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For many years, philosophers of science including Feyeraband (1975), Bauer (1994) and Gjertsen (1989) have asked the question “is there a scientific method?” The answer is “yes” and “no.” Yes, because there are things that most scientists do most of the time so these might be called scientific methods or methodology.

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... Indeed, many researchers have recognised that there is no single scientific method (Lederman, Abd-El-Khalick, Bell, & Schwartz, 2002). Such recognition of the limitations of conventional characterisations of 'the scientific method' as hypothesis testing with experiments, however, do not provide any useful guidelines for how best to deal with the notion of 'the scientific method' in school science including in the context of assessment (McComas, 2014). ...
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High stakes examinations can have profound implications for how science is taught and learned. Limitations of school science such as the ‘cookbook problem’ can potentially be addressed if high stakes assessments target learning outcomes that are innovative. For example, less mindless procedural engagement and more thoughtful consideration of practical science can potentially improve science learning. In this paper, we investigate how practical work is represented in the assessment frameworks of several countries that demonstrate above average performance in the latest PISA science assessments. The main motivation is the need to understand if there are aspects of high stakes summative assessments in these countries that can provide insight into how best to structure national examinations. Assessment documents from a set of selected countries have been analysed qualitatively guided by questions such as ‘what is the construct of practical science’ and ‘what is the format of assessment?’ The examined jurisdictions used different approaches from traditional external pen-and-paper tests to internal teacher assessments that included different formats (e.g. laboratory report). Innovative approaches to the assessment of practical skills (e.g. PISA computer-based tasks) do not seem to be represented in these high-stakes assessments. Implications for innovative assessments for high-stakes purposes are discussed.
... Indeed, many researchers have recognised that there is no single scientific method (Lederman, Abd-El-Khalick, Bell, & Schwartz, 2002). Such recognition of the limitations of conventional characterisations of 'the scientific method' as hypothesis testing with experiments, however, do not provide any useful guidelines for how best to deal with the notion of 'the scientific method' in school science including in the context of assessment (McComas, 2014). ...
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The traditional description of “the scientific method” as a stepwise, linear process of hypothesis testing through experimentation is a myth. Although the teaching and learning of the scientific method have been a curriculum and assessment goal, the notion of the ‘scientific method’ itself has been identified as being problematic. Many researchers have recognised there is no single scientific method. However, there does not seem to be any useful guidelines for how best to deal with the nature of scientific methods in school science, including in high-stakes summative assessment. The article presents the use of a framework to illustrate the diversity of scientific methods that goes beyond the traditional limitations of a scientific method, to provide a more comprehensive and inclusive account, including non-manipulative parameter measurements. The framework not only clarifies the definition of scientific methods but also is adapted as an analytical framework to trace how scientific methods are framed in high-stakes chemistry examination papers from three examination boards in England. Such analyses can potentially point to what is emphasised in chemistry lessons, given how instrumental high-stakes testing is for driving teaching and learning. Results from an empirical investigation of examination questions are presented, highlighting an imbalance in the representation of methods in chemistry tests.
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The reform documents point out the necessity of teaching the plurality of scientific method (SM) when scientists engage in scientific practices (SPs). The dramatic change in education due to Covid-19 pandemic necessitates examining the outcomes of online education, especially laboratory applications courses, which the students and educators used to face-to-face instruction by using real-life equipment and materials in the laboratory. The current study investigated pre-service science teachers’ (PSSTs’) understanding of SPs and SM as well as their incorporation of these elements into their teaching before and after an online course. Pre- and post-reflections of SPs and SM were used to explore their understanding, while video-recordings and laboratory teaching reports of their simulated teaching were utilised to analyse their incorporation of these elements into their own instruction. The analysis of data indicated a significant increase in PSSTs’ understanding and incorporation of SPs and SM as well as manipulative and non-manipulative investigations, non-algorithmic rationality, and different ways of gathering evidence. However, online implementation of laboratory applications course did not seem to have had an impact on their understanding of plurality of scientific methods and descriptive or experimental methods in science. Concluding remarks are made for further implications of laboratory applications course after pandemic.
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The Benchmarks for Science Literacy and the National Science Education Standards strongly suggest that students should be engaged in hands-on learning. However, from many corners, the original "mental training" rationale for school labs has been criticized, the "cookbook" nature of laboratory exercises condemned, and the prevalence of using laboratories simply to verify previous classroom content questioned. These attacks are justified. Too frequently the school laboratory is far removed from the recommendations of constructivist teaching and is at odds with the way scientists themselves investigate problems. In order to enhance and revitalize laboratory teaching, one must recognize that not all laboratory activities have the same impact on learners. The cognitive component of the exercise is one of the most potent variables worth considering in predicting how a given activity will affect students and what learning it might foster. Here the author presents a number of suggestions that will enhance the overall student laboratory experience.
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Oh, I don't know if I can do inquiry in my classroom. It's too hard, and I don't even know where to begin. " How often have you heard comments like those? Maybe you've made them yourself. Inquiry has a reputation for being a great way for students to learn but difficult for teachers to implement. It doesn't have to be that way. Inquiry comes in many forms, which can be adapted for any science classroom at any point in the year for any level of student. In this article, we describe how to help chemistry students develop a method to answer their own research question , called open inquiry, using the reaction of hydrochloric acid and aluminum foil as an example. Open inquiry isn't the only option. We explain how to structure this activity to accommodate students' varied experience and comfort levels with inquiry. Teachers can also use this straightforward method to modify other activities they're already using. W h at i s i n q u i r y, a n d w h y i s i t i m p o r t a n t ? A practical definition of inquiry is " an active learning process in which students answer research questions through data analysis " (Bell, Smetana, and Binns 2005, p 31). Inquiry incorporates the scientific practices of hypothesizing, investigating , observing, explaining, and evaluating (NRC 2011). Please note, however, three caveats: 1. Not all hands-on activities are inquiry, and not all inquiry is hands-on. Hands-on activities can be defined as any activity where students are interacting with or manipulating materials (Lumpe and Oliver 1991). For example, making 3-D molecules is hands-on but isn't necessarily inquiry. On the other hand, as long as students are analyzing data to answer a research question in their inquiry, they might get the data from the internet instead of collecting it themselves in a laboratory. 2. While inquiry is an essential part of science instruction (NRC 2000), other activities are also valuable. An effective teacher might chose to teach students the details of dimensional analysis through direct instruction, for example. Furthermore, teaching lab safety through inquiry would not be responsible!
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Almost 20 years ago, Richard Duschl (1985) wrote an important essay reminding science teachers that the descriptions of “how science functions” typically provided in class and intextbooks had fallen out of step with the most accurate interpretations. Many cheered this article in hopes that, at last, one of the most important missing elements of science instruction would finally be addressed as accurately and completely as are the topics of plate tectonics in Earth science, mitosis in biology, pH in chemistry, and Newton’s laws of motion in physics. Unfortunately, the impact of Duschl’s plea has been mixed. There has been a welcome proliferation of nature of science (NOS) elements and recommendations. Professional organizations including the National Science Teachers Association have issued position statements both advocating and defining relevant aspects of NOS (NSTA 2000). Increasing numbers of NOS standards appear in both United States (AAAS 1990, 1993) and foreign reform and standards documents (McComas and Olson 1998). The National Science Education Standards specifically includes standards focusing on science as a human endeavor and the nature and history of science across all grade levels (NRC 1996; 141, 170–171, 200–201). These NOS recommendations are a step in the right direction. However, calls for the inclusion of NOS in science teaching have been made for almost a century (CASMT 1907) with frequent reminders during much of this time (Herron 1969; Kimball 1967; Robinson 1969; Duschl 1985; Matthews 1994; McComas, Clough, and Almazroa 1998; and Lederman 1992, 2002). The reality is that in spite of these continuous and well-reasoned recommendations, some students and teachers alike still fail to understand even the most basic elements of this important domain (Abd-El-Khalick and Lederman 2000). Studies show that a few teachers do not even value the inclusion of NOS elements in instruction (Bell, Lederman, and Abd-El-Khalick 1997).A consensus of key NOS ideas appropriate for inclusion in the K–12 science curriculum has begun to emerge from a review by science educators of the extensive literature in the history and philosophy of science. The authors in this issue of The Science Teacher suggest surprisingly parallel sets of NOS content goals for K–12 science teaching that do not oversimplify science itself or overburden the existing science curriculum. This article presents nine key ideas, which represent both a concise set of ideas about science and a list of objectives to shape instruction in any science discipline.
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This book: offers practical guidance in devising learning goals and suitable learning and assessment strategies; helps teachers to provide students with the skills and understanding needed to address these multi-faceted issues; explores the nature and place of socio-scientific issues in the curriculum and the support necessary for effective teaching; Science Education for Citizenship supports science teachers, citizenship teachers and other educators as they help students to develop the skills and understanding to deal with complex everyday issues.
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From the book The Teaching of science which contains : The teaching of science as enquiry, by Joseph J. Schwab, and Elements in a strategy for teaching science in the elementary school, by Paul F. Brandwein. (http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?recid=30721)
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Lee S. Shulman builds his foundation for teaching reform on an idea of teaching that emphasizes comprehension and reasoning, transformation and reflection. "This emphasis is justified," he writes, "by the resoluteness with which research and policy have so blatantly ignored those aspects of teaching in the past." To articulate and justify this conception, Shulman responds to four questions: What are the sources of the knowledge base for teaching? In what terms can these sources be conceptualized? What are the processes of pedagogical reasoning and action? and What are the implications for teaching policy and educational reform? The answers — informed by philosophy, psychology, and a growing body of casework based on young and experienced practitioners — go far beyond current reform assumptions and initiatives. The outcome for educational practitioners, scholars, and policymakers is a major redirection in how teaching is to be understood and teachers are to be trained and evaluated. This article was selected for the November 1986 special issue on "Teachers, Teaching, and Teacher Education," but appears here because of the exigencies of publishing.
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In looking back at the last review of research on the language-science connection to appear in ARAL (van Naerssen and Kaplan 1987), one is struck by the great changes in this relationship that have taken place over the past dozen or so years. On a general level, such changes are perhaps inevitable given the youthfulness of this area as a research domain, but more specifically, they can be traced in large part to two related trends: 1) a shift away from research with direct pedagogical aims and motivations, and 2) the powerful influence of the interdisciplinary field known as social studies of science. Both trends will be recurrent themes of this review.
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The Science Writing Heuristic (SWH) is an instructional technique that combines inquiry, collaborative learning, and writing to change the nature of the chemistry laboratory for students and instructors. The SWH provides a format for students to guide their discussions, their thinking, and writing about how science activities relate to their own prior knowledge via beginning questions, claims and evidence, and final reflections. The SWH approach helps students do inquiry science laboratory work by structuring the laboratory notebook in a format that guides students to answer directed questions instead of using a traditional laboratory report. In this approach, students must make a claim (inference) about what was learned through the laboratory experiment and provide evidence to support that claim. Then, through reflective writing, students continue to negotiate meaning from experiment(s) they conducted. This article provides instructors an overview of how to implement the SWH in their chemistry laboratory course. Keywords (Audience): First-Year Undergraduate / General
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Important considerations regarding national science standards. Keywords (Audience): General Public
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Classrooms across the United States increasingly find White teachers paired with ethnic minority students, but few of these teachers are prepared for the disparities such cultural integration presents. This is particularly true vis-à-vis science education. While classrooms have diversified, science instruction has not necessarily followed suit. Two theories, constructivism and culturally relevant pedagogy, have been identified as mechanisms to diminish the disparities in science education. Yet culturally relevant pedagogy has not had the same impact as constructivism, even though it has been posited as a crucial means to better assure ethnic minority access to education. A case study of two classroom teachers investigates whether and how constructivism can be leveraged to develop culturally relevant pedagogy in science instruction. Identifying practical possibilities for culturally relevant pedagogy in science education is important for students, teachers, and the future of the U.S. workforce because it provides a means of increasing marginalized students' access to science and technological fields. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Sci Ed92:994–1014, 2008
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Angela Calabrese Barton*University of Texas, Austin, Science Education, Austin, Texas 78756Received 1 June 2001; accepted 12 June 2001Introduction: The Questions That Frame Urban Science EducationWe have prepared this discussion of capitalism, critical pedagogy, and urban scienceeducation in conversation format in order to keep problematic the contextual realities ofprivilege, power, and knowledge in urban settings. The conversation begins with a discussion ofkey issues in education in general and then leads into a critique of the relationships amongcapitalism, science, and education. This more general beginning is important because it enablesthe argument that we are not looking in the right places in science to bring about meaningfulreform based on social justice. Only when we see the problems in science education as problemsat a societal level, which always mediates the other problems, can we aspire to any hope. Indeed,McLaren makes three key claims here: (a) that the relationship between capitalism and urbaneducation has led to schooling practices that favor economic control by elite classes; (b) that therelationship between capitalism and science has led to a science whose purposes and goals areabout profitability rather than the betterment of the global condition; and (c) that the marriagesbetween capitalism and education and capitalism and science have created a foundation forscience education that emphasises corporate values at the expense of social justice and humandignity. We conclude this conversation by describing the implications that critical pedagogymight have for productively confronting these three main issues in urban settings.
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