Recent ‘decolonising the curriculum’ movements have called for Higher Education to rethink how it engages with diversity and colonialism in its lectures and syllabi. But what can these ideas mean for science subjects in secondary schools? Grounded on a decolonial perspective around the Science and Technology Studies (STS) field, this paper explores the implications from decolonial perspectives for school science by addressing the following questions: how can science teachers decolonise mainstream science curricula such as the National Curriculum in England with inputs from the STS field? And, what can this endeavour bring to the teaching and learning of science? To support this investigation, a collaborative curriculum development endeavour with a science teacher at a comprehensive school in London/UK is explored. This experience involved planning and teaching four science topics from the National Curriculum in England to a year 8 classroom (students aged 12–13) and a qualitative investigation was carried out through interviews, observations and informal conversations over the school year. Findings reveal that rather than competing for space in an already overcrowded curriculum, decolonial ideas can help teachers to enrich and better integrate different science topics, while also addressing contemporary concerns about critical thinking and representativeness in (science) education.
I didn't know how that could come to this curriculum": teacher's growth through the development of materials about Nature of Science This article arises from a teaching experience at a state secondary school in London/UK that aimed at promoting a more culturally diverse teaching about Nature of Science (NOS) grounded on Global History of Science. Ideas from this field were employed to design of four different teaching and learning plans (TLPs) that linked NOS and content from the National Curriculum for Science in England through historical narratives. The elaboration of these TLPs was carried out as a collaborative experience between the researcher and a participant science teacher throughout one school year, following design principles to inform different cycles of development, teachingat one classroom (26 students aged 12-13)and reflection about these materials.Grounded on a qualitative approach to data generation (interviews and observational field-notes) and analysis, the main aim of this article is to explore how this researcher-teacher partnership has affected the participant teacher's professional, personal and social growth. Findings from this teacher's engagement with the development, enactment and reflection about these innovative teaching resources will be presented to illustrate how this type of experience can influence, for instance, teachers' professional development, perceived self-efficacy around NOS teaching and ownership of novel teaching ideas.
The focus of this article is to expand María del Mar Aragón, José Antonio Acevedo-Díaz and Antonio García-Carmona's paper "Prospective Biology teachers' understanding of the nature of science through an analysis of the historical case of Semmelweis and childbed fever" by focusing on the discussion about teaching non-epistemic aspects of NOS. This article will draw on my own research at secondary schools in London, U.K. to illustrate different possibilities to broaden this inclusion of non-epistemic aspects into school science through the use of an intercultural perspective to History of Science, that is, to how historical cases are employed to teach about NOS.
This article describes a teaching experience at an year 8 classroom (students aged 12–13) in a state secondary school in London, UK that aimed at widening learning about nature of science (NOS) with the input from the field of Global History of Science (HOS), which looks at science as a product of material and cognitive exchanges, appropriations and collaborations. Teaching and learning plans (TLPs) informed by this historical framework were developed by the researcher and one science teacher to integrate NOS teaching into fours topics from the national science curriculum in England (Medicines, Magnetism, Evolution, and Earth's resources). These TLPs were taught by the participant teacher to his year 8 classroom (26 boys and girls of mixed‐abilities) throughout one school year, and the researcher investigated the impact of the global HOS framework on widening students' views about NOS. Data were collated with the help of students' NOS diaries, group mind maps, classroom observations, and an open‐ended NOS questionnaire applied at the start and end of the school year, complemented by participant students' grades in their end‐of‐year exam. Main findings point to the widening of participant students' views about NOS and, more specifically, about underexplored relevant social‐institutional aspects of scientific development, such as diversity and intercultural collaborations and exchanges, exploitation of natural resources, financial, ethical, and political aspects around scientific work. Students were also generally successful in re‐applying NOS ideas explored in one TLP to other TLPs and scientific contexts, hinting to the importance of employing overarching narratives (such those promoted by Global HOS), linking different scientific development, when planning the integration of NOS into the school science. Results also show that NOS was integrated into content teaching without negative effects in students' exam grades.
This article presents the results of an exploratory study of students' knowledge about scientists and countries' contributions to science, aiming at answering two research questions: BIn which ways are students aware of the history of scientific development carried out by different people in different places of the world? What can be influencing and shaping their awareness?^Thus, this study aimed at depicting students' knowledge about History of Science (HOS), focusing on what they know about science being done by people and communities from different parts of the world and on how this knowledge is constructed through their engagement with school science. An exploratory research was carried out at two multicultural state secondary schools in London, UK, involving 200 students aged 12-15 (58.5% girls, 41.5% boys) and five science teachers. The method involved an initial exploration of students' knowledge about HOS through an open-ended survey, followed by classroom-based observations and semi-structured interviews with the participants. Results showed a disconnection between remembering scientists and knowing about their work and background, hinting at an emphasis on illustrative and decontextualised approaches towards HOS. Additionally, there was a lack of diversity in these students' answers in terms of gender and ethnicity when talking about scientists and countries in science. These findings were further analysed in relation to their implications for school science and for the fields of HOS, science education and public perception of science.
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