Supporting aesthetic experience of science in everyday life

Abstract

ABSTRACT Researchers have argued that a central goal of science education is to transform students' out-of-school experiences, so that students have aesthetic experiences of the world that would not otherwise be available to them. The goal of this paper is to articulate a set of design principles that support this goal. In doing so, I will first position this as a problem of transfer, and describe a perspective on transfer in which an idea or experience is not so much abstracted from its original context, but one in which the learning context incorporates out-of-class contexts, and vice versa. After characterising a range of context domains that may be positioned intercontextually, I will argue that such transfer of scientific activity is fostered in classrooms that are themselves intercontextual: where out-of-class contexts are invoked by students in scientifically consequential and aesthetically meaningful ways as they develop and vet ideas. I develop a taxonomy of intercontextuality and describe classroom episodes of such intercontextuality from an undergraduate course that shows evidence of high transfer of aesthetic experience. I then offer suggestions for how elements of course design may support students in such aesthetic experiences.