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Asia-Pacific Forum on Science Learning and Teaching, Volume 19, Issue 2, Article 2 (Dec., 2018) |
Our planet faces major socioscientific challenges in the near future. Climate change, deforestation, depletion of resources, and humanitarian crises in the wake of these are some of the challenges that future generations will need to tackle. Research has identified nine planetary boundaries where human activities threaten our planet's capacity for self-regulation, with potentially unprecedented consequences (Rockström et al., 2009). How to educate tomorrow's citizens to meet such global challenges and make informed decisions is a critically important question for present-day education. Socioscientific issues (SSI) are recognized as good contexts to develop citizens' competence on meeting the challenges. SSI are issues linked to science and technology - authentic, ill-structured problems which are often controversial and involve many stakeholders with different perspectives (Sadler and Zeidler, 2005; Sadler, Barab, and Scott, 2007; Simonneaux, 2008; Chang Rundgren and Rundgren, 2010). In recent decades educational research on SSI has focussed international attention on how to teach and assess students' socioscientific argumentation (e.g. Sadler and Zeidler, 2005; Chang Rundgren and Rundgren 2010; Rundgren, Eriksson, and Chang Rundgren 2017). SSI-based education is also seen as closely related to citizenship education (e.g. European Commission, 2015; Kolstø, 2001). Accordingly, the focus of the article is to investigate pre-service primary teachers' confidence, needs and reflections in relation to socioscientific inquiry-based learning (SSIBL) in the context of the EU FP7 project, Promoting Attainment of Responsible Research and Innovation in Science Education (PARRISE) (www.parrise.com).
Based on the PARRISE project, the conceptual framework of SSIBL addresses central aspects of SSI, including the notions of responsible research and innovation (RRI), citizenship education (CE) and inquiry-based science education (IBSE) (e.g. Knippels, 2015). In the following section research questions are framed through describing the importance of SSIBL, the need for teacher professional development (TPD) and its relation to the European Didaktik tradition, and the role of teacher professional knowledge and reflection.
While we brace for the abovementioned challenges, science as a school subject is simultaneously experiencing decreased enrolment and a perceived lack of relevance and interest among young people in the industrialised world (e.g. Jidesjö et al., 2009). The irony of this situation is that knowledge of science is key to understanding and finding solutions to the challenges of creating a sustainable future. In response, there has been an increased focus on science education through different efforts to help young people understand its relevance (e.g. see the review work done by Stuckey et al., 2013). The issue of how to create a science education that is perceived as meaningful, also for students who will not continue to study science, has become an urgent need among science educators. Roberts (2007) has identified two separate visions of science education: Vision One, in which the structure of academic science determines the structure of science as a school subject, and Vision Two, in which societal issues and the question of how science can help solve them influence the structure of science teaching in schools. Both visions are intended to foster scientific literacy among students, regardless of whether they continue to pursue a science career or not. Aligning with Roberts' Vision Two, SSI has been identified as an approach to achieve a science education that is perceived to be relevant by the students. The different roles played by SSI in international literature, including promoting interest in science, science communication, critical thinking, etc., are also supportive of Vision Two (Chang Rundgren and Rundgren, 2010). In other words, SSI-based teaching can be a way not only to achieve a method of science teaching that does not focus entirely on facts and correct answers (as perceived by many students) but also to provide students with a way of using their science knowledge to debate specific SSI. In addition to SSI, IBSE has been emphasised by a number of researchers in science education as a way to increase students' interest in science education and to improve their scientific literacy (e.g. Gyllenpalm, Wickman, and Holmgren, 2010). The notion of inquiry in science education is one of the few overarching themes that cut across school curricula all over the world (Abd-El-Khalick et al., 2004). The inquiry process, i.e., how to pose questions, formulate hypotheses, design experiments to test hypotheses, collect data, draw conclusions, etc., is an important part of science education (e.g., Gyllenpalm, Wickman, and Holmgren, 2010; Lunde, Rundgren, and Chang Rundgren, 2015). In recent years, several EU-projects focusing on IBSE have been funded following the release of the Rocard report (Rocard et al., 2007), which highlighted the usefulness of IBSE in making science education in Europe more motivating for students.
As the core of SSI argumentation, inquiry and the reasoning process play an essential role in making informed decisions (e.g. Chang and Chiu, 2008). However, school teachers find practising SSI teaching and assessment on SSI argumentation difficult (e.g. Christenson and Chang Rundgren, 2015; Pitiporntapin, Yutakom, and Sadler, 2016), while IBSE teaching practices present a similar challenge (e.g. Lunde, Rundgren and Chang Rundgren, 2015). Thus, the teaching and learning of the combination of SSI and IBSE as SSIBL in the PARRISE project is an even greater challenge. Accordingly, the PARRISE project (granted from 2014 to 2017) aims to develop TPD courses to promote pre- and in-service teachers' competence to teach SSIBL at formal and informal primary through upper secondary education levels. These TPD courses are termed SSIBL TPD courses below.
In the SSIBL TPD courses presented in the study, SSI are seen as contexts for inquiry (linking to IBSE), and a three-step model (Vaino, Holbrook, and Rannikmae, 2012; Walan and Chang Rundgren, 2015) was applied as a model SSIBL activity in the SSIBL TPD courses studied. The three-step SSIBL activity embracing: (1) a contextualised step (describing the issue at stake), (2) a decontextualised stage (the inquiry process, designing the method, and collecting data to solve the task), and finally (3) a recontextualised step (using the collected data in the second step to argue for a certain standpoint and make informed decisions). All three steps, or the whole three-step SSIBL activity, contribute to RRI and CE. SSI and IBSE have their visible and concrete roles as teaching approaches in the three-step SSIBL activity, while RRI and CE are invisible and abstract learning goals behind the scenes. By realising the complexity and the difficulty of teaching SSIBL, the need for introducing SSIBL in TPD is recognised by the PARRISE consortium, which comprises 18 partners from 11 European countries.
The need for teacher professional development
TPD programmes constitute the core, not only of the PARRISE project, but also of several of the EU FP7 projects, such as PROFILES (Professional Reflection-Oriented Focus on Inquiry-based Learning and Education through Science) and ESTABLISH (European Science and Technology in Action: Building Links with Industry, Schools and Home). In the PROFILES project, the focus was on continuing professional development (CPD) programmes developed for in-service teachers, while the ESTABLISH project focused on TPD programmes for pre-service teachers. However, both pre- and in-service teacher groups are taken into account within the PARRISE project.
In recent decades, there has been a growing interest in the importance of teachers' role and their professional knowledge in influencing educational research and student achievement (see Hattie, 2008). However, successful reform of education can never be a question of simply implementing theories; it has been established that teachers must be part of negotiating and implementing the change (Harrison et al., 2008). TPD/CPD can be seen as the medium to facilitate time and space for pre- and in-service teachers' to tackle change or other challenges of education. Even though TPD/CPD has traditionally focused on how educational research can contribute to changes in classroom practice (Hamza et al., 2017), today it is important to give teachers the chance to participate in reforming education, rather than merely being subjected to reforms (Rundgren, 2017). Hamza et al. (2017) have suggested seeing TPD as a two-way encounter between school teaching practice and educational research, in which both practices are mutually influenced in the process, rather than a one-way flow of educational ideas from research to practice. In this vein, there are different ways to approach TPD/CPD, such as design-based research, action research and learning study which are recognised for their different strengths for diverse groups of pre- and in-service teachers (e.g. Chang Rundgren, 2015).
In Europe, TPD is also related to the tradition of Didaktik, in which teachers' professional judgement and choices are regarded as key factors in implementing educational reforms (Westbury, Hopmann, and Riquarts, 2000). In the tradition of Didaktik, teacher professional knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge have been discussed for decades. Especially in German-speaking countries and Scandinavia, the Didaktik tradition is connected to the German concept of Bildung, for which there is no real equivalent in English. Education and Formation have been suggested as possible translations of Bildung, but neither can accurately express the meaning of the German term. Central to the meaning of Bildung is the notion that knowledge fundamentally changes and develops a human being (Sjöström et al. 2017). Schneider (2012) describes a contemporary understanding of Bildung as a reflexive event relating to the formation of the self. The terms self-determination, freedom, emancipation, autonomy, responsibility, reason, and independence are all suggested to be crucial notions of Bildung (Klafki 2000). Some scholars, especially in the field of environmental education, emphasise a political and even activist dimension of Bildung, suggesting not only education for empowerment and citizenship, but also for emancipation and action-competence (e.g. Mogensen and Schnack, 2010). Accordingly, the authors see a strong connection between the Bildung tradition and the central notions of CE and RRI in the SSIBL framework.
Teacher professional knowledge and the need of reflection
According to Fensham (2009), a teacher in the Anglo-American tradition is more of an 'agent of the system', and the content being taught is more regulated by the authorities than in the Didaktik tradition. Still, in the Anglo-American tradition, there are suggestions about how to highlight teachers' professional knowledge and judgement. In the American tradition, teachers' professional knowledge is considered to include pedagogical knowledge (PK), content knowledge (CK), and pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). Shulman proposed the concept of PCK to describe the unique knowledge of teachers who teach specific school subjects (Shulman, 1986; 1987). More recently, Shulman has further asserted that PCK (including learners' learning difficulties, curricula, assessments, etc.) is a dynamic construct that describes what teachers enact when they are confronted with "the challenge of teaching particular subjects to particular learners in specific settings" (Shulman, 2015, 9).
Besides PCK, Fuller and Bown (1975) have identified three stages of concerns characteristic of the teaching profession. The first stage involves concerns about one's adequacy and survival as a teacher, class control, being appreciated by pupils, and being evaluated. The second stage includes concerns about teaching situations related to, for example, methods and materials. The third stage relates to reflections about pupils, their learning, and their social and emotional needs. The experience of becoming a teacher involves the management of all three stages. However, the applicability of such stage-based models has been questioned and discussed (Burn et al., 2000). Reality may be more complex than what can be captured by such a model, although models can be a simple roadmap for orienting oneself in the terrain of becoming a professional teacher.
In addition to teacher professional knowledge, pre-service teachers' teaching needs have been discussed in teacher education literature (e.g. Nilsson, 2009; Nilsson and Loughran, 2012). Identifying some of the major aspects of what teacher students need to acquire and learn in the process of becoming a teacher can be helpful in teacher education. For example, Nilsson (2009, 253) has identified four overarching teaching needs for pre-service teachers, which were all recognised in the SSIBL TPD course design in the study:
- The need for good content knowledge in order to explain phenomena to pupils and connect scientific concepts to everyday situations (using SSI as the context and the inquiry process in the SSIBL TPD courses).
- The need to have a large repertoire of experiments and activities (through the three-step SSIBL activity conducted in the SSIBL TPD courses).
- The need to know about pupils' earlier experiences, general classroom organisation, and learning needs (through PCK reflection in groups in the SSIBL TPD courses).
- The need to know how to be self-reflective (through PCK reflection and SSIBL classroom group design in the SSIBL TPD courses).
In recent years, the concept of reflection has been much addressed in TPD/CPD, but it is not a new idea. Schön (1983) pointed out two kinds of reflection - reflection-in-action (reflection during an event) and reflection-on-action (reflection on a past event) - and addressed their critical role for professionals. Thus, teachers' reflections in and on actions were emphasised in the study, not only for the groups of pre-service primary teachers, but also, for the teacher educators (the authors). Pre-service primary teachers, in one instance, reflected 'on-action' after experiencing a three-step SSIBL activity themselves. In another exercise they were supported with 'reflection-in-action' while designing their own SSIBL activities for 4-6 graders using a PCK reflection tool (including the three main aspects of curriculum, students' learning difficulties, and assessment). As teacher educators, we reflected on our implementation of the first SSIBL TPD course as a whole. We then considered the practical constraints of our teacher education programme (for the second cohort) while also taking into account reflections on the pre-service teachers' performances in the course in order to redesign the next course in the third cohort. The detailed research contexts and the TPD courses with the three cohorts are presented in the methods section.
The aim and research questions
Based on the context of SSIBL TPD courses presented in this article, the study has a two-fold aim: (1) to investigate pre-service primary science teachers' confidence and needs concerning SSIBL, and (2) to explore the pre-service teachers' reflections after experiencing and while designing the three-step SSIBL activities.
The specific questions are:
- What are the pre-service primary science teachers' confidence levels and needs before and after the three cohorts of SSIBL TPD courses? Is there any difference between the three cohorts?
- How do the pre-service primary science teachers reflect on the SSIBL framework (after experiencing the three-step SSIBL activity) and the PCK aspects of SSIBL (while designing their own three-step SSIBL activities)?
