1,721,051 research outputs found
The Role of Mathematics in Quantum Physics for High School Students: a Case Study
No full textWithin the research literature in STEM education, documented difficulties concern the epistemological issues arisen by the relationship between the technical aspects of mathematical models and the empirical reality. The transition from classical to quantum physics makes this aspect more problematic because of the need to give up familiar images or space-time descriptions. These problems were addressed by designing and implementing a teaching/learning path whose design principles cohere with the theoretical construct of ‘Appropriation’. In this paper, we focus on a case study built on the analysis of an interview in which a female student expressed a problematic position towards mathematical reasoning in physics. The analysis of the student’s discourse is based on Habermas's rationality construct. We show both the productiveness and the limits of her forms of epistemic rationality in appropriating quantum physics
How does epistemological knowledge on modelling influence students' engagement in the issue of climate change?
Full text linkInvolvement in climate change has been proven to be hindered by emotional and social barriers, as well as by conceptual difficulties that students may encounter in dealing with scientific content related to particular issues such as the greenhouse effect. In this study, we start from the conjecture that behind many conceptual difficulties and emotional barriers lie particular epistemological obstacles related to a naive and stereotypical view of science. These include, in particular, the belief that science still has the role and power to provide a unique, unquestionable, and certain explanation of events and processes. Such a naive idea clashes strongly with the intrinsic complexity of climate science. This paper sets out to investigate if and how the improvement of epistemological knowledge can influence behavioural habits and foster students’ engagement in climate change. In order to explore such an issue, we focus on five interviews collected at the end of a teaching experience on climate change, carried out with secondary school students (grade 11; 16-year olds). This study is a follow-up of other two analytical studies aimed at investigating, respectively, the impact of the experience on students’ epistemological knowledge and on their behavioural habits
Laboratorio di fisica e didattica della fisica del Corso di Laurea in Scienze della Formazione Primaria svolto a distanza: la sfida di sperimentare l'apprendimento basato sull'indagine in un ambiente online
No full textL’emergenza sanitaria da Covid-19 ha imposto, come noto, il ricorso alla didattica a distanza. Anche l’Attività di Laboratorio di Fisica e Didattica della Fisica del corso di laurea in Scienze della Formazione Primaria di Bologna è stata oggetto di una conversione totale, dalla presenza all’online. Ciò ha comportato una sfida didattica, nell’ambito della formazione dei futuri insegnanti di scienze delle scuole primarie e dell’infanzia. Lo sforzo non è stato soltanto riuscire a gestire gli esperimenti scientifici senza accedere ai laboratori, ma anche nel cercare di non perdere nella conversione dimensioni fondamentali del corso, come quella dell'apprendimento basato sull'indagine. Il presente lavoro intende illustrare, a titolo di spunto e riflessione, una proposta, che si è mostrata efficace nei risultati e ben accolta dagli studenti, di trasformazione di un corso di laboratorio (nella fattispecie sul tema dell’ottica geometrica) fortemente basato sul fare e sull’interazione, in un corso a distanza su piattaforma online
Scientific Literacies for Change Making: Equipping the Young to Tackle Current Societal Challenges
Full text linkDealing with the threatening challenges and profound changes that characterise our
era requires the development of knowledge and skills to navigate the uncertainty and
complexity of science as part of society and everyday life. How can we support school
students in transforming the base of knowledge and experiences to face the ongoing
crises and contribute as individuals, citizens, and active participants in a democratic
society to enable the transformation that is called for? We address this broader question
through a study framed within the Horizon 2020 project titled Science Education for
Action and Engagement toward Sustainability (SEAS), aimed at promoting new forms
of scientific literacy and skills to empower students to become agents of change. Most
centrally, SEAS aims at incorporating a transformative dimension that is often lacking
in current conceptions of scientific literacy. In SEAS, school and school science are
conceived as involving learning and transformation across three spheres—the practical,
the political, and the personal—where both individuals and their institutional contexts
are subject to change as participants gain agency over their learning processes. In this
study, we illustrate this approach and present the analysis of a first pilot iteration within
the project’s Italian Local Network, which shows the kind of individual/collective dynamic
that the project’s transformative activities afford
Exploring students’ epistemological knowledge of models and modelling in science:results from a teaching/learning experience on climate change
Full text linkThe scientific community has been debating climate change for over two decades. In the light of certain arguments put forward by the aforesaid community, the EU has recommended a set of innovative reforms to science teaching such as incorporating environmental issues into the scientific curriculum, thereby helping to make schools a place of civic education. However, despite these European recommendations, relatively little emphasis is still given to climate change within science curricula. Climate change, although potentially engaging for students, is a complex topic that poses conceptual difficulties and emotional barriers, as well as epistemological challenges. Whilst the conceptual and emotional barriers have already been the object of several studies, students’ reactions to the epistemological issues raised by climate changes have so far been rarely explored in science education research and thus are the main focus of this paper. This paper describes a study concerning the implementation of teaching materials designed to focus on the epistemological role of ‘models and the game of modelling’ in science and particularly when dealing with climate change. The materials were implemented in a course of 15 hours (five 3-hour lessons) for a class of Italian secondary-school students (grade 11; 16–17 years old). The purpose of the study is to investigate students’ reactions to the epistemological dimension of the materials, and to explore if and how the material enabled them to develop their epistemological knowledge on models
Developing future-scaffolding skills through science education
No full textCan science teaching contribute to developing skills for managing uncertainty towards the future and projecting imagination forwards? If so, how? In this paper, we outline an approach to ‘teach the future’ through science education. In the first part, we describe a framework that has been constructed to orient the design of teaching modules comprised of future-oriented educational activities. Then, a teaching module on climate change is described. The module was tested in a class of upper secondary school in Italy (grade12) and the main results are reported. They concern a change in perception of the future, as revealed by students: from far and unimaginable, the future became conceivable as a set of possibilities, addressable through concrete actions and within their reach, in the sense that they became able to view themselves as agents of their own future. The results lead us to argue that the approach appears promising in developing ‘futurescaffolding skills’, skills that enable people to construct visions of the future that support possible ways of acting in the present with one’s eye on the horizon
Exploring Narratives of Change for Imagining the Future and Fostering Agency Toward Sustainability
No full textWe are facing changes of epochal significance but, despite growing attention from many corners, classroom science still seems unable to aid students in making sense of these demanding socio-scientific questions. In the context of such complex problems as today’s sustainability and climate change challenges, narratives are a primary and crucial means for integrating scientific knowledge relevant to science, authentic inquiry, and the critical thinking skills needed to pursue solutions. Drawing from science, and the goal-oriented affective and active engagement in actual action, narratives become social and cultural means for people to figure out who they are in the context of climate change and envision plausible futures for themselves and their surroundings in relationship with others. However, to what extent can narratives provide insights into the current attitudes of young people about their sense of agency in relation to climate change and sustainability challenges? This study aims to answer this question by analysing students’ narratives collected through a digital questionnaire based on sustainability stories
Orchestration of classroom discussions that foster appropriation
Full text linkThis paper investigates how features of teaching practice may foster appropriation: learning that involves both deep conceptual
understanding and transforming scientific discourse in a way that is significant for oneself. Data were drawn from classroom discussions during a unit on thermodynamics that took place in a high school in Italy. We analyze a specific metaphor “tightening the reins and letting them loosen” used by the teacher to characterize her practice. By contrasting episodes of classroom discussion in terms of talk moves and participant frameworks, we discovered that behind the metaphor was a complex epistemological scaffolding that the teacher enacted across her lessons. This scaffolding was articulated across four moments of discussion, each with a different function and purpose: Sharing the construction of a collective disciplinary narrative, Elaborating the narrative in epistemological terms by articulating criteria for comparing different approaches to the disciplinary content, Analyzing the comparison criteria to test their robustness and consistency, and Situating oneself with respect to different approaches to the content informed by the refined criteria (SEAS). We argue that these functions provided the scaffolding for physics to be a context for both disciplinary learning and students’ search for personal relevance and meaning
UNDERSTANDING FIRST YEAR UNIVERSITY STUDENTS' CURIOSITY AND INTEREST ABOUT PHYSICS
No full textThe European shortage of students pursuing further studies and careers in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) is particularly severe in the field of physical sciences. Many physics departments suffer from high dropout rates, partly caused by students' decrease of interest during their studies. To address these problems and to help teachers at all educational levels improve their practices, the EU-funded HOPE (Horizons in Physics Education) project examined the views of first-year Physics students in European universities. Here we report the results of an interview study on how students perceive their reasons for choosing physics as their field of study. 94 semi-structured interviews were conducted in 16 universities and analysed through a two-round process. The results show that the first-year students used chiefly expressions of interest and intrinsic motivation to describe factors inspiring them to study physics, while expectations of success as well as utility and attainment values played smaller roles. The interviewees were either strongly motivated by their curiosity in understanding how the world works, or interested in what characterises physics as knowledge (its practises, methods, and way of knowing and thinking). Often both aspects were present. The division in subcategories shed more light on the precise nature of such curiosities and interests. We will discuss these tendencies using exemplary quotes, and contrast our results with earlier research. We suggest the articulated picture of interest and curiosity built in this study could inform the development of first year Physics courses - both the choice of contents and pedagogical approaches. Results can also be useful for designing targeted recruitment and outreach initiatives, which aim to foster interest in physics at pre-college levels
The Design of an Innovative Scientific Interdisciplinary Lab for Pre-Service Primary Teachers
No full textTeaching science is a crucial issue in early childhood and primary school, as it greatly influences the future attitude of pupils (and, thus, of future citizens) towards scientific knowledge. However, an effective training in teaching science cannot rely solely on isolated, well-curated courses. In this paper, we describe a widescale proposal of innovation for the academic scientific curriculum of pre-service pre-primary and primary teachers. Our aim is to
improve scientific knowledge of students, as well as their related teaching skills. The major foci of our proposal are: (i) making a “scientific environment” available, i.e. a term fully devoted to science during the five years of the academic curriculum; (ii) planning interdisciplinary lab classes connected to a central topic of keynote importance (which was
chosen to be water); (iii) allowing students to actively work on the topic through hands-on activities. The combination of these factors is expected to circumvent many flaws in the traditional academic teaching of science, which are exaggerated in the context of the education of pre-service teachers, who actually did not select a scientific course for their academic career. In a nutshell, a stimulating scientific context and more engaging, cutting-edge classes will hopefully turn motivated students into effective teachers of tomorrow
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