Courtesy : school of Science Syllabus

Pedagogy

While the public image of science education may be one of simply learning facts by rote, science education in recent history also generally concentrates on the teaching of science concepts and addressing misconceptions that learners may hold regarding science concepts or other content. Thomas Kuhn, whose 1962 book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions greatly influenced the post-positivist philosophy of science, argued that the traditional method of teaching in the natural sciences tends to produce a rigid mindset.

Since the 1980s, science education has been strongly influenced by constructivist thinking. Constructivism in science education has been informed by an extensive research programme into student thinking and learning in science, and in particular exploring how teachers can facilitate conceptual change towards canonical scientific thinking. Constructivism emphasises the active role of the learner, and the significance of current knowledge and understanding in mediating learning, and the importance of teaching that provides an optimal level of guidance to learners.# ISO certification in India

According to a 2004 Policy Forum in Science magazine, “scientific teaching involves active learning strategies to engage students in the process of science and teaching methods that have been systematically tested and shown to reach diverse students.”

The 2007 volume Scientific Teaching lists three major tenets of scientific teaching:

• Active learning: A process in which students are actively engaged in learning. It may include inquiry-based learning, cooperative learning, or student-centered learning.
• Assessment: Tools for measuring progress toward and achievement of the learning goals.
• Diversity: The breadth of differences that make each student unique, each cohort of students unique, and each teaching experience unique. Diversity includes everything in the classroom: the students, the instructors, the content, the teaching methods, and the context.# ISO certification in India

These elements should underlie educational and pedagogical decisions in the classroom. The “SCALE-UP” learning environment is an example of applying the scientific teaching approach. In practice, scientific teaching employs a “backward design” approach. The instructor first decides what the students should know and be able to do (learning goals), then determines what would be evidence of student achievement of the learning goals, then designs assessments to measure this achievement. Finally, the instructor plans the learning activities, which should facilitate student learning through scientific discovery.

Guided-discovery approach

Along with John Dewey, Jerome Bruner, and many others, Arthur Koestler offers a critique of contemporary science education and proposes its replacement with the guided-discovery approach:

To derive pleasure from the art of discovery, as from the other arts, the consumer—in this case the student—must be made to re-live, to some extent, the creative process. In other words, he must be induced, with proper aid and guidance, to make some of the fundamental discoveries of science by himself, to experience in his own mind some of those flashes of insight which have lightened its path. . . . The traditional method of confronting the student not with the problem but with the finished solution, means depriving him of all excitement, [shutting] off the creative impulse, [reducing] the adventure of mankind to a dusty heap of theorems.# ISO certification in India

Specific hands-on illustrations of this approach are available.

Research

The practice of science education has been increasingly informed by research into science teaching and learning. Research in science education relies on a wide variety of methodologies, borrowed from many branches of science and engineering such as computer science, cognitive science, cognitive psychology and anthropology. Science education research aims to define or characterize what constitutes learning in science and how it is brought about.# ISO certification in India

John D. Bransford, et al., summarized massive research into student thinking as having three key findings:PreconceptionsPrior ideas about how things work are remarkably tenacious and an educator must explicitly address a students’ specific misconceptions if the student is to reconfigure his misconception in favour of another explanation. Therefore, it is essential that educators know how to learn about student preconceptions and make this a regular part of their planning.Knowledge organizationIn order to become truly literate in an area of science, students must, “(a) have a deep foundation of factual knowledge, (b) understand facts and ideas in the context of a conceptual framework, and (c) organize knowledge in ways that facilitate retrieval and application.”MetacognitionStudents will benefit from thinking about their thinking and their learning. They must be taught ways of evaluating their knowledge and what they don’t know, evaluating their methods of thinking, and evaluating their conclusions. Some educators and others have practiced and advocated for discussions of pseudoscience as a way to understand what it is to think scientifically and to address the problems introduced by pseudoscience.# ISO certification in India

Educational technologies are being refined to meet the specific needs of science teachers. One research study examining how cellphones are being used in post-secondary science teaching settings showed that mobile technologies can increase student engagement and motivation in the science classroom.

According to a bibliography on constructivist-oriented research on teaching and learning science in 2005, about 64 percent of studies documented are carried out in the domain of physics, 21 percent in the domain of biology, and 15 percent in chemistry. The major reason for this dominance of physics in the research on teaching and learning appears to be that understanding physics includes difficulties due to the particular nature of physics. Research on students’ conceptions has shown that most pre-instructional (everyday) ideas that students bring to physics instruction are in stark contrast to the physics concepts and principles to be achieved – from kindergarten to the tertiary level. Quite often students’ ideas are incompatible with physics views. This also holds true for students’ more general patterns of thinking and reasoning.

By country

Australia

As in England and Wales, science education in Australia is compulsory up until year 11, where students can choose to study one or more of the branches mentioned above. If they wish to no longer study science, they can choose none of the branches. The science stream is one course up until year 11, meaning students learn in all of the branches giving them a broad idea of what science is all about. The National Curriculum Board of Australia (2009) stated that “The science curriculum will be organised around three interrelated strands: science understanding; science inquiry skills; and science as a human endeavour.” These strands give teachers and educators the framework of how they should be instructing their students.# ISO certification in India

In 2011, it was reported that a major problem that has befallen science education in Australia over the last decade is a falling interest in science. Fewer year 10 students are choosing to study science for year 11, which is problematic as these are the years where students form attitudes to pursue science careers. This issue is not unique in Australia, but is happening in countries all over the world.

China

Educational quality in China suffers because a typical classroom contains 50 to 70 students. With over 200 million students, China has the largest educational system in the world. However, only 20% percent of students complete the rigorous ten-year program of formal schooling.

As in many other countries, the science curriculum includes sequenced courses in physics, chemistry, and biology. Science education is given high priority and is driven by textbooks composed by committees of scientists and teachers. Science education in China places great emphasis on memorization, and gives far less attention to problem solving, application of principles to novel situations, interpretations, and predictions.# ISO certification in India

United Kingdom

See also: Science education in England

In English and Welsh schools, science is a compulsory subject in the National Curriculum. All pupils from 5 to 16 years of age must study science. It is generally taught as a single subject science until sixth form, then splits into subject-specific A levels (physics, chemistry and biology). However, the government has since expressed its desire that those pupils who achieve well at the age of 14 should be offered the opportunity to study the three separate sciences from September 2008. In Scotland the subjects split into chemistry, physics and biology at the age of 13–15 for National 4/5s in these subjects, and there is also a combined science standard grade qualification which students can sit, provided their school offers it.# ISO certification in India

In September 2006 a new science program of study known as 21st Century Science was introduced as a GCSE option in UK schools, designed to “give all 14 to 16-year-old’s a worthwhile and inspiring experience of science”. In November 2013, Ofsted’s survey of science in schools revealed that practical science teaching was not considered important enough. At the majority of English schools, students have the opportunity to study a separate science program as part of their GCSEs, which results in them taking 6 papers at the end of Year 11; this usually fills one of their option ‘blocks’ and requires more science lessons than those who choose not to partake in separate science or are not invited. Other students who choose not to follow the compulsory additional science course, which results in them taking 4 papers resulting in 2 GCSEs, opposed to the 3 GCSEs given by taking separate science.# ISO certification in India

United States

A university chemistry lab in the United States

In many U.S. states, K-12 educators must adhere to rigid standards or frameworks of what content is to be taught to which age groups. This often leads teachers to rush to “cover” the material, without truly “teaching” it. In addition, the process of science, including such elements as the scientific method and critical thinking, is often overlooked. This emphasis can produce students who pass standardized tests without having developed complex problem solving skills. Although at the college level American science education tends to be less regulated, it is actually more rigorous, with teachers and professors fitting more content into the same time period.# ISO certification in India

In 1996, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences of the U.S. National Academies produced the National Science Education Standards, which is available online for free in multiple forms. Its focus on inquiry-based science, based on the theory of constructivism rather than on direct instruction of facts and methods, remains controversial. Some research suggests that it is more effective as a model for teaching science.# ISO certification in India

“The Standards call for more than ‘science as process,’ in which students learn such skills as observing, inferring, and experimenting. Inquiry is central to science learning. When engaging in inquiry, students describe objects and events, ask questions, construct explanations, test those explanations against current scientific knowledge, and communicate their ideas to others. They identify their assumptions, use critical and logical thinking, and consider alternative explanations. In this way, students actively develop their understanding of science by combining scientific knowledge with reasoning and thinking skills.”

Concern about science education and science standards has often been driven by worries that American students, and even teachers, lag behind their peers in international rankings. One notable example was the wave of education reforms implemented after the Soviet Union launched its Sputnik satellite in 1957. The first and most prominent of these reforms was led by the Physical Science Study Committee at MIT. In recent years, business leaders such as Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates have called for more emphasis on science education, saying the United States risks losing its economic edge. To this end, Tapping America’s Potential is an organization aimed at getting more students to graduate with science, technology, engineering and mathematics degrees. Public opinion surveys, however, indicate most U.S. parents are complacent about science education and that their level of concern has actually declined in recent years.

Furthermore, in the recent National Curriculum Survey conducted by ACT, researchers uncovered a possible disconnect among science educators. “Both middle school/junior high school teachers and post secondary science instructors rate(d) process/inquiry skills as more important than advanced science content topics; high school teachers rate them in exactly the opposite order.” Perhaps more communication among educators at the different grade levels in necessary to ensure common goals for students.# ISO certification in India