Identifying a gender-inclusive pedagogy from Maltese science teachers' personal practical knowledge

Teachers bring with them into the science classrooms their own gendered identitities and their views and perceptions about how boys and girls learn and achieve in science. This paper tries to explore the way in which fourteen Maltese science teachers use their own 'personal practical knowledge' to identify their views about gender and science and create their own individual gender-inclusive pedagogy. The study suggests that the science teachers focus more on the individuality of students and on the social and cultural background of the students in their classrooms rather than on gender. The teachers try to develop pedagogies and assessment practices which take into consideration the personal constructs of individual learners. The ideas for such a gender-inclusive pedagogy emerge from their common-sense experience in the classroom, their training as teachers and are closely interrelated to current ideas of social constructivism

Opportunities and challenges of China’s inquiry-based education reform in middle and high schools: Perspectives of science teachers and teacher educators

Consistent with international trends, an emergent interest in inquiry-based science teaching and learning in K-12 schools is also occurring in China. This study investigates the possibilities for and the barriers to enactment of inquiry-based science education in Chinese schools. Altogether 220 Chinese science teachers, science teacher educators and researchers (primarily from the field of chemistry education) participated in this study in August 2001. Participants represented 13 cities and provinces in China. We administered two questionnaires, one preceding and one following a 3-hour presentation by a US science educator and researcher about inquiry-based teaching and learning theories and practices. In each of three sites in which the study was conducted (Shanghai, Guangzhou and Beijing), questionnaires were administered, and four representative participants were interviewed. Our coding and analysis of quantifiable questionnaire responses (using a Likert scale), of open-ended responses, and of interview transcripts revealed enthusiastic interest in incorporating inquiry-based teaching and learning approaches in Chinese schools. However, Chinese educators face several challenges: (a) the national college entrance exam needs to align with the goals of inquiry-based teaching; (b) systemic reform needs to happen in order for inquiry-based science to be beneficial to students, including a change in the curriculum, curriculum materials, relevant resources, and teacher professional development; (c) class size needs to be reduced; and (d) an equitable distribution of resources in urban and rural schools needs to occur.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/42933/1/10763_2005_Article_1517.pd

Teaching ethics

As Michael Matthews has observed,‘philosophy is not far below the surface in any science classroom’ (1998, p. 995). Complex epistemological questions may emerge from even the most routine classroom treatments of the scientific method. What counts as evidence in a particular lesson? What is the epistemological status of the models and analogies students are expected to reproduce in tests? Similarly, metaphysical questions separate the truth claims of western science and indigenous knowledge, and evolutionary science from creationism. In addition, many students bring to class strong views about the medical and environmental issues that they cover in science. Whenever science and social policy intersect, such ethical questions arise. As the history of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy in the United Kingdom shows, ethical and scientific issues cannot be disentangled (United Kingdom, 2000). How soon did the scientific consensus emerge that the disease was a risk to humans? How much sooner did some suspect it? What social judgements would have been drawn if they overestimated the risk, announced it too soon, and needlessly slaughtered the British cattle herd? In a society dominated by risk (Giddens, 1999) scientists are forever caught between the possibility of panic and the fear of involvement in a cover up