An Activity-Based Instructional Framework for Transforming Authentic Modeling Practices into Meaningful Contexts for Learning in Science Education

One of the challenges of science education is to integrate activities, content, and tools in a meaningful manner. One way to address this challenging goal is the transformation of authentic scientific practices into contexts for learning, in line with sociocultural activity theory. In this respect, authentic scientific practices are interpreted as the totality of human work situated in society. Within such authentic scientific practices, the activities, content, and tools are connected logically and the relevance is clear among its participants. This study presents an activity-based instructional framework that assists educational designers in transforming authentic scientific practices for the population of students in science education. The activity-based instructional framework has been dialectically constructed with the design and classroom enactment of a curriculum unit based on an authentic chemical modeling practice. The curriculum unit was developed through a participatory design process that took teachers' expertise into account. The pedagogical decisions were abstracted in design guidelines. The curriculum unit was implemented multiple times in classroom to evaluate the design guidelines. Research data were collected by means of audio-taped discussions, completed worksheets, and written questionnaires. The findings supported the potential of transforming authentic scientific practices to achieve meaningful science education

Strategies to support teachers' professional development regarding sense‐making in context‐based science curricula

The aim of this study is to develop more understanding about strategies to support teachers' professional development in curriculum innovations, in which pedagogy and content change simultaneously compared to the conventional curriculum. A pre‐existing framework, including strategies for professional development, was adapted, implemented, and evaluated from the perspective of teachers' sense‐making in teaching context‐based science curricula. This framework guides the design of activities that support teachers' development in three new aspects of teaching context‐based science units: setting a context in class, performing a new teaching role, and teaching new content. In a case study, six teachers in secondary education participated in a professional development program based on the adapted framework. A qualitative inner‐case analysis was conducted to describe teachers' sense‐making during the program, in terms of the categories “assimilation,” “accommodation,” “toleration,” and “distantiation.” Results showed that teachers participating in the professional development program successfully assimilated and accommodated all three aspects; however, the process of teachers' sense‐making of the new content followed a different path compared to the processes of the other aspects. The relation between these results and the adapted framework are discussed to retrieve strategies for planning professional development programs to support teachers in curriculum innovations

Students' perceptions of teaching in context-based and traditional chemistry classrooms: Comparing content, learning activities, and interpersonal perspectives

Context-based curriculum reforms in chemistry education are thought to bring greater diversity to the ways in which chemistry teachers organize their teaching. First and foremost, students are expected to perceive this diversity. However, empirical research on how students perceive their teacher's teaching in context-based chemistry classrooms, and whether this teaching differs from traditional chemistry lessons, is scarce. This study aims to develop our understanding of what teaching looks like, according to students, in context-based chemistry classrooms compared with traditional chemistry classrooms. As such, it might also provide a better understanding of whether teachers implement and attain the intentions of curriculum developers. To study teacher behaviour we used three theoretical perspectives deemed to be important for student learning: a content perspective, a learning activities perspective, and an interpersonal perspective. Data were collected from 480 students in 24 secondary chemistry classes in the Netherlands. Our findings suggest that, according to the students, the changes in teaching in context-based chemistry classrooms imply a lessening of the emphasis on fundamental chemistry and the use of a teacher-centred approach, compared with traditional chemistry classrooms. However, teachers in context-based chemistry classrooms seem not to display more 'context-based' teaching behaviour, such as emphasizing the relation between chemistry, technology, and society and using a student-centred approach. Furthermore, students in context-based chemistry classrooms perceive their teachers as having less interpersonal control and showing less affiliation than teachers in traditional chemistry classrooms. Our findings should be interpreted in the context of former and daily experiences of both teachers and students. As only chemistry is reformed in the schools in which context-based chemistry is implemented, it is challenging for both students and teachers to deal with these reforms

An Activity-Based Instructional Framework for Transforming Authentic Modeling Practices into Meaningful Contexts for Learning in Science Education

One of the challenges of science education is to integrate activities, content, and tools in a meaningful manner. One way to address this challenging goal is the transformation of authentic scientific practices into contexts for learning, in line with sociocultural activity theory. In this respect, authentic scientific practices are interpreted as the totality of human work situated in society. Within such authentic scientific practices, the activities, content, and tools are connected logically and the relevance is clear among its participants. This study presents an activity-based instructional framework that assists educational designers in transforming authentic scientific practices for the population of students in science education. The activity-based instructional framework has been dialectically constructed with the design and classroom enactment of a curriculum unit based on an authentic chemical modeling practice. The curriculum unit was developed through a participatory design process that took teachers' expertise into account. The pedagogical decisions were abstracted in design guidelines. The curriculum unit was implemented multiple times in classroom to evaluate the design guidelines. Research data were collected by means of audio-taped discussions, completed worksheets, and written questionnaires. The findings supported the potential of transforming authentic scientific practices to achieve meaningful science education

Providing students with a sense of purpose by adapting a professional practice

This article reports on a design study aimed at achieving that students experience their learning as meaningful. Two conditions for meaningful activities were identified: (1) students should be motivated to attain a certain goal and (2) they should have rudimentary conceptual and procedural knowledge of how to attain that goal. Together, these were expected to serve as an advance organizer for functional activities. In a professional practice, professionals know more or less how the activities they perform are going to contribute to the objective they want to achieve. We expected that this structure of means-end relationships could be adapted to yield advance organizers for educational use. This idea emerged from two previous research cycles. To explore the idea we chose to design and evaluate an instructional version of the practice of monitoring water quality for 14-15 year old students doing pre-university education. The evaluation results show that we succeeded in designing a proof of principle. This is only a first step in exploring the idea of designing instructional versions of professional practices. We conclude with a discussion on more theoretical implications of this idea