Assessment of Primary Students Scientific Literacy

This article discusses assessment to improve teaching and learning in science. The report from the National Review of Science Education (2001) recommended that a resource bank of high quality assessment items be developed to support improved assessment practice in school science. A response to this has been the Science Education Assessment Resources (SEAR) project which is developing an online resource bank of science education assessment resources for teachers. The SEAR Project is described, as is the National Assessments of Scientific Literacy which will test the scientific literacy of year 6 students in 2003

Challenges of conducting ethical video-based classroom research

The advent of digital video technology has opened ‐ up a new paradigm of education research as it has the capacity to capture a permanent record of all the nuances of teaching and learning interactions in a form that allows the data to be scrutinised in great detail and shared with other teachers and researchers. The Capture of teaching on video is becoming widespread both for research and for teacher professional learning purposes. There are a number of research ethical principles and professional ethics that need to be considered when conducting this type of research if the rights of participants are to be protected

Proceedings of the 21st annual conference of the Western Australian Science Education Association

The Western Australian Science Education Association (WASEA) is an informal group of science educators that meets annually for a conference at one of the Perth universities. The conference is organised by a committee of representatives from the universities and has contributed greatly to collegiality amongst the community of science educators in Perth. The first meeting of WASEA was held at the Churchlands College of Advanced Education in 1975 and has been held each year except in 1979 and 1991 when the W ASEA meeting was incorporated into the meeting of the Australian (now Australasian) Science Education Research Association. These Proceedings comprise edited papers from the 21st meeting held in 1996. This collection of papers has been made available internationally through the Educational Resource Information Centre (ERIC)

Think Piece: Preparing today’s children for the workplaces of tomorrow: The critical role of STEM education

Keywords: STEM, workplace, science, mathematic

The state of science in Australian secondary schools

Presents research which sets out to establish two pictures: one of the ideal regarding the teaching and learning of science, the other of the reality of what is actually happening in Australian schools. Identifies issues and implications for science teachers and the profession

Methods for multimodal analysis and representation of teaching-learning interactions in primary science lessons captured on video

Video-based classroom research is opening-up exciting new insights into how teachers generate productive opportunities for student engagement in quality learning, reasoning and the development of their scientific literacy. The significant role played by multimodal representations in learning and teaching becomes evident through the medium of video and its analysis. Classroom research that is framed from social constructivist, sociocultural, activity theory and social semiotic perspectives highlights the social interactions involving multimodal representations which are used to communicate science ideas and also act as semiotic resources for meaning making. Social and cognitive processes of co-constructing meaning are mediated by talk, embodied representations such as gesture and role play, graphical and textual representations. Video offers unique affordances to capture the multimodality of these representations and interactions (Flewitt, 2006), however, new methods of documenting, transcribing and re-representing such data are needed to capture the rich multimodality of the data (Bezemer & Mavers, 2011). This paper outlines research methods developed to analyse and represent classroom video data collected in a study of primary science teaching and learning funded by the Australian Research Council

Primary Connections: Stage 3: Interim research and evaluation report No. 6: Professional learning facilitators: confidence, self-efficacy and activities at the end of Term 3, 2006

The number of professional learning facilitators (PLFs) attending the January, end of Term 1 and end of Term 3 workshops progressively decreased from 89, to 72 to 60. Self-efficacy scores increased from end Term 1 to end Term 3 and were very positive. The mean total scale score for teacher PLFs was lower than for other PLFs. Of the PLFs that completed self-efficacy scales on all questionnaires, the number of PLFs with modest self-efficacy scores (4.3). Non-teacher PLFs had higher confidence than teacher PLFs. More professional learning activities were conducted by PLFs in Terms 2 and 3 compared with Term 1. There were differences in the types and frequencies of activities conducted by teacher PLFs and other PLFs. A total of 56 papers, workshops and information sessions were presented in Terms 2 and 3 by the 60 PLFs who completed this questionnaire. At the end of Term 3 two-thirds of the PLFs had presented workshops, which represents an increase in activity over Term 1. There was no major difference in the numbers and types of workshops presented by teacher PLFs and other PLFs during Terms 2 and 3. The main factors enabling PLFs’ effectiveness include their position, communications network, support of line managers, time being available for facilitation work, high interest in Primary Connections, and having the knowledge and skills required for facilitating Primary Connections workshops. The main inhibitors appear to be time for facilitation work and conflicting priorities within schools for making time available for Primary Connections workshops

Primary Connections: Stage 3: Interim research and evaluation report 12: WA professional learning facilitators workshop: September 2007

The workshop attracted a sample of participants, of whom, half were based in schools as classroom teachers, science co-ordinators or deputy principals, and half were based in central or district offices as education advisors or consultants (Key Findings 1 and 3). Given that only one-third of the PLFs were classroom teachers it is likely many of the PLFs will have the flexibility within their professional roles to facilitate professional learning within their districts. Although a majority of the professional learning facilitators (PLFs) had no science studies beyond Year 12, one-quarter had a science major in their undergraduate studies (KF2). Eight participants had five or less years teaching experience while one-third had 20 or more years of experience. The group was diverse in background. All but one had professional learning facilitation experience and half of the group had five or more days of facilitation experience (KF4), far more than the NSW cohort (Hackling, 2008) which can be attributed to the higher proportion of education advisors in the WA group. Prior to the workshop the group had a reasonable but not high mean score for confidence with their own science teaching; a level of confidence that was lower than that of the January 2007 group of PLFs (KF18). There was considerable variation in the backgrounds of the participants as indicated by the high standard deviations for key variables, however, the majority of the group had appropriate background and experience to benefit from the PLF training. The participants’ beliefs about the purpose of primary science teaching, the characteristics of effective science teaching and beliefs about effective teacher professional learning were broadly consistent with the research literature (e.g. Goodrum, Hackling & Rennie, 2001; Senate Inquiry, 1998) and with the focus of the Primary Connections project (KFs5-10). The PLFs’ beliefs about improving literacy teaching were particularly consistent with the Primary Connections approach: embedding literacy teaching into all learning areas; extending the range of genres; explicit development of skills; and, the provision of current and relevant resources (KF9). The participants’ goals for attending the workshop were strongly related to their personal needs of learning how to facilitate Primary Connections professional learning, learning about Primary Connections and improving their own teaching (KF13). Prior to the workshop, most of the participants’ concerns appeared to be related to the informational, personal and management stages of concern from the Concerns-Based Adoption Model of Hall and Hord (1987) rather than having concerns about system-wide implementation of the programme. The main factors, identified by the PLFs, likely to act as barriers to the uptake of Primary Connections were: money/resources, access/time for professional learning, availability of teacher relief and support from administration (KF11). Only two PLFs mentioned limited availability of curriculum units which can be attributed to WA DET having provided curriculum units to all government primary schools and the increased range of units available from the Academy of Science. Prior to the workshop, they expected that their own understanding of the programme and the support of line managers were possible limitations on their own effectiveness as facilitators (KF12). It should be noted that none of this WA cohort were Primary Connections trial teachers as most had been previously trained as facilitators. However, it should be noted, that after the workshop, all indicated that they understood the Primary Connections project, the teaching and learning model and curriculum resources To a large extent or Quite a lot (Table 15). The workshop had very positive impacts on the participants’ self-efficacy for facilitation and confidence for facilitating Primary Connections workshops. The PLFs’ self-efficacy as professional learning facilitators increased significantly over the workshop (KF19). The increase in self-efficacy was greater than for the January 2007 and July NSW workshops. There was a decrease in the number of PLFs with modest levels of self-efficacy and an increase in the number with very high levels of self-efficacy (KF19). After the workshop, the PLFs had high self-efficacy for posing engaging tasks for teachers to work on and for using facilitation tools and techniques. This can be attributed to opportunities to try out the activities they would use in their own workshops, being provided with the resources for these activities, and having the use of facilitation tools and techniques modelled for them in the workshop. After the workshop, the lowest mean item score was 4.22/5 which is between the scores for Confident (4/5) and Very confident (5/5) which indicates the high level of confidence for facilitating the full range of Primary Connections workshops (Table 21). Given the strong growth in self-efficacy and confidence it is not surprising that the workshop was evaluated very positively by the PLFs with large majorities indicating they had achieved the aims for the workshop and that they were very well prepared for their role as a PLF (KFs 14 and 15). Five of the PLFs indicated that they would have liked more than the three days of the workshop. Given that none of the PLFs were trial teachers they would have had limited prior knowledge of the programme. The professional learning resources were also rated very positively and feedback suggests no obvious areas in need of improvement (KF17). One PLF would have liked the resources to be linked to the WA learning outcomes and one would have liked a wider range of workshop topics. In terms of their ongoing needs for support, the PLFs most frequently mentioned the support of the Academy team, updates of resources and contact with other PLFs (KF16). This highlights the importance of the aim for the workshop of building networks between the PLFs themselves and with the Academy team who will provide ongoing support. Given the quality of the workshop and resources, and the richness of the professional learning that occurred for the PLFs, it is likely that they will be effective as facilitators and leaders within their own schools. There would be value in providing a follow-up workshop to provide an opportunity to ascertain the extent to which they are successful as facilitators and to give them further support and update them on new resources. Although not explicitly evaluated, it is likely that there are important benefits from conducting PLF training within jurisdictions. It provides an increased opportunity for jurisdictional ownership over the training of the PLFs, for the workshops to be tailored to the specific contexts and policy settings of the jurisdiction and for the local science policy officer to have significant input to the programme. Building jurisdictional workshops on the expertise and models developed nationally by the Australian Academy of Science ensures quality, and tailoring workshops to local contexts ensures relevance and ownership. These are important benefits of the national collaborative approach advocated by Goodrum et al. (2001) for the improvement of science education in Australian schools

The development of expertise in genetic pedigree problem solving

Genetic disorders are to some extent predictable and are therefore preventable through genetic counselling. One aspect of the role of genetic counsellors is the construction and analysis of genetic pedigrees which are an important tool in the counselling This thesis process. reports on a study of the development of expertise in pedigree analysis skills. The purpose of this research programme was to compare experts and students' use of genetics knowledge in testing inheritance hypotheses during the solution of genetic pedigree problems, and to develop and implement educational interventions to train novice geneticists in the use of experts' hypothesis testing strategies. Expert groups were comprised of specialist university genetics lecturers and genetic counsellors; student groups were comprised of first and third year undergraduate genetics students. The research programme was comprised of five studies. Think-aloud protocol data from the first study indicated that experts obtained more correct answers and produced more conclusive solutions than students. Experts were more effective in their hypothesis testing than students as they were able to recognize and correctly interpret more patterns of inheritance than students, and were more systematic in their falsification of alternative hypotheses. An expert consensus study produced an optimal solution for each of the problems. These solutions were characterized by a two step solution process which quickly reduced the set of inheritance hypotheses. In the first step, patterns of affected and unaffected individuals in the pedigree were used as cues to falsify either both recessive or both dominant modes of inheritance. The second step involved the use of cues to discriminate between the remaining autosomal and X-linked inheritance hypotheses. Written tests used in the third study demonstrated that most novice students lacked the genetics knowledge needed to test hypotheses related to X-linked modes of inheritance. Case study data from a fourth study showed that students' inconclusive and incorrect solutions to problems could be directly traced to a failure to recognize and correctly interpret X-linkage cues. In the fifth study a treatment group of novices instructed in the knowledge and strategies used by experts obtained more correct answers and produced more conclusive solutions to pedigree problems than a control group exposed to traditional instruction. The main charter of institutions of higher education is the development of expertise. This research programme has demonstrated the pedagogic utility of the expert-novice paradigm in achieving this educational goal