Politics in the science classroom: insights from Guyanese science teachers

Citizen science represents an important opportunity for school students to make real-world connections with science through context-based learning with the potential to increase their engagement, enjoyment and understanding of science. However, to date, citizen science has not experienced wide uptake in school settings and there is a paucity of information about its implementation in the classroom. Here we present a mixed-method approach investigating teachers' knowledge and use of citizen science in Australian classrooms. We explored teachers' experience and perceptions of citizen science, and opportunities and barriers to incorporate citizen science as an educational approach through an online questionnaire. Among the teachers surveyed, 45% (n = 295) had personally participated in citizen science outside of school and 41% (n = 283) had incorporated citizen science projects in classroom lessons. Teachers (45%, n = 295) reported participating in citizen science initiatives multiple times. Also, most projects that teachers were involved in (77%, n = 292) were related to ecological studies, such as species monitoring. Citizen science was reported to be a relatively new approach; used by teachers for less than a year on average. The main challenges included a lack of knowledge, time, confidence, and clarity regarding citizen science project alignment with the Australian curriculum. Additionally, 92% of respondents said they would be more encouraged to use citizen science in classrooms if projects were aligned to the curriculum. Identifying ways to increase teachers' openness to incorporate citizen science in their classrooms is crucial to its successful widespread, long-term, and meaningful implementation. Encouraging broader participation of teachers in citizen science based on their previous experiences could address their expectations and increase their confidence and feeling of ownership. These research findings suggest that meaningful and applicable citizen science programs could be co-created by addressing resource limitations and curriculum alignment challenges. Implementing solutions to these barriers is likely to contribute to the development of sustainable school-inclusive citizen science projects, with potential to positively impact science education in the long-term.

One response to a pedagogical shift towards student-centred and active learning approaches to promote student learning in STEM is the flipped classroom. However, there has been inconsistency in the design and implementation of the flipped classroom and its impact on student learning. This review systematically analysed 30 empirical studies on flipped classrooms in formal, K-16 science and maths classrooms to understand theoretical underpinnings leading to different approaches to flipped classrooms and the impact of flipped classrooms on student learning in science and maths classrooms. The selected studies were qualitatively analysed, and the results showed that: (1) there is more published literature on the flipped classroom identified in post-secondary science and mathematics classrooms, (2) the design of the flipped classroom is rarely grounded in theoretical frameworks especially in science classrooms, and (3) the flipped classroom has an overall positive effect on students’ science and maths learning. This study highlights the importance of using explicit theoretical frameworks aligned with contemporary learning theories to guide the design, implementation, and evaluation of the flipped classroom. Additionally, there is a need for future research to utilise design-based methodologies to maximise the positive impact of the flipped classroom on student learning.

A Manual for the Scientific (Teaching) Revolution

This paper explores four students' attempts at teaching science in the real world classroom during their initial student teaching practicum, including their struggles and successes. When pre-service teachers enter their initial practicum experience they are confronted with differing teaching philosophies of their own, their university professors, and their school mentors (Sullivan, Mousley & Gervasioni, 2000; John, 2001; Fu and Shelton, 2002). Within this situation, preservice teachers struggle to find their own niche of teaching science and learn to reflect as both learner and teacher (Kelly, 2000). Our goal as science teacher educators is to help pre-service teachers have an easy transfer from personal university experiences to teaching science in the “real” classroom environment while maintaining the integrity of newly learned teaching strategies (Segall, 2001). This work adds to and helps guide science teacher educators in identifying difficulties pre-service teachers' experiences in the transition from methods courses to practice.

Culturally sustaining pedagogies have encouraged scholars to reimagine and rebuild justice‐oriented classrooms across context and disciplines and provide opportunities for students to reclaim their ways of knowing and doing in schools. In this study, we seek to contextualize culturally sustaining teaching practices in integrated science and engineering middle school classrooms. In collaboration with Mrs. Johnson, a veteran science and science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) middle school teacher from the Midwest, this study draws on culturally sustaining pedagogy to understand the experiences of Mrs. Johnson in teaching a diverse middle school. This study also brings sociotransformative constructivism into our conversation to situate Mrs. Johnson's positional identities, the ways in which she enacts her reflexivity, and power in considering how culturally sustaining classrooms are cultivated. Using a narrative inquiry and case study approach, we utilized narrative interviewing to generate stories in making meaning of Mrs. Johnson's lived experiences. We applied thematic narrative analysis to develop three narrative threads, highlighting Mrs. Johnson's intentionality nurturing space for students to cultivate multiple epistemologies and disrupting the status quo in science classrooms. Our study illuminates a complex narrative such as the intentionality of making multiple epistemologies explicit in learning science and engineering and the required racial reflexive work for cultivating a culturally sustaining and student‐focused STEM classrooms. We also highlight challenges Mrs. Johnson faces as she integrates students' lived experiences and alternative ways of knowing and doing in science and STEM teaching.

The world over, secondary school science is viewed mainly as a practical subject. This may be one reason why effectiveness of teaching approaches in science education has often been judged on the kinds of practical activity with which teachers and students engage. In addition to practical work, language—often written (as in science texts) or oral (as in the form of teacher and student talk)—is unavoidable in effective teaching and learning of science. Generally however, the role of (instructional) language in quality of learning of school science has remained out of focus in science education research. This has been in spite of findings in empirical research on difficulties science students encounter with words of the instructional language used in science. The findings have suggested that use of (instructional) language in science texts and classrooms can be a major influence on the level of students’ understandings and retention of science concepts. This article reports and discusses findings in an investigation of physics teachers’ approaches to use of and their beliefs about classroom instructional language. Direct classroom observations of, interviews with, as well as content analyses of the participant teachers’ verbatim classroom talk, were used as the methods of data collection. Evidence is presented of participant physics teachers’ lack of explicit awareness of the difficulty, nature, and functional value of different categories of words in the instructional language. In conclusion, the implications of this lack of explicit awareness on the general education (initial and in-service) of school physics teachers are considered.

The importance of the enactment of formative assessment as a pedagogical tool in science teaching and learning cannot be over-emphasized. Teachers encounter pedagogical challenges when enacting formative assessment in science classrooms. These pedagogical challenges underscore the need to explore teachers' perspectives on pedagogical strategies used to enact formative assessment in science classrooms. This study examined grade 10 Physical Sciences teachers' perspectives on pedagogical strategies they adopted to enact formative assessment in science classrooms in diverse schools in South Africa. The empirical investigation invoked the sociocultural theory as a conceptual lens to provide insightful elucidation into the nature of teachers' perspectives on pedagogical strategies used to enact formative assessment in science classrooms. A generic qualitative research approach was employed. Data were collected through semi-structured focus group interviews and classroom observations. The study involved 12 purposively selected grade 10 Physical Sciences teachers as participants. The findings revealed that grade 10 Physical Sciences teachers adopted various pedagogical strategies when enacting formative assessment in science classrooms. However, meaningful enactment of formative assessment in science classrooms was largely hampered by a myriad of contextual factors such as class size and general lack of essential resources. It is recommended that teacher professional development interventions coordinated by the Department of Basic Education ought to make provision for meaningful opportunities to enhance teacher professional capacity required for coherent enactment of formative assessment as an essential tenet in science education. Theoretical implications for pedagogic innovation are discussed.

<p class="p1">Brain-based learning (BBL) has been described as an important pedagogy that can be effectively used to enhance different teaching methods or strategies. It uses essential principles from brain-based theory to alleviate the disadvantages inherent in traditional teaching methods to achieve classroom goals and objectives. The use of such learning has significant implications for the teaching and learning of science (biology, chemistry, mathematics, and physics) subjects at elementary and secondary school levels. In this review, we scrutinise and discuss the results from 25 peer-reviewed studies and underline the methodology and strategies used to advance the integration of brain-based learning within science classrooms. We make a meta-analysis systematic review of how such learning has been used in the science classroom, the success achieved, and the different constructs used to integrate it into elementary and secondary schools. The findings reveal that quasi-experimental studies have dominated the methods used in integrating brain-based learning in science classrooms. In addition, this type of learning topped the different constructs used in science classrooms, with its<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>integration mainly in relation to mathematics. It is concluded that the principles of brain-based learning pedagogy can be adequately used in science classroom instruction because they consider the uniqueness of each student’s brain. This paper therefore recommends appropriate and continuous integration of such learning in the science classroom, especially in subjects where integration is currently low.</p>

A componential model of Science Classroom Creativity (SCC) for understanding collective creativity in the science classroom

The challenge of better preparing pre-service early childhood teachers to deliver appropriate science learning experiences in the classroom poses complex yet relevant issues. An innovative strategy to solve this problem has been a unique cross-discipline and collaborative approach. The purpose of this innovation was to provide pre-service early childhood teachers with the best possible chance of acquiring the requisite science content to merge with their pedagogical skills and thus increase their confidence to teach science in the classroom. The collaborative approach involved teacher educators and science/engineering academics together developing science resources and implementing them through team-teaching within the pre-service teachers’ science methods course. Data collection from the pre-service teachers included pre- and post-questionnaires, open-ended questions, poster analysis and semi-structured interviews. Across the course, the pre-service teachers’ confidence to teach science increased due to being shown how to teach science to young children, the wide range of ideas and activities presented that could be transferred to the early childhood classroom and increased science content knowledge. Science content knowledge increased due to active participation within the science methods course, access to science/engineering academics to explain concepts and information presented within the new science resources. This collaborative approach to developing and implementing science resources within a science methods course increased pre-service teachers’ accessibility to science and encouraged the teaching of science in the early childhood classroom.

There are encouraging signs that the history and philosophy of science are becoming more important in the teaching of science and in the preparation of science teachers. This tendency is supported here by looking at the widespread treatment of Galileo's account of pendulum motion in science texts and classrooms, indicating that it is a less than adequate account of the historical facts, and suggesting that the teaching of this commonplace topic can be considerably enhanced if science teachers have some familiarity with basic research in the history and philosophy of science.

Science has long been regarded as an important subject in a school curriculum and science teachers play a vital role in the learning process of the students in the science classrooms as well as in other subjects. However, students still encounter problems related to their science teachers, which significantly influence their academic performance in science. Using a qualitative-phenomenological design, an in-depth and systematic analysis of the students’ experiences gathered during the face-to-face interview provided a detailed explanation of the teacher-based adversities in the science classroom. The students who participated in this study revealed that they had encountered various teacher-based adversities, which disrupted and affected their learning and performance in the science classroom. Students experienced having a teacher of limited pedagogical content knowledge in science, and little commitment to teach science in the classroom. Consequently, the students were not encouraged to learn science; they lost interest to learn science as well as they have developed a negative attitude towards their teachers and the subject. In the same manner, the students experienced difficulty in understanding the topic and inability to connect previous information to a new one because of having a teacher of little commitment in the instruction of science. With this, the interested parties such as the teachers, administrators, students can develop appropriate actions to address these problems not only in the science classroom but in the school in general.

BackgroundIntegration of engineering into middle school science and mathematics classrooms is a key aspect of STEM integration. However, successful pedagogies for teachers to use engineering talk in their classrooms are not fully understood.Purpose/HypothesisThis study aims to address this need with the research question: How does a middle school life science teacher use engineering talk during an engineering design‐based STEM integration unit?Design/MethodThis case study examined the talk of a teacher whose students demonstrated high levels of learning in science and engineering throughout a three‐year professional development program. Transcripts of whole‐class verbal interactions for 18 class periods in the life science‐based STEM integration unit were analyzed using a theoretical framework based on the Framework for Quality K‐12 Engineering Education.ResultsThe teacher used talk to integrate engineering in a variety of ways, skillfully weaving engineering throughout the unit. He framed lessons around problem scoping, incorporated engineering ideas into scientific verbal interactions, and aligned individual lessons and the overall unit with the engineering design process. He stayed true to the context of the engineering challenge and treated the students as young engineers.ConclusionsThis teacher's talk helped to integrate engineering with the science and mathematics content of the unit and modeled the practices of informed designers to help students learn engineering in the context of their science classroom. These findings have the potential to improve how educators and curricula developers utilize engineering teacher talk to support STEM integration.

The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) call for students to exhibit an in-depth understanding of scientific inquiry practices, including direct observation, creative design thinking, and argumentation based on evidential learning. To support academic equity for multilingual learners, these new expectations require reconceptualization of science teacher education and classroom instruction, whereby emphasis is placed on incorporating the linguistic and cultural repertoires of learners through multimodal and open-ended learning activities. To support this shift in practices, this paper presents a culturally sustaining systemic functional linguistics (CS SFL) framework for science teachers and multilingual classrooms. CS SFL praxis emphasizes three intersecting areas: language development, knowledge development, and cultural sustenance.

Background: Incorporating student voice into the science classroom has the potential to positively impact science teaching and learning. However, students are rarely consulted on school and classroom matters. This literature review examines the effects of including student voice in the science classroom.Purpose: The purpose of this literature review was to explore the research on student voice in the science classroom. This review includes research from a variety of science education sources and was gathered and analyzed using a systematic literature review process.Design and methods: I examined articles from a variety of educational journals. I used three key terms as my primary search terms: student voice, student perceptions, and student perspectives. The primary search terms were used in conjunction with qualifiers that included science education, science curriculum, student emergent curriculum, student centered curriculum, and science. In order to be included in the literature review, articles needed to be published in peer-reviewed, academic journals, contain clearly defined methods (including quantitative, qualitative, or mixed methods), include research conducted in K through 12 classrooms, include the term ‘student voice’, and focus specifically on science. I included articles from a variety of science classrooms including general middle school science, science-specific after-school programs, secondary science classrooms in a variety of countries, and physics, biology, and aerospace classrooms. No restrictions were placed on the country in which the research was conducted or on the date of the research.Conclusions: The results of the literature review process uncovered several themes within the literature on student voice. Student voice research is situated within two main theoretical perspectives, critical theory and social constructivism, which I used as the main themes to structure my findings. I also identified subcategories under each main theme to further structure the results. Under critical theory, I identified three subcategories: determining classroom topics, developing science agency, and forming identities. Under social constructivism, I discovered four subcategories: forming identities, incorporating prior knowledge and experience, communicating interest in topics and classroom activities, and improving student–teacher relationship. The research supports that allowing students a voice in the classroom can lead them to feel empowered, able to construct their own meaning and value in science, demonstrate increased engagement and achievement, and become more motivated. I conclude students should be allowed a voice in the science classroom and to continue to ignore these voices would be a disservice to students and educators alike.