Conceptions Of Science Teaching Research Articles

Getting to a good place with science instruction: Rethinking an appropriate conception of teaching science

AbstractThis essay opens with a question about what science teaching would look like in a world where categorical seams of human diversity were not probabilistic determinants of science learning. After revisiting Hewson and Hewson's description of an “appropriate conception of science teaching,” I detail the ways in which the field of science education has advanced in the decades since that article's publication. Drawing upon Cohen's notion of teaching as an “impossible profession,” I highlight how conceptions of science teaching compete with other popular models of teaching and learning science. Fenstermacher and Richardson's distinction between successful teaching, and good teaching is then presented to demonstrate that even science teaching that is considered successful and good remains embedded in a constrained system where well‐regarded classroom practices may still lead to accumulated negative consequences. The essay ends with a discussion of complexity and recursiveness in science teaching, an argument for science teaching that includes embedded understandings of that teaching and learning on the part of the students themselves, and suggestions for a revised conception of science teaching.

Teachers’ and Educational Administrators’ Conceptions of Inquiry: Do They Promote or Constrain Inquiry-Based Science Teaching in Junior High Schools?

This study sought to examine whether teachers’ and educational administrators’ conceptions of inquiry promote or constrain inquiry-based science teaching in junior high schools. The study also explored any connections between participants’ conceptions of scientific inquiry, inquiry teaching, and inquiry learning. Multiple-case study involving semi-structured interviews was used to collect data from 18 integrated science teachers and 23 educational administrators from rural and urban areas in the Central Region of Ghana. Analysis of the qualitative data involved open coding and categorisation of participants’ responses. We found that all the teachers and educational administrators held either uninformed or partially informed conceptions of scientific inquiry and inquiry teaching and learning which, constrain inquiry-based science instruction in junior high schools. We also found that participants’ conceptions of scientific inquiry reflected in their conceptions of science teaching and learning. Again, we found that the uninformed conceptions of inquiry developed from participants’ lack of exposure and experiences with inquiry-based science instruction when they were students. We recommend regular explicit-reflective in-service trainings to promote teachers’ and educational administrators’ conceptions and teachers’ practice of inquiry-based science teaching. We also recommend reforms in preservice science education that emphasise the engagement of prospective teachers in collaborative explicit-reflective inquiry investigations and instructional practices.

The ontology of science teaching in the neoliberal era

Because of ever stricter standards of accountability, science teachers are under an increasing and unrelenting pressure to demonstrate the effects of their teaching on student learning. Econometric perspectives of teacher quality have become normative in assessment of teachers’ work for accountability purposes. These perspectives seek to normalize some key ontological assumptions about teachers and teaching, and thus play an important role in shaping our understanding of the work science teachers do as teachers in their classrooms. In this conceptual paper I examine the ontology of science teaching as embedded in econometric perspectives of teacher quality. Based on Foucault’s articulation of neoliberalism as a discourse of governmentality in his ‘The Birth of Biopolitics’ lectures, I suggest that this ontology corresponds well with the strong and substantivist ontology of work under neoliberalism, and thus could potentially be seen as reflection of the influence of neoliberal ideas in education. Implications of the mainstreaming of an ontology of teaching that is compatible with neoliberalism can be seen in increasing marketization of teaching, ‘teaching evangelism’, and impoverished notions of learning and teaching. A shift of focus from teacher quality to quality of teaching and building conceptual models of teaching based on relational ontologies deserve to be explored as important steps in preserving critical and socially just conceptions of science teaching in neoliberal times.

Secondary Physical Science Teachers' Conceptions of Science Teaching in a Context of Change

Pre-service teachers enter initial teacher education programmes with conceptions of teaching gleaned from their own schooling. These conceptions, which include teachers' beliefs, may be resistant to change, which is a challenge in contexts where teacher educators hope that teachers will teach in ways different from their own schooling. Conceptions of teaching found in different cultural and disciplinary contexts have contextual differences but have resonances with the results of research into teacher beliefs. Our sample of eight South African secondary physical science teachers was schooled in a system which encouraged knowledge transmission, but they were prepared in their initial teacher education for a learner-centred approach. After they had taught for a few years, we explored their conceptions of science teaching, using phenomenographic interviews. Four conceptions emerged inductively from the analysis: transferring science knowledge from mind to mind; transferring problematic science knowledge from mind to mind; creating space for learning science knowledge and creating space for learning problematic science knowledge. Internally these conceptions are constituted by three dimensions of variation: the nature of the science knowledge to be learnt, the role of the students and the role of the teacher. Media and practical work play different roles in the external horizon of these conceptions. These conceptions reflect the disciplinary context as well as the emphases of the sample's initial teacher education programme. This suggests that initial teacher education can significantly shape teachers' conceptions of teaching.

Enacting classroom inquiry: Theorizing teachers' conceptions of science teaching

AbstractTranslating written curricular materials into rich, complex, learning environments is an undertheorized area in science education. This study examines two critical cases of teachers enacting a technology‐rich curriculum focused on the development of complex reasoning around biodiversity for fifth graders. Two elements emerged that significantly impact teacher enactment—their conceptions of authenticity (authentic learning/authentic science) and their view of science (descriptive/inferential). The results suggest that disentangling the common conflation of these two elements supports a broader definition of inquiry science teaching that is more sensitive to context and individual teacher enactment. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Sci Ed 92:973–993, 2008

Evolution of the conceptions of a secondary education biology teacher: Longitudinal analysis using cognitive maps

AbstractWe describe a longitudinal study of a secondary education biology teacher at two moments in her career (1993–2002), determining the changes in her conceptions of the nature of science and its teaching and learning, and the factors that favored or hindered such changes. The changes were analyzed using cognitive maps, constructed on the basis of the Inventory of Teachers' Pedagogical & Scientific Beliefs (INPECIP) questionnaire, designed and validated by R. Porlán, A. Rivero, and R. Martín del Pozo (1997), and a semistructured interview. The results showed the process of change in conceptions to be complex and gradual, with different conceptions being out of phase with each other. During her first 4 years of teaching, until 1993, her conceptions of science teaching and learning began to evolve from a teacher and content‐centered model to one that was more student centered. The catalyst of the change in her initial conceptions of teaching and learning was her becoming aware of the students' alternative ideas. Her empiricist conception of the nature of science, however, remained practically unaltered during these first 4 years. This conception began to shift slowly toward less dogmatic and more up‐to‐date positions as a consequence of her changing view of teaching‐learning, and by 2002, there was again coherence between her scientific thinking and her ideas on science teaching and learning. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Sci Ed, 91:461–491, 2007

Conceptions of Teaching Science Held by Novice Teachers in an Alternative Certification Program

Case studies to investigate the conceptions of teaching science held by three novice teachers participating in an alternative secondary science teacher certification program were conducted, along with the relationships between their conceptions of science teaching and their science teaching practice. Data used to build the cases included the participants' responses to two surveys and transcripts of audiotaped interviews with the participants and their university supervisors who observed them teach. Findings revealed that novice teachers hold ideal and working conceptions of teaching science, the novices' conceptions can serve as referents for their classroom practice, and the conceptions of teaching science held by the novice teachers were resistant to change, even in the face of well-intentioned instruction.

Conceptions of Science Teaching Revealed by Metaphors and by Answers to Open-Ended Questions

(2000). Conceptions of Science Teaching Revealed by Metaphors and by Answers to Open-Ended Questions. Journal of Science Teacher Education: Vol. 11, No. 2, pp. 173-186.