementation, incorporating it would ben-

efit from knowledge about its theoretical foun-

dations. A theoretical basis for cooperative

learning is found in the work of the Russian psy-

chologist Lev Vygotksy (Doolittle, 1997), whose

major works were not published until after his

death in 1934. Vygotsky was the primary origi-

nator of social constructivism, a theory of learn-

ing that assumes the importance of social factors

in knowledge acquisition (Matthews, 1994).

3.3.1 A Theoretical Basis for Cooperative Learning

The most well-known component of Vygot-

sky’s theory of learning is his zone of proximal

development. Vygotsky, like other cognitive

psychologists and constructivists, believed that

“concepts are not ready made” (Vygotsky,

1934/1986, p. 161). In their view, the learner

actively constructs concepts as the result of so-

cial interaction. The student’s potential for

cognitive growth is limited, on the one hand,

by what the student is able to accomplish on

her or his own and, on the other hand, by what

the student is able to accomplish with the help

of a more knowledgeable individual. This

range of learning ability is known as the zone

of proximal development. Vygotsky illustrated

his zone of proximal development by adminis-

tering tests to children either without any in-

tervention or with some hints or clues. He de-

scribes what happened:

Having found that the mental age of two children

was, let us say, eight, we gave each of them harder

problems than he could manage on his own and

provided some slight assistance; the first step in a

solution, a leading question, or some other form

of help. We discovered that one child could, in

cooperation, solve problems designed for twelve-

year-olds, while the other could not go beyond

problems intended for nine-year-olds. The dis-

crepancy between a child's actual mental age and

the level he reaches in solving problems with as-

sistance indicates the zone of his proximal devel-

opment. … Can we really say that their mental

development is the same? Experience has shown

that the child with the larger zone of proximal de-

velopment will do much better in school. This

measure gives a more helpful clue than mental

age does to the dynamics of intellectual progress.

(1934/1986, p. 187)

The gap in difficulty between what the student

could do on his own to what “he” could do with

assistance corresponds to the zone of proximal

development. The normal process of learning

in Vygotsky’s view is a development from per-

forming difficult tasks with assistance to per-

forming the same level of task independently.

When the student moves from the assisted end

of the zone of proximal development to the in-

dependent end, development is greater than if

the student were to attempt learning activities

entirely on his or her own. Vygotsky’s theory

tells us that the primary benefit of cooperative

learning will be to enable students to master per-

forming difficult tasks or understanding con-

cepts. Any implementation strategy must

therefore seek to structure tasks so that there is

adequate opportunity for students to work with

others during the learning process.

The benefit of cooperation in assisting learn-

ing is a relatively uncontroversial fact. The ben-

efits are likely to accrue not only in the form of

improved learning of academic content, but in

the learning of scientific and life skills related to

social organization and leadership. In our con-

text, making use of the assistance to the learning

process naturally provided by cooperative learn-

ing requires careful attention to the structuring,

organizing, and evaluating of group activities

that are a part of the large context.

Contextual Science Teaching 13

3.4 The Historical Context

When concepts being considered are not at the

forefront of research, but rather, a part of

“school science”, then the historical background

becomes an important factor, as has been

pointed out by numerous educators (Matthews,

1994; Monk & Osborne, 1997; Stinner, 1995;

Stinner & Williams, 1998, Winchester, 1989).

School science, unlike professional science,

tends to be curriculum-dominated and text-

book-centered. This is one of the main reasons

that students tend to see science as “boring” or

irrelevant. School science lacks the vitality of

investigation, discovery, and creative invention

that often accompanies science-in-the-making.

For these motivational reasons and for various

scientific, pedagogical, cultural, and philosoph-

ical reasons, it is desirable to integrate the his-

torical element into science teaching. Indeed, I

would argue that the desirability of the appro-

priate use of the historical approach should be

taken for granted. The humanizing and clarify-

ing influence of history of science brings the sci-

ence to life and enables the student to construct

relationships that would have been impossible

in the traditional decontextualized manner in

which science has been taught (Cohen,

1950/1993; Jung, 1994; Kipnis, 1996; Koul &

Dana, 1997).

Pedagogical considerations necessitate

adopting the contextual view of knowledge ac-

quisition and provide not only a firmer basis for

justifying the inclusion of history of science, but

also a basis for developing an approach for using

that history in teaching. However, the develop-

ment of any pedagogical approach that is meant

to utilize history of science cannot proceed

without considering what interpretation of his-

tory is to guide the selection and adaptation of

historical materials.

History of science is subject to a broad spec-

trum of possible interpretations. On the one

end of the spectrum is what Herbert Butterfield

(1931/1959) called the whig approach to history

in which history of science is viewed in light of

current knowledge. Implicit in this approach is

the assumption that current knowledge is supe-

rior to the knowledge of past scientists. Various

terms have been applied to the “whig” approach,

including vertical history (Mayr, 1990), and an-

achronical history (Kragh, 1987). The whig ap-

proach to interpreting history has been much

criticized as an illegitimate view of the history of

science (Butterfield, 1931/1959; Mayr, 1990).

Critics of the whig approach object to applying

current days’ standards to history because his-

torical figures operated in a different environ-

ment with different assumptions and standards

than they do today. On the other end of the

spectrum of approaches is the localized view in

which history is interpreted only in light of the

knowledge and context of the time and place in

question. This approach, referred to as hori-

zontal history by Mayr and diachronical history

by Kragh, has been criticized on the grounds

that history cannot be interpreted when com-

parisons to the larger context cannot be made

(Mayr, 1990; Kragh, 1987). Furthermore, it has

been claimed that purely diachronical history is

uninteresting to the non-specialist in that it is a

chronology of events restricted to the local con-

text (Mayr, 1990; Kragh, 1987).

Beyond the spectrum of historiography for

historians of science, which runs from the whig

to the localized extremes, there are also internal

histories of science written primarily by scien-

tists, some of who participated in the events

about which they wrote many years later. Such

histories of science—written by scientists for

scientists and science students—serve a differ-

ent purpose from specialist histories written by

historians for historians or students of history.

Since the development of internal history is not

subject to the same criticism as it would be

within the disciplinary environment of history

and since it serves different purposes, it quickly

takes on a static nature. The purposes of such

histories are to provide legitimization for the

science, to aid in the socialization of novices,

and to pass on exemplars that will be used as

models for problem-solving (Kragh, 1987). In-

ternal history provides an official version of the

14 S. Klassen

roots of the discipline that tends to romanticize

the events and portray science as an inevitable

consequence of the force of progress. Each

event is portrayed as if it were a certain outcome

of the carefully-chosen preceding events. What

the reader of such history likely does not know

is that many historical details, some of them ar-

guably relevant, have been omitted. Internal

history of science has been called ideological, of-

ficial, or mythical history (Kragh, 1987). Ex-

posing students only to this version of history

encourages a distorted view of the nature of sci-

ence and may have unintended consequences.

Recently, Pedro Goldman, chair of the Division

of Physics Education of the Canadian Associa-

tion of Physicists, shared with me his observa-

tion that many younger students will not con-

sider pursuing studies in physics because they

believe that all the discoveries in physics have al-

ready been made and that physics is boring be-

cause there is nothing new. Such a view is likely

the outcome of the portrayal of physics, through

its mythical history, as the inevitable outcome of

the force of progress. Ideological histories often

will not include alternative explanations of phe-

nomena, alternative theories, failed experi-

ments, the inevitable sense of uncertainty, and

episodes of debate and controversy. Internal

histories, because they tend to be, in a way, per-

sonal, do not portray history of science in the

manner advocated by Ian Winchester—“warts

and all” (1989).

As an example of the pervasiveness of

pseudo or mythical histories of science, I refer to

the popular and widely-used video series, The

Mechanical Universe and Beyond. In episode

24, the topic “Particles and Waves” is intro-

duced. In interpreting Robert Millikan’s exper-

iments performed up to 1916 to measure the

photoelectric effect the narrator of the video

states:

When he measured the energies of electrons

ejected from various metals by different frequen-

cies of light, Millikan verified that while each

metal has a different work function, Planck’s con-

stant has the same universal value for all of them.

But this explanation of the photoelectric effect

not only confirmed Planck’s theory, it showed di-

rectly that bundles of energy already exist in the

electromagnetic field. (California Institute of

Technology, 1987)

However, this popular presentation of his-

torical events misrepresents Millikan’s motiva-

tion. Millikan did not set out to verify, even in-

directly, Planck’s radiation formula or Ein-

stein’s photon concept, which he did not accept.

He simply sought to establish the mathematical

form of the relationship between ejected elec-

tron maximum energy and incident light fre-

quency, not any particular theory behind the re-

lationship (Kragh, 1992). Helge Kragh agrees

with Thomas Kuhn that such quasi-histories of

science are intended to “make students believe

that they are participants in a grand historical

tradition which has progressed cumulatively

and according to definite methodological

norms” (Kragh, 1992, p. 359). As I postulated

earlier, such distorted views of the history of sci-

ence may serve to produce negative attitudes to-

wards science in young science students.

Although there is the potential for produc-

ing ideological and mythical histories of science

that encourage misconceptions about science

and history, there is also the possibility of har-

nessing history for the sake of conceptual clari-

fication. On the one hand, school science has

produced what might be called conceptual distil-

lation, largely a distillation of history of science,

which, like mythical history, fosters a distorted

view of science. On the other hand, a balanced

view of the origins of concepts can be utilized

for conceptual clarification in the way that the

physicist Maxwell explained long ago: “science

is always most completely assimilated when it is

in the nascent state” (1873/1904, p. xi). One

way that history of science can illuminate cur-

rently-accepted concepts in science is to attempt

to reconstruct the development of these con-

cepts. In order to be truly useful, such a history

must include the struggle to explain newly dis-

covered phenomena by means of competing

theories. Seeing how scientists put forth alter-

native explanations and finally settled on one

explanation and how that explanation had to be

Contextual Science Teaching 15

modified as time went on will be useful in help-

ing students come to a deeper understanding of

current theory.

In view of the preceding discussion, history

of science that is to be used for pedagogical pur-

poses must tread a fine line through the pitfalls

of extremes that could conceivably arise in in-

terpreting history. Obviously, the origins of

ideas must relate to the current understanding,

which is the point from which history must, of

necessity, be approached in education. How-

ever, a merely logical reconstruction of past

events that produces pseudo-history, as in the

example above, must be avoided. History must

be placed in its original context, while relating it

to our current views, in a manner that respects

the originators and portrays them in a fair and

balanced way. The objective of accuracy or

faithfulness to the historical record must, in

turn, be balanced against the demands of a cur-

riculum that limit the depth to which the history

can be probed. Lastly, it should be realized that

the place of history is not only to make a con-

ceptual point but also to introduce the human-

istic element into the process of learning sci-

ence. Portraying scientists as human beings

and giving students the opportunity to become

affectively involved in the story of science are

worthy goals in themselves.

3.4.1 Content Analysis of Original Sources

The preferred approach to history of science in

the educational setting could be described as an

authentic approach. An obvious way to provide

authentic history is to incorporate the original

writing of historical figures. However, original

writings may not always be suitable for student

use. The analysis of original texts for their suit-

ability could be regarded as a form of content

analysis. That original writings need to be in-

corporated sensitively, if used at all, is mani-

festly demonstrated by Fritz Kubli (1998, 1999)

in a study in which high school students were

asked to rate various approaches to science

teaching, including original texts, narratives,

and historical experiments. Original texts met

with general disapproval from the students.

However, others (Fowler, 2003; Holbrow, Am-

ato, Galvez, & Lloyd, 1995) have used original

texts with considerable success. In my own ex-

perience, the acceptance of original texts by stu-

dents depends, first of all, on the level of mathe-

matical difficulty and the degree of student fa-

miliarity with the mathematical notation. Mi-

chael Fowler of the University of Virginia makes

the same observation (2003). The teacher must

be aware of the mathematical preparedness of

students and make sure that original papers do

not contain mathematics that is too advanced

for students. Content analysis consists of a crit-

ical reading of the historical material to check

for the level of difficulty of the mathematics.

The level must match the mathematical prepar-

edness of the students, something about which

every good physics teacher is knowledgeable.

There are several other barriers to incorpo-

rating original sources. A second obstacle to

the effective use of original sources is possible

miscommunication due to discrepancies be-

tween the original and the contemporary mean-

ings of technical and scientific terms, for exam-

ple, the evolving meaning of “force” (Stinner,

1994). In this case, the evolution of the mean-

ing of any such term used in original texts

should be explicitly discussed with students be-

fore they read them. A third obstacle may be

unfamiliarity with an older form of the language

being employed in original texts, but that has

not dissuaded other disciplines from incorpo-

rating such texts as, for instance, the inclusion

of Shakespeare’s works in English Language

Arts curricula. The length of original texts can

become another obstacle, due to constraints of

time in teaching, and often original texts must

be excerpted. Obscure mathematical symbol-

ism may pose another difficulty and result in the

necessity to translate it into a more familiar for-

16 S. Klassen

mat for students, one that allows the mathemat-

ical techniques to remain essentially the same as

the original (Kragh, 1987). Content analysis

will consist of a critical reading of the historical

material to check for the degree of obscurity of

mathematical notation. Another possible

weakness in content is that original historical

material often appears as a chronology. Stu-

dents will, however, respond more positively to

materials presented in a narrative form (Kubli,

1998, 1999). Ideally, history must be recast into

story form, using details that are historically ac-

curate. The story is differentiated from a chro-

nology in that it contains an intentional element

(Egan, 1978; Martin, 1986; Prince, 1973; Reid,

1977). The addition of an intentional element

to historical narrative requires historical inter-

pretation because the historical facts often do

not provide motivations and reasons for occur-

rences. It may be necessary to add plausible de-

tails that do not contradict known historical

facts. Further consideration of the nature of

stories is a study in its own right and must be

reserved for another paper.

3.5 The Affective Context and Narrative

The important role played by the emotions in

learning has been recognized only recently.

Relevant, in this regard, is the research on emo-

tion and rationality by neurobiologist Antonio

Damasio. Damasio has studied human subjects

who have lost the ability to communicate infor-

mation about emotions from one part of the

brain to the other. As a result, he has been able

to support his hypothesis relating emotion and

reason, which states that the emotions act as an

arbitrator in rational decision-making and that

without access to one’s emotions, it is impossi-

ble to plan and make rational decisions (Dama-

sio, 1994). Educator Douglas Barnes demon-

strates, in a research study of student group

learning, that “unless pupils are willing to take

the risk of some emotional commitment they

are unlikely to learn” (1992, p. 87). Cognitive

psychologist Pierce Howard, in a popular review

of current neurobiological research, further ex-

plains the role of emotions in learning this way:

“Experience arouses emotion, which fixes atten-

tion and leads to understanding and insight,

which results in memory” (Howard, 2000,

p. 549).

At issue is the means by which emotion

could be aroused in an appropriate manner in

the teaching and learning situation. Although

motivation, an affective factor, is clearly also in-

volved in the practical, theoretical, social, and

historical contexts, I wish to focus on the pow-

erful ability of story-narrative to engage the

emotions. Educator Kieren Egan (1989a, b) has

long advocated the story form as a method of

engaging students’ emotions. Egan argues that

the story form of presentation of curriculum

materials stimulates the imagination and evokes

emotional response, thereby producing learning

that students more easily assimilate with long-

term memory than learning produced by drill-

ing and memorizing. The listener to, or reader

of, a story engages with the story because she or

he is encouraged to participate vicariously in the

experiences of the protagonist. The kind of mo-

tivation produced by story is intrinsic, as op-

posed to the extrinsic motivation produced by a

prescriptive teaching and learning episode

(Mott, et. al., 1999). Furthermore, the story pro-

vides an organizing structure for related

knowledge and experiences (Mandler, 1984).

Although it is evident that the story form of

narrative is involved in constructively tapping

students’ emotions, aside from Egan’s work, and

the more recent work of Kubli (1998, 1999), not

much has been written on how stories in science

may be constructed. Nevertheless, it is apparent

that a well-crafted story arouses emotions

which, in turn, contribute to the integration of

the story details with long-term memory.

Contextual Science Teaching 17

4 A Schema for the Contextual Approach

Of the specialized contexts described above,

each has involved a branch of specialization in

areas of education, philosophy, sociology, or

psychology. The complexity of contexts sug-

gests that there are at least five distinct contexts

of science learning. As I have demonstrated,

they are the 1) practical, 2) theoretical, 3) social,

4) historical, and 5) affective contexts. These

contexts, to the degree that they are present in a

learning situation, interact with one another

and cannot be considered in isolation. It is pos-

sible and, indeed, desirable for learning to take

place in more than one context at a time; for ex-

ample, a class may operate in historical, social,

practical, and theoretical contexts in group re-

capitulation of Ohm’s investigation of electrical

resistance.

Even though these contexts naturally oper-

ate together in typical learning situations, it is

the affective context, created by a story, which

can produce the incentive desired at the begin-

ning of a lesson. The story focuses attention and

motivates, which is why it is a good starting

point for any learning episode. For that reason,

I have chosen to call my theoretical framework

for contextual teaching the Story-Driven Con-

textual Approach (SDCA). The approach can

be summarized in a diagrammatic fashion (see

Figure 1). Such a diagram, while it could argu-

ably be called a “representation of the problem-

atic in terms of the familiar”, as a model might

be defined, would best be called a conceptual

scheme or, in short, a schema. The SDCA

schema is built around the definition of context

given earlier: “the entities that connect to or sur-

round a focal entity and contribute to the mean-

ingfulness of the whole.” The five contexts re-

late to the concept or ability that students are at-

tempting to learn. The learning process takes

place amid the relevant contexts and is repre-

sented by the circle in Figure 1. Students will

bring their ideas, attitudes, prior knowledge,

and experiences to the whole learning process

and, if the experience is to be considered a suc-

cess, they will leave with somewhat changed

(new) ideas, attitudes, knowledge, and skills.

The story is visualized as a component en-

tering the learning process. Two ways in which

this might be done is by means of readings or by

means of a story told by the teacher. After the

story, students are encouraged to formulate a set

Figure 1: A Schema for the Story-Driven Contextual Approach

18 S. Klassen

of related problems that they might address, or,

alternatively, the teacher might supply the ques-

tions that are to form the basis for a group stu-

dent investigation. The investigation is expected

to have more than one component—perhaps an

experimental as well as a theoretical portion.

Furthermore, in the model of student as novice

researcher, the teacher plays the role of research

leader and provides expert advice and supervi-

sion as the students begin to formulate ideas and

perform activities. The teacher is not seen as di-

rectly affecting the minds of the students by way

of an input, but as a director of activities, affect-

ing the output of the process. Placing the role

of the teacher one step removed from the center

communicates the perspective that students are

to be given a high degree of responsibility for

their own learning. Finally, the students will

present a report on their investigations. This

may be either in the form of a written or verbal

report, although, my experience has shown that

students show significantly more enthusiasm

over being able to report results to their fellow

students verbally.

5 Conclusion

I conclude by referring, first, to the meaning of

history and its relation to science and then to its

relation to story. R. G. Collingwood (1945) has

argued that history is a more fundamental form

of thought than science. He writes that

the scientist who wishes to know that … an event

has taken place in the world of nature can know

this only by consulting the record left by the ob-

server and interpreting it, subject to certain rules,

in such a way as to satisfy himself that the man

whose work it records really did observe what he

professes to have observed. This consultation

and interpretation of records is the characteristic

feature of historical work. … I conclude that nat-

ural science as a form of thought exists and al-

ways has existed in a context of history, and de-

pends on historical thought for its existence. (pp.

176–177)

What Collingwood describes about scientific

work appears very much like the process of his-

toriography. Scientific records exclude the hu-

man dimension of the work that brought about

certain scientific conclusions or theories in sci-

ence. In that sense, science is a specialized ra-

tional reconstruction of history. Perhaps it

would not be an exaggeration to say that science

has become a form of dehumanized and decon-

textualized history. The only way to interest

young students in science is to portray it differ-

ently—more realistically from the human and

contextual perspective. A higher degree of en-

gagement will be achieved by including practi-

cal, theoretical, social, historical, and affective

contexts with each learning situation. Implicit

in the SDCA is the objective of humanizing sci-

ence through its history. Furthermore, the

SDCA approach attempts to make use of some

innate features of learning. Likely, Whitehead

(1929) pinpointed some innate features of

learning when he observed that all of learning is

based on a cycle of romance, precision, and gen-

eralization. In the case of the Story-Driven

Contextual Approach, the romance is portrayed

in beginning the sequence with the science

story. The stage of precision is gained by stu-

dents when they tackle difficult problems. Gen-

eralization is achieved when students summa-

rize their results, compare them to the results of

the others, and present their conclusions to a

wider audience. The stage of romance should

not be underemphasized at any student level,

since it entails the affective aspects that produce

learning that is more likely to last. Similarly, the

stage of generalization produces a type of moti-

vation that also contributes to long-term learn-

ing. However, underlying these considerations

is the story-form. In the words of educators Nel

Noddings and Carol Witherell,

we learn from stories. More important, we come

to understand—ourselves, others, and even the

subjects we teach and learn. Stories engage us. …

Contextual Science Teaching 19

Stories can help us to understand by making the

abstract concrete and accessible. What is only

dimly perceived at the level of principle may be-

come vivid and powerful in the concrete. Fur-

ther, stories motivate us. Even that which we un-

derstand at the abstract level may not move us to

action, whereas a story often does. (1991, pp.

279–280)

Given that stories aid understanding, cause en-

gagement, and produce motivation, and even

help us to understand ourselves—all essentials

of learning—given that the narrative form also

enhances retention and long-term memory, and

given that models of learning are so closely

aligned with the model of the Story-Driven

Contextual Approach, the appropriate use of the

story form in science teaching can, indeed, be-

come a heuristic teaching device that is not only

attractive, but also self-sustaining.

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About the Author

Stephen Klassen is a Senior Scholar at The University of Winnipeg.

His Ph.D. (University of Manitoba) is in Science Education, and his

background is in experimental physics. Dr. Klassen’s current re-

search is in the writing, analysis, and use of history-of-science stories

in science teaching. His work, in part, is published in Science & Edu-

cation, Science Education, Interchange, and Physics Education. Since

1997, he has presented papers regularly at the periodic International

Conference on History of Science in Science Education (ICHSSE)

and has contributed significantly to its organization, especially in co-

chairing the Planning Committee. As of 2001, he has been actively

involved in the International History, Philosophy, and Science

Teaching Group (IHPST) in various capacities: presenting at most of

its conferences, assuming the role of Program Chair in 2003, and serving on its governing Council from 2010

through 2014 and the Editorial Committee of Science & Education from 2011 through 2013.

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Matthias Brandl

Um der strukturellen und inhaltlichen Trennung zwischen fachwissenschaftlichen, fachdidaktischen und bildungswissenschaftlichen Studienelementen zu begegnen, sind in den letzten Jahren vielfältige und innovative Ansätze zu Kohärenz und Verzahnung von Studienelementen konzipiert worden. Ziel einer Verzahnung auf Lehrveranstaltungs- oder Materialebene ist dabei insbesondere die Förderung vernetzten Wissens bei Studierenden, das als Voraussetzung für ihre professionelle Handlungskompetenz als Lehrkraft gilt. Dieser Sammelband widmet sich der Wissensvernetzung bei Lehramtsstudierenden unterschiedlicher Fächer aus unterschiedlichen Blickwinkeln und als Ergebnis verzahnter Lernangebote. Die Beiträge präsentieren eine facettenreiche Auswahl aktueller theoretischer, praxiserprobter und empirischer Ansätze zur Initiierung, Visualisierung und Messung von Wissensvernetzung. (DIPF/Orig.)

INCORPORATING REAL-LIFE CONTEXT INTO SCHOOL CHEMISTRY ENHANCES MEANINGFUL LEARNING

Article

Full-text available

Jul 2024

This policy brief describes the importance and significance of incorporating real-life contexts into school chemistry for enhancing students' meaningful learning.

How do theoretical frameworks influence immunology teaching? Insights from case studies in Morocco

Article

Full-text available

Mar 2025

Teaching immunology faces didactic and pedagogical challenges, which sometimes stem from how scientific knowledge is translated into textbooks and teaching practices. Indeed, all scientific knowledge is rooted in a specific theoretical context, shaped by the prevailing paradigms and theories of its time. In this regard, systems theory, information theory, and cybernetics provide students with a theoretical framework to better understand immunology. This article addresses a topic that is underexplored in Morocco, focusing on the impact of teaching scientific concepts without reference to their theoretical foundations. It emphasizes the importance of integrating systems theory, information theory, and cybernetics into the immunology curriculum to enhance the teaching and learning of immunological concepts. With this in mind, and in order to explore the impact of not considering these three theories in the teaching of immunology, we conducted three studies combining qualitative and quantitative data. The first study used a semi-structured interview technique with a sample of 27 teachers. The second study used a questionnaire administered to a sample of 105 university students. The third study focused on the presentation of immunology in three official school textbooks. The results of the three studies carried out revealed that systemics, cybernetics and information theory receive little attention in the immunology curriculum, which is reflected in its learning. Indeed, the university students in our sample presented a number of difficulties, especially those relating to the communication and regulatory mechanisms of the immune system. which affects their understanding of the mechanisms governing immune responses and, consequently, their health.

Impact of EPSS Supported Instruction on Ethical Decision Making and Theoretical Computer Ethics

Article

Jan 2025

Anandakumar Haldorai

The concept of Electronic Performance Support Systems (EPSS) has been created to refer to systems that provide general support. This study focuses on the impacts of the BILEP system, an EPSS, on students’ learning in a computer ethics class. Realizing that there is lack of research done on evaluating EPSS in terms of educational value in relation to ethical decision-making skills and theoretical knowledge, this study sought to establish the effectiveness of EPSS in improving the skills. This research employed a quasi-experimental design, which included 40 participants grouped into the experimental group and the control group. The experimental group was taught using the newly developed BILEP system and the control group was taught in a traditional method. Knowledge was evaluated before and after the intervention regarding Ethical Decision Making (EDM) and Theoretical Computer Ethics (TCE). The t-tests and Mult-variate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) showed the significant improvement of both groups, while the experimental group demonstrated the greater improvement in ethical decision-making skills, but not in the TCE. We concluded that practices that are supported by EPSSs enhance ethical resolution skills, which is in line with the performance-based nature of EPSSs, and, at the same time, traditional approaches are as effective in enhancing theoretical knowledge. Therefore, our findings highlight the implementation of EPSS tools in ethics education to promote practical application skills.

Historical Perspectives of Science and Technology Education: A Case of Leonardo da Vinci

Article

Full-text available

Dec 2024

This study highlights the importance of integrating the history of technology into science education to improve primary student teachers' (undergraduate students of the Department of Pedagogy and Primary Education of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens) understanding of key concepts in science and technology, such as mechanical advantage, criteria for distinguishing types of levers, their applications in everyday life, and the conceptualization of force vectors. Additionally, the research aimed to enhance primary student teach-ers' understanding of the Nature of Science (NOS) and the Nature of Technology (NOT), emphasizing that science and technology are distinct yet interrelated and identifying what constitutes technology. To ensure credibility, peer debriefing and thoroughly documented research conditions were employed. Statistical analyses, including Chi-square and Fisher's exact test, were used to evaluate the significance of the results, addressing each research question in detail. The findings revealed a significant improvement in primary student teachers' comprehension following the intervention compared to the control group, underscoring the effectiveness of the instructional approach. The study also suggests further exploration of simple machines and the incorporation of more extensive mathematical components in future research.

THE DIGITAL INTERACTIVE MATHEMATICAL MAP FOR GEOMETRY

Conference Paper

Full-text available

Apr 2024

We present results from the design-based research and development process of a digital didactical tool connecting secondary and tertiary mathematics education among others by historical aspects and elements from Mathematics, Didactics, History, Literature and Technology especially for prospective mathematics teachers: Digital Interactive Mathematical Maps (DIMM), developed at the University of Passau, Germany. The DIMM for Geometry was integrated into a second semester course on Euclidean and non-Euclidean geometry in mathematics education at Karlstad University, Sweden, designed collaboratively by university mathematics lecturers and researchers in mathematics education from the cooperating universities. While, according to the results of evaluation, the (perceived) usefulness of individual functionalities of the digital tool was confirmed, the use of the DIMM in the courses seems to promote favorable beliefs about mathematics, too.

Incorporating Real-Life Contexts into School Chemistry Enhances Meaningful Learning

Preprint

Full-text available

Jul 2024

The study examined the effect of a context-based learning approach, specifically the 7E instructional strategy, on enhancing chemistry learning among high school students. A mixed-methods approach, including achievement test, scaled questionnaires, and semi-structured interviews, was utilized for data collection. Data analysis involved the use of descriptive statistics, paired-sample t-tests, ANCOVA, and thematic analysis. Results indicated that this approach significantly improved students' achievement, engagement, and motivation levels compared to conventional/concept-based teaching approach. The findings underscore the value of implementing a context-based approach using a particular instructional strategy (like the 7E learning model) can greatly improve chemistry learning outcomes. Policymakers should consider these findings when revising the curriculum to improve educational practices and student performance in chemistry and science education.

A Grammar of Stories: An Introduction

Book

Jan 1974

Gerald Prince

An Introduction to the Historiography of Science

Book

Apr 1987

Helge S. Kragh

This book introduces the methodological and philosophical problems with which modern history of science is concerned, offering a comprehensive and critical review through description and evaluation of significant historiographical viewpoints. Incorporating discussion of key problems in general historical writing, with examples drawn from a range of disciplines, this non-elementary introduction bridges the gap between general history and history of science. Following a review of the early development of the history of science, the theory of history as applied to science history is introduced, examining the basic problems which this generates, including problems of periodisation, ideological functions, and the conflict between diachronical and anachronical historiography. Finally, the book considers the critical use, and analysis, of historical sources, and the possibility of the experiemental reconstruction of history. Aimed primarily at students, the book's broad scope and integration of historical, philosophical and scientific matters will interest philosophers, sociologists and general historians, for whom there is no alternative introduction to the subject at this level.

Editorial—History, science, and science teaching

Article

Jun 1989

Ian Winchester

Words, Thoughts, and Theories

Book

Jan 1998

Words, Thoughts, and Theories articulates and defends the "theory theory" of cognitive and semantic development, the idea that infants and young children, like scientists, learn about the world by forming and revising theories, a view of the origins of knowledge and meaning that has broad implications for cognitive science. Gopnik and Meltzoff interweave philosophical arguments and empirical data from their own and other's research. Both the philosophy and the psychology, the arguments and the data, address the same fundamental epistemological question: How do we come to understand the world around us? Recently, the theory theory has led to much interesting research. However, this is the first book to look at the theory in extensive detail and to systematically contrast it with other theories. It is also the first to apply the theory to infancy and early childhood, to use the theory to provide a framework for understanding semantic development, and to demonstrate that language acquisition influences theory change in children.The authors show that children just beginning to talk are engaged in profound restructurings of several domains of knowledge. These restructurings are similar to theory changes in science, and they influence children's early semantic development, since children's cognitive concerns shape and motivate their use of very early words. But, in addition, children pay attention to the language they hear around them and this too reshapes their cognition, and causes them to reorganize their theories. Bradford Books imprint

The Essential Tension: Selected Studies in Scientific Tradition and Change

Book

Jan 1977

Thomas S. Kuhn

A deeper unity: Some feyerabendian themes in neurocomputational form

Article

Jan 1993

Paul M. Churchland

Neural network models of cognitive processes provide us with an entirely new conception of perceptual recognition, theoretical knowledge, learning and conceptual change. This brain- based perspective on cognition bears directly on some long-standing issues in the philosophy of science. In particular, it appears to vindicate five of the more central themes of Paul Feyerabend’s philosophy of science.

Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes

Book

Jan 1978

Lev S Vygotsky

Introduction: Thinking and learning in social context

Article

Jan 1984

Policy and validity prospects for performance-based assessment.

Article

Dec 1993

High interest in performance-based assessment of educational achievement is indicated by recent conferences, special journal issues, and national television coverage. The president's and governors' educational goals reflect the central role of assessment in reform. A prominent view is that changes in assessment, using more complex, meaningful, and integrative performance tasks, will improve education. New assessments present challenges to the curriculum, teaching practices, and presentation of student achievement information to policymakers and to the public. Sufficient high-quality assessments must be available before their impact on educational reform can be assessed. Although interest in performance-based assessment is high, our knowledge about its quality is low. Moreover, few psychometric templates exist to guide the technical practices of assessment developers.

Children’s theories vs scientific theories: Differences in reasoning or differences in knowledge?

Article

Jan 1991

A Theoretical Framework for Contextual Science Teaching

Abstract and Figures

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