Understanding the Heterogeneous Nature of Science: A Comprehensive Notion of PCK for Scientific Literacy

Dijk, Esther M. van

doi:10.1002/sce.21110

Cited by 33 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 81 publications

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“…A careful analysis of learning opportunities in science teacher education therefore has to account for all courses and not only for those explicitly mentioning the promotion of nature of science. Since the diverse aspects of nature of science depend on the scientific content in which they are embedded, they cannot solely be taught as a general list of features in just one context [31].…”

Section: Understanding Of Nos: Conceptualisationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Learning Opportunities in Biology Teacher Education Contribute to Understanding of Nature of Science

2018

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In order to educate scientifically literate children, teachers are required to include nature of science (NOS) in their classroom practice. However, as biology teachers’ own understanding of NOS is limited, promoting an initial understanding of NOS in teacher education is crucial. The aim of this study is to elucidate the importance of the first phase of teacher education for biology teachers’ understanding of NOS. More precisely, the study aims to examine the relationship between institutional determinants (e.g., the type of teacher education programme) and learning opportunities for pre-service biology teachers’ understanding of NOS. Pre-service biology teachers (N = 232) participated in a cross-sectional testing. The corresponding descriptions of N = 649 modules of biology teacher education from 20 German universities were analysed. Qualitative and quantitative methods were applied to relate the institutional determinants and the individual amount of learning opportunities to pre-service biology teachers’ understanding of NOS. Results reveal that both institutional determinants as well as the amount of learning opportunities are related to pre-service biology teachers’ understanding of NOS. This indicates that teacher education at university represents an important phase for biology teachers’ understanding of NOS. The results are discussed in terms of consequences for further research and teacher education.

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Section: Understanding Of Nos: Conceptualisationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Learning Opportunities in Biology Teacher Education Contribute to Understanding of Nature of Science

2018

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“…This "myth" does the sciences a disservice in two ways. First, the sciences are better characterized by their ontological, methodological, and epistemic diversity (Baird, Scerri, & McIntyre, 2006;Cartwright, 1983;Mayr, 2004) rather than their commonality-a point which has been made consistently by scholarship within the field of science education over the past two decades (Martins & Ryder, 2015;Rudolph, 2000;Van Dijk, 2014). Second, the idea that there is some singular algorithmic procedure responsible for the production of scientific knowledge undervalues the nature and diversity of creative thought that has revolutionized our understanding of the material world over the past 450 years sustaining the misconception that there is a single form of reasoning unifying the sciences.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Styles of Scientific Reasoning: A Cultural Rationale for Science Education?

2016

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In this paper, we contend that what to teach about scientific reasoning has been bedeviled by a lack of clarity about the construct. Drawing on the insights emerging from a cognitive history of science, we argue for a conception of scientific reasoning based on six “styles of scientific reasoning.” Each “style” requires its own specific ontological and procedural entities, and invokes its own epistemic values and constructs. Consequently, learning science requires the development of not just content knowledge but, in addition, procedural knowledge, and epistemic knowledge. Previous attempts to develop a coherent account of scientific reasoning have neglected the significance of either procedural knowledge, epistemic knowledge, or both. In contrast, “styles of reasoning” do recognize the need for all three elements of domain‐specific knowledge, and the complexity and situated nature of scientific practice. Most importantly, “styles of reasoning” offer science education a means of valorizing the intellectual and cultural contribution that the sciences have made to contemporary thought, an argument that is sorely missing from common rationales for science education. Second, the construct of “styles of reasoning” offers a more coherent conceptual schema for the construct of scientific reasoning—one of the major goals of any education in the sciences.

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“…Although there is still no clear definition of what the concept of the nature of science should include (see, e.g. Abd-El-Khalick, 2014;McComas, 2015;Van Dijk, 2014), there is some consensus about including the characteristics of tentativeness, empirical base, theory/law discussions, social embeddedness, and creativity (i.e. Lederman & Abell, 2014).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Analysing teachers' operations when teaching students: what constitutes scientific theories?

Holmqvist

Olander

2017

International Journal of Science Education

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The aim of the study is to analyse teachers' efforts to develop secondary school students' knowledge and argumentation skills of what constitutes scientific theories. The analysis is based on Leontiev's three-level structure of activity (activity, action, and operation), as these levels correspond to the questions why, what, and how content is taught. The unit of analysis was a school development project in science education, where design-based interventions were conducted. Data comprised notes and minutes from eight meetings, plans, and video recordings of the lessons, and a written teacher evaluation. The teachers' (n = 7) learning actions were analysed to identify (a) concept formation in science education, (b) expressions of agency, (c) discursive manifestations of contradictions, and (d) patterns of interaction during the science interventions. Three lessons on what constitutes scientific theories were implemented in three different student groups (n = 24, 23, 24), framed by planning and evaluation meetings for each lesson. The results describe (1) the ways in which teachers became more skilled at ensuring instruction met their students' needs and (2) the ways in which teachers' operations during instruction changed as a result of their developed knowledge of how to express the content based on theoretical assumptions. ARTICLE HISTORY

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Understanding the Heterogeneous Nature of Science: A Comprehensive Notion of PCK for Scientific Literacy

Cited by 33 publications

References 81 publications

Learning Opportunities in Biology Teacher Education Contribute to Understanding of Nature of Science

Learning Opportunities in Biology Teacher Education Contribute to Understanding of Nature of Science

Styles of Scientific Reasoning: A Cultural Rationale for Science Education?

Analysing teachers' operations when teaching students: what constitutes scientific theories?

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