Engaging Students in Science: The Potential Role of “Narrative Thinking” and “Romantic Understanding”

Abstract

Engaging students in science and helping them develop an understanding of its ideas has been a consistent challenge for both science teachers and science educators alike. Such a challenge is even greater in the context of the "Science for All" curriculum initiative. However, Bruner's notion of "narrative thinking" and Egan's "romantic understanding" offer an alternative approach to teaching and learning science, in a way that engagement and understanding become a possibility. This chapter focuses on students' "narrative mode of thought," as a bridge to understanding science-which has traditionally been based more upon the use of logico-mathematical thinking in the upper grades-and on a distinctive form of understanding the world, characteristic of students of the age range from 8 to 15 years. This latter form of understanding, that the educational theorist Kieran Egan calls "romantic understanding," has features that can be readily associated with the natural world and its phenomena. Therefore its development could be fostered in the context of school science learning, and in a way that the narrative mode would also be taken into consideration.

Smart training technology in the teaching of history at Kazan State University of Architecture and Engineering

“…Over time, historical memory is transformed, filled with new images and approaches. This leads to the fact that in working with student youth it is necessary to use new teaching technologies that contribute to the involvement of the student in science through emotional influence, involvement in the process of cognition, the development of imagination, student communication, and interest in historical science increases [4].…”

“…The main problem for science education today is the gap between the everyday and the scientific knowledge of students; this gap often causes alienation among students and is one of the reasons for the decline in interest in science. This is reflected in the studies [2][3][4][5][6]. Secondly, this is the ability to work with information that comes through Internet resources.…”

Narratives in STEM Education

“…Before a ready "scientific product" was made, an outstanding mind carried out an analysis which was later translated into the language of symbols, coded and objectivised. Scientific knowledge is not given as a ready product; it is built and a story is often hidden at its base (Hadzigeorgiou, Schulz 2019: 3) -like in the one about Archimedes' bath or Newton's apple.…”

A theoretical framework and questionnaire for wonder-full education

“…Other studies discuss the specific value of wonder in science education (e.g. Gilbert & Byers, 2017;Hadzigeorgiou & Schulz, 2019;Lindholm, 2018;Stolberg, 2008), environmental education (e.g. Hadzigeorgiou & Judson, 2017;Jørgensen, 2016;Washington, 2018), and medical education (Geller et al, 2018).…”