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This book extends and unifies recent debate and research about science education in several disparate fields, including philosophy of science, cognitive psychology and motivation theory. Through an approach based on the personalization of learning and the politicization of the curriculum and classroom, it shows how the complex goal of critical scientific literacy can be achieved by all students, including those who traditionally underachieve in science or opt out of science education at the earliest opportunity.
Current thinking in situated cognition and learning through apprenticeship are employed to build a sociocultural learning model based on a vigorous learning community, in which the teacher acts as facilitator, co-learner and anthropologist. Later chapters describe how these theoretical arguments can be translated into effective classroom practice through a coherent inquiry-oriented pedagogy, involving a much more critical and wide-ranging use of hands-on and language-based learning than is usual in science education.
List of contents
In pursuit of scientific literacy
Towards a personalized science
The significance of prior knowledge in science and learning
Constructivist approaches to teaching and learning science
The paradox of constructivism
Prioritizing the affective
Exploring some social dimensions of learning
Science education as enculturation
Problems of assimilation and exclusion
Authenticity in science and learning
Walking the line
enculturation without assimilation
Exploring and developing personal understanding through practical work
Exploring and developing personal understanding through language
Making it work
the role of the teacher
Index.
About the author
Derek Hodson has thirty years experience in science education. After ten years teaching science in secondary schools in England, Scotland and Wales, he spent eight years working in pre-service teacher education at the University of Manchester. In 1991, following six years teaching science education and curriculum theory at the University of Auckland, he was appointed Professor of Science Education at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, Toronto. He has very wide research interests, including innovative forms of teacher education, and has published extensively in science education journals in UK, United States, Canada, New Zealand and Australia.
Summary
Through an approach based on the personalization of learning and the politicization of the curriculum and classroom, this work shows how the complex goal of critical scientific literacy can be achieved by students, including those who traditionally underachieve in science or opt out of science education at the earliest opportunity.
