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Implementing Grand Challenges: A Case Study of Implementing Innovative Curricula

✇Latest Results for Research in Science Education

Abstract

In response to the growing emphasis on addressing global socio-scientific issues like climate change and viral pandemics in K-12 education, we designed three socio-scientific units for middle school science. We call this curriculum Grand Challenges (GC). The GC curriculum shifts from traditional methods to a focus on socio-scientific issues that resonate locally and globally and prepare students for future complexities. GC is a response to the evolving landscape of science education which emphasizes transformative, future-focused approaches that engage students with science content through contextualized, disciplinary practices. This study explores the implementation of the GC curriculum by two teachers, highlighting their choices and the impact on instruction. The findings reveal the crucial role of teachers in actualizing innovative curricula, the challenges of adopting new practices, and the need for robust support systems. This work contributes to understanding how to effectively integrate socio-scientific issues into science education, fostering critical thinking and global citizenship among students.

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Unveiling Students’ Mental Models and Learning Demands: an Empirical Validation of Secondary Students’ Model Progression on Plant Nutrition

✇Latest Results for Research in Science Education

Abstract

Identifying the mental models held by students has been widely emphasized as being a pivotal aspect of effective science education. In fact, it allows us to understand students’ conceptions, detect teaching-learning difficulties and tailor instruction accordingly. Hence, in this study, the plant nutrition mental models held by upper secondary students were investigated and empirically validated with the aim of detecting the most pressing learning demands and providing instructional guidelines to improve the teaching-learning of the topic. In order to unveil students’ mental models a 5-question open-ended questionnaire was administered to 122 Spanish upper secondary students. Their responses were analyzed through an innovative approach that merged phenomenography and Item Response Theory. Three distinct models emerge from the analysis investigating the sequential development of students’ reasoning. The first and most basic comprises students with heterotrophic explanatory ideas based on intuitive and naïve conceptions. The intermediate model consists of participants who incorporate photosynthesis and plants’ gas exchanges to their models without fully grasping some key underlying concepts probably due to previous misconception inducing instruction. The upper model encompasses the few students who have autotrophic mental models and ideas which resemble the consensus Scientific Model of Plant Nutrition. The findings also reveal that the overall conceptualization level of the participants is relatively low and that several teaching-learning difficulties are strictly linked to each of the different mental models. Finally, the learning demands of the topic are described, and the implications for the teaching-learning designs aimed at overcoming those difficulties are discussed.

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Using Socioscientific Issues to Teach Argumentation to Year 7 Science Students in a low Socioeconomic Rural Australian School

✇Latest Results for Research in Science Education

Abstract

The Australian science curriculum is intended to enable school students to develop an understanding and curiosity about the way that science can assist them in making sense of the physical and technological world. In addition to understanding and communicating scientific knowledge and using inquiry processes, students also need to develop the skills to make evidence-based decisions about socio-ecological challenges. Today’s school students will need to be able to use their scientific literacy to construct arguments and make decisions about multifaceted ill-structured scientific problems (called socioscientific issues (SSI)). The aim of this research was to examine whether Year 7 (aged 11–12 years) science students located in a rural region of Australia could improve their argumentation skills following instruction in the context of water-based SSI. An experienced science teacher and her two classes of Year 7 students (n = 39) participated in the research. Using an interpretive paradigm and a case study method, quantitative (pre- and post-instruction questionnaires) and qualitative (classroom observations, lesson plans, student work samples and teacher interview) data were collected. After two consecutive lessons on argumentation about water-based SSI, it was found that the complexity of students’ arguments improved significantly. Teacher strategies that contributed to the improvement included (1) creating a safe environment for students to take risks with their thinking; (2) providing multiple opportunities for students to learn and practice the language of argumentation; (3) constantly encouraging students to write down their arguments: (4) and differentiating instruction to cater for varying student abilities. It is concluded that, with extensive scaffolded teacher support, this group of students were able to understand the purpose and components of an argument and improve their written arguments.

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Formation and Influence of Epistemic Norms in Integrated STEM Problem- Solving: a Study of Singapore Secondary Students’ STEM Inquiry

✇Latest Results for Research in Science Education

Abstract

Guiding students’ STEM problem solving entails dynamic processes driven by changes in real-world contexts. To understand these processes, we aimed to identify the formation and influence of ‘norms’ as shared behaviour patterns desirable in STEM problem-solving. To this end, 10 sessions of STEM lessons for secondary students were carried out, and we collected data comprising lesson observation videos, fieldnotes, interviews, and photographs of students’ artifacts. The data were analysed based on three features of norms: justifiability, sharing, and behaviours. The results report three epistemic norms in STEM problem-solving. First, the norm of ‘defining a real-world problem that is useful and accessible’ was found. While the students searched for useful problems in their everyday lives, they also needed to ensure that these problems were scoped such that they had the capacity to manage them. The second norm was ‘designing creative and concrete prototypes’. Students’ prototypes were expected to be creative in addressing the established problems and to be developed in a concrete manner. The last norm identified was ‘testing and revising in more iterative and feasible ways’. The students tested their models repeatedly in a manner aligning with their skills and the materials provided. Based on the findings, educational implications are discussed in terms of understanding and facilitating STEM problem-solving.

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