Selecting Socio-scientific Issues for Teaching

Tamara S Hancock,Troy D Sadler,Andrew T Kinslow,Patricia J Friedrichsen

doi:10.1007/s11191-019-00065-x

Abstract

Currently there is little guidance given to teachers in selecting focal issues for socio-scientific issues (SSI)-based teaching and learning. As a majority of teachers regularly collaborate with other teachers, understanding what factors influence collaborative SSI-based curriculum design is critical. We invited 18 secondary science teachers to participate in a professional development on SSI-based instruction and curriculum design. Through intentional design, we studied how these teachers formed curriculum design teams and how they selected focal issues for SSI-based curriculum units. We developed substantiative grounded theory to explain these processes. Key findings include how teachers’ tensions and agential moves worked in tandem in the development of a safe and shared place to share discontentment and generate opportunities to form design teams and select issues. Teacher passion and existing resources are factors as influential as considerations for issue relevance. Implications for teacher professional development and research are included.

Highlights

Advances in science and technology continuously create new intersections of science and society that result in complex and often controversial issues (Janasoff 2004)
It was often one teacher who was passionate about an issue which led to the team selecting that issue. This required the passionate teacher to act in ways that facilitated buy-in through the collaborative process and shared meaning. These findings suggest that scaffolding team dynamics could be helpful for supporting teachers in collaborative socio-scientific issues (SSI)-based curriculum design
Teachers brought with them ideals, tensions, and beliefs, and they needed to work with these personal factors in order to produce Safe and Shared Spaces with other teachers

Summary

Introduction

Advances in science and technology continuously create new intersections of science and society that result in complex and often controversial issues (Janasoff 2004) These areas of intersection, such as biotechnology and climate change (Janasoff 2010), have been identified as socio-scientific issues (SSI) within the science education community (Fleming 1986) and have been positioned as productive contexts for teaching and learning (Zeidler 2014). In the USA, the Generation Science Standards (NGSS) (NGSS Lead States 2013; National Research Council (NRC), 2012), a national policy document, offers a set of science education standards for grades 1–12. These standards consist of 3-dimensional performance expectations, comprised of disciplinary core ideas, science or engineering practices, and crosscutting themes. This study has applications beyond this context to other situations in which teachers are collaborating to design SSI curricula

Methods

Findings

Discussion

Conclusion