Asia-Pacific Forum on Science Learning and Teaching, Volume 6, Issue 1
FOREWORD

Promoting Science Teacher Ownership through STL Teaching
 

Miia RANNIKMÄE

University of Tartu, Estonia
Department for Science Education

Email: miia@ut.ee

Contents

Abstract

STL Teaching

Consequence Map

Teachers Readiness to teach STL – readiness to change

Research Findings

Science Teachers Ownership on teaching STL

The Way Forward- what can be suggested worldwide

References

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Abstracts

A sad fact of teaching is that once the classroom door is closed, teachers are on their own under 'normal' conditions. They are in charge of the teaching direction, the choice of materials, the pace of learning, the atmosphere created and the learning emphasis. Developing these skills requires expertise and experience and is aided by interactions with other teachers, especially in the same subject areas.

There is a need for teachers to exchange experiences and to be made aware of new ideas and developments. A peer group professional support , where developments driven by teachers for teachers is essential which contrasts with a top-down model of pushing teachers towards the implementing of “ready-cooked programmes”, in which they can rather act like a technician than a translator.

The current paper explores possibilities how to give ownership on teaching science accordingly to the needs for the 21st century. However the philosophy behind this, has been introduced by ICASE through several workshops, supported by UNESCO around the world (Holbrook & Rannikmäe, 1997), empirical data to evaluate the operationalisation of the philosophy, were collected among Estonian science teachers as part of longitudinal study (Rannikmäe, 2001; Rannikmäe & Laius, 2004). The potential for developing social issue based -students participatory, supplementary teaching materials by teachers and seeking teachers feedback that involves both conceptual and values education has been considered as an essential component of teacher ownership.