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Asia-Pacific Forum
on Science Learning and Teaching, Volume 11, Issue 1, Article 2
(June, 2010) |
Scientific literacy is the ultimate goal in science education, and SSIs have been indicated as a suitable context to promote scientific literacy in the globalized world of today (Chang & Chiu, 2008; Driver et al., 2000; Hughes, 2000; Kolstø, 2001; Zeidler et al., 2003; Zeidler et al., 2002). Through SSI contexts, in addition to transferring content knowledge to an authentic issue, students’ abilities of critical thinking, decision making and science communication can also be promoted (Albe, 2008; Kolstø et al., 2006; Lee, 2007; Maloney, 2007). To induce students’ interests about learning science, especially female students, SSI-based instruction could be considered as well (Albe, 2008; Chang et al., 2009; Sadler, 2009a). According to the important and emerging SSIs stressed by a considerable amount of literature, we hope that people could understand and remember the essence of SSIs better through the SEE-SEP model with the visualization of the benzene and diamond structures presented in this article. Educators and researchers from different disciplines and fields could also think about applying this SEE-SEP model in their practical work. For instance, teachers from different disciplines could design SSI-based instruction together and provide students with a more holistic view about different SSI topics. Meanwhile, this SEE-SEP analytical framework could also be used in evaluating whether students possess the abilities to deal with the complex and multidimensional features of SSIs, and/or could consider SSIs from different points of view. For researchers from science education, more research-based instructional design and assessment concerning SSIs and the skills of informal reasoning and argumentation could be anticipated based upon this SEE-SEP model. Before making decisions in their work, even policy makers and scientists are also encouraged to reflect about the possible consequences from the different subject areas.
In the end, based on this SEE-SEP model, we sincerely look forward to more discussion and application in the field of interdisciplinary education for developing teaching and learning materials to enhance students’ and the public’s abilities to discuss SSIs and make SSI decisions.
