Learning to Teach Science in the Secondary School

A companion to school experience

Rob Toplis, Rob Toplis

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781317551515
• Edition: 4
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Learning to Teach Science in the Secondary School is an indispensable guide with a fresh approach to the process, practice and reality of teaching and learning science in a busy secondary school. This fourth edition has been fully updated in the light of changes to professional knowledge and practice and revisions to the national curriculum.
Written by experienced practitioners, this popular textbook comprehensively covers the opportunities and challenges of teaching science in the secondary school. It provides guidance on:

• the knowledge and skills you need, and understanding the science department at your school
• development of the science curriculum
• the nature of science and how science works, biology, chemistry, physics and astronomy, earth science
• planning for progression, using schemes of work to support planning, and evaluating lessons
• language in science, practical work, using ICT, science for citizenship, Sex and Health Education and learning outside the classroom
• assessment for learning and external assessment and examinationsEvery unit includes a clear chapter introduction, learning objectives, further reading, lists of useful resources and specially designed tasks – including those to support Masters Level work – as well as cross-referencing to essential advice in the core text Learning to Teach in the Secondary School, sixth edition.

Learning to Teach Science in the Secondary School is designed to support student teachers through the transition from graduate scientist to practising science teacher, while achieving the highest level of personal and professional development.

1
Becoming a Science Teacher

Introduction

Becoming a science teacher involves a diverse range of different tasks covering a wide range of skills, knowledge and understanding. No day is the same and very often no hour is the same. This is by its very nature a function of dealing with human beings. The humans you are dealing with on a daily basis are not just ordinary humans; they are teenagers and have all the features that go with an age group who are going through some of the most important changes of their lives. As a secondary science teacher you are in a privileged position to witness and even to some small extent, to be part of those changes. Therefore, the skills of a beginning or student science teacher are not those that just involve science knowledge and skills but are those of an individual who may, at various times, be a counsellor, careers officer, adviser, psychologist, carer and actor, to name but a few. After all, that is probably why you decided to be a teacher. At this point it might be useful to read the first unit, Unit 1.1, ‘What do teachers do?’ by Andrew Green and Marilyn Leask from the companion volume, Learning to Teach in the Secondary School (Capel et al., 2013).

The units in this section provide an early introduction to starting out as a student science teacher. It provides some background about starting points and some of the skills and knowledge you may bring with you that can enhance pupils’ experiences. It provides the backdrop to developing as an individual who is deeply involved with science learning – in Keith Taber’s words, a ‘learning doctor’ (Taber, 2001, p. 53) – and with a proactive approach to managing your own learning and professional development as a science teacher. It also gives an overview about the ways in which schools and science departments are structured and some of the different jobs that science teachers undertake. In essence, this first section is about an induction into a community of practice that relies not only on science knowledge, but also on a variety of skills required when dealing with people. And the people in secondary schools are a diverse but extremely interesting lot!

References

Capel, S., Leask, M. and Turner, T. (2013) Learning to Teach in the Secondary School: An Introduction to School Experience, 6th edn. London: Routledge.

Taber, K. S. (2001) Chemical Misconceptions: Prevention, Diagnosis and Cure, vol. 1: Theoretical Background, London: Royal Society of Chemistry.

Unit 1.1
Learning to be a Science Teacher

Rob Toplis

Introduction

Science education can be a rather tricky business. Not only do you need to know the science itself, to ‘know your stuff’, you also need to know a lot about education, that is teaching and learning, and know quite a lot about people. There is a myth – and one that is unfortunately still prevalent in the minds of some people with little experience inside schools – that science is something that can somehow be imparted to pupils, that science knowledge can be transmitted directly from the teacher to the pupil by some unseen conduit, a kind of learning cable from one stock of knowledge to an empty vessel at the pupil end. The mere act of telling someone can somehow convey all the information needed. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Objectives

By the end of this unit, you should:

• be aware that science teaching and learning is a complex process;
• know that your own enquiry skills are needed to develop knowledge about science education;
• understand some of the requirements for Master’s level work.

What do Science Teachers need to Know?

Starting points: what do you know already?

Beginning or student teachers come from a wide variety of starting points in terms of their academic experience, social and cultural experiences and work experiences. Added to this are their values, attitudes and beliefs about science, what it is and how it should be taught.

Academic experiences may be varied. They may include a first degree from a fairly narrow area or one with a mixture of different modules; they may include a higher degree in an even narrower area with research based on one specialist topic. Examples may be a biology student teacher with a first degree in genetics but with little or no ecology; a physics student teacher with a degree in electrical engineering but with little content in astrophysics, or a chemistry student with a degree in medicinal chemistry but little inorganic chemistry. In these examples, further subject knowledge enhancement would be required before being able to confidently teach all aspects of the specialist science.

An individual’s social and cultural experiences can often be a valuable addition to the daily interactions with teenage pupils. Personal experiences and interests, memberships of groups, travel experiences and hobbies can contribute to the positive professional relationships that occur between teachers and pupils. At one level, involvement in the clubs and societies in schools not only helps forge these positive interactions but helps the informal education of pupils: the hidden curriculum. At another level, the richness of a diversity of backgrounds and cultures can add to the overall pupil experience in school.

A student teacher’s prior work experience can provide opportunities that will enrich their science teaching, whether it be through new ideas to teaching science, approaches to organising the classroom, dealing with individuals – the so-called ‘life skills’ – or simply some of the anecdotes from work that can be used to illustrate ideas in the science laboratory. However, it is important to point out that schools and classrooms are very complex social situations and often work very differently to the workplace; it may not always be possible to simply transfer practices from the context of work to the context of school.

You will, inevitably, arrive with a number of very different views, values, beliefs and attitudes. Some of these may be based on your own education; some will be based on your views of the world, your experiences and even the ways you view learning. When you begin teacher education and training, a number of these will alter, and may even be in conflict with new experiences and change as a result. It is important to be open-minded. As you observe, reflect on and evaluate your previous ideas and current experiences, you may start to develop a personal philosophy about science teaching and learning, and your role in this.

Task 1.1.1 Starting out

Make a list of some of your skills and beliefs about science teaching and learning. These might include: subject knowledge; ‘transferable’ skills such as organisation, time management and creativity; ‘people skills’ such as empathy, diplomacy, enthusiasm, and beliefs, attitudes and values that might address the question, ‘why do I want to teach science?’

Then look at this list and consider how you can enhance these skills, and how you hope to address some of these areas during your teacher training and education.

An outline of some of the different roles of teachers can be found in Unit 1.1 of the companion volume to this book, Learning to Teach in the Secondary School(Capel et al., 2013).

Subject knowledge, content knowledge and pedagogy

There has been a certain amount of debate about the nature of subject knowledge. Teachers need to know what to teach, the content knowledge necessary. They also need to know how to teach this knowledge, the pedagogy involved. Shulman (1986) has contributed to our understanding about subject knowledge and has proposed the term pedagogicalcontent knowledge, or PCK, to refer to the practical knowledge used by teachers in classrooms. This practical knowledge is, understandably, complex as it involves the knowledge that specialist teachers possess that includes pupil misconceptions, examples, analogies and models. Added to this are the illustrations, conceptual difficulties and connections with other aspects of learning such as assessment and the curriculum (Berry, 2012). If we take the example of teaching a very simple topic such as the forces on a cyclist pedalling at a constant speed along a flat road, the teacher will need to know a number of important facts. They will need to know the content knowledge about the forces acting on the cyclist such as friction, forward motion, gravity and Newton’s Laws. They will also need to know pupils’ misconceptions or alternative frameworks about forces and motion, how force arrows can be drawn, balanced forces, some possible simple demonstrations or observations about Newton’s Laws, other possible examples that can add to pupils’ understanding, ‘what if’ questions and even the kinds of questions that may arise in assessment tests or examinations. The PCK involved in this apparently straightforward example on forces and motion is rather more complex than it immediately appears and the teacher needs to draw on a wide range of knowledge to deal with this.

Task 1.1.2 Simple photosynthesis

List the items of PCK needed to teach a simple outline of photosynthesis, involving the production of carbohydrate and oxygen from carbon dioxide and water, using light energy.

Curriculum knowledge

Subject knowledge is not the only form of knowledge a teacher needs. They also need to know what needs to be taught, i.e. curriculum knowledge. This is further complicated by the frequency of curriculum change but change is inevitable as the curriculum is revised in response to changes in policy and evolving ideas about what kind of science needs to be taught to all pupils in the secondary age range. Curriculum change is not just something to hit the news in England; it occurs throughout the world as governments and international educators react to the need for both a scientific and technological workforce while at the same time enhancing the scientific literacy of twenty-first-century populations who need to be better informed about some of the major scientific, ethical and environmental issues facing them.

One of the biggest curriculum changes in more recent years has been the arrival of and changes to the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) with a shift towards what pupils can do, rather than what they can remember for a final examination – and recent shifts back again. The second major curriculum change is the National Curriculum and its revisions.

The National Curriculum arrived in 1989, resulting from a mixture of historical events, initiatives and a not inconsiderable degree of political influence. Although the biological, chemical and physical science content was familiar, AT1, later to be called Sc1, covered experimental and investigative work and was the first time investigations in school science were now part of a statutory curriculum. With Sc1, pupils were required to predict, carry out, analyse and evaluate investigative work in science. This type of practical work in science was a noticeable departure from the ‘recipe-following’ form of practical work that was being carried out across the country, designed to illustrate scientific phenomena and explanations.

Since 1989 there have been five versions of the National Curriculum in 1991, 1995, 2000, 2004 with another in 2013. What does this indicate? Changing criteria for the science curriculum? Different political agendas? Or the realisation that previous versions of the curriculum were in need of change? Two earlier areas of the National Curriculum were open to general criticism as far as teachers were concerned: its manageability in practice and its assessment. A third criticism relates to scientific literacy and the question: ‘Who is the science curricul...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• CONTENTS
• List of figures
• List of tables
• List of tasks
• Notes on contributors
• Preface to the fourth edition
• Acknowledgements
• List of abbreviations
• 1 BECOMING A SCIENCE TEACHER
• 2 THE SCIENCE CURRICULUM
• 3 GETTING TO GRIPS WITH SCIENCE
• 4 PLANNING FOR TEACHING AND LEARNING SCIENCE
• 5 TEACHING SCIENCE: SPECIFIC CONTEXTS
• 6 ASSESSMENT IN SCIENCE
• 7 IS EDUCATION RESEARCH VALUABLE FOR TEACHERS OF SCIENCE?
• Index