Recent Trends in Science Education Research

 Recent Trends in Science Education Research

Content in Science: recent trends and responses:

Towards ‘Science for all’: Researches to be undertaken to find the suitability of the content included in the in the curriculum. Researches can find out the needs of the students and the society to include the right and contemporary knowledge in science suitable for the future life of the students.

 Towards more subject integration: Integrated ways of learning science and subject integration has to be researched and included for better understanding of Science.

Widening perspectives: More attention is being given to the cultural, historical and philosophical aspects of science and technology in an attempt to portray these as human activities. This increased attention may enhance the appeal of these subjects to those pupils who are searching for some 'meaning' to their studies, rather than the acquisition of factual information and established, orthodox explanations of natural phenomena.  

NOS: The Nature of Science: The 'nature of science' has become an important concern in the curriculum. This often means a rejection of the stereotypical and false image of science as a simple search for objective and final truths based on unproblematic observations. The recent emphasis on understanding of the nature of science is inevitably related to the attempt to give more attention to its social, cultural and human aspects. Science is now to be presented as knowledge that is built on evidence as well upon arguments deployed in a creative search for meaning and explanation.

 Context becomes important: Increasing attention is being given to presenting science and technology in contexts that have meaning and relevance for the learner. Themes or topics that illustrate scientific or technological principles are drawn from everyday life or current socio-scientific issues. These themes or topics are often by their nature interdisciplinary, and teaching them requires collaboration between teachers with expertise in different disciplines. In many cases, a project approach to learning is appropriate, although many teachers require to be trained to work in this way.

Concern for the environment: Environmental questions are increasingly forming part of school science and technology curricula. Environmental concerns often embrace socio-scientific issues, the treatment of which also frequently requires project work undertaken in an interdisciplinary setting.

An Emphasis on Technology: Technology has recently been introduced in many countries as a subject in its own right or as an integral component within the science curriculum. Attention to technology, utility and practical examples is often used to build confidence in the children since, through technology, they can come to understand that science and technology are not just about knowing but also about doing and making thing work.

Emphasizing Scientific Thinking: To enable students to learn independently in science, due emphasis should be placed on enhancing students’ scientific thinking and strengthening their science process skills.

Catering for Students with Strong Interest and Talent in Science:  A variety of learning activities in the form of science competitions, experimental projects, independent study projects and issue-based learning projects are essential to develop students’ capabilities in science and technology. These activities may be conducted in the form of school based programmes or in collaboration with tertiary institutions, professional bodies or the commercial sector.

Methods and Strategies in Science Education:

Science has a unique nature and specific teaching strategies might be needed to help students to understand the content, methods, and nature of science.

 Concept Maps: One of the teaching learning strategies that have been shown to enhance learners’ science achievement and meaningful understanding is concept mapping. Concept mapping has been used in science education in a variety of ways. Concept maps can play a significant role in curriculum development and learning. Concept mapping allows students to actively construct their own knowledge with teacher guidance. Meaningful learning occurs when concepts are organized in an individual’s cognitive structure.  

 Generative Learning Strategies: Generative learning is another approach to involve students in meaningful learning. When using generative learning strategies students are expected to actively generate the links between the new information and prior knowledge. A generative learning strategy is any strategy that involves students actively and meaningfully in the learning process.  Three generative learning strategies are instructional analogies, summarization, and asking questions.

 Instructional analogies are instances where a less familiar domain is made understandable by referring to similarity relations with a more meaningful domain. They provide a bridge between what is known and what is less known. Analogies help in achieving conceptual change and problem solving, constructing explanations, and building arguments and in concept learning.

Summaries are brief statement representing the condensation of information representing the basic and central ideas of a discourse. Students’ generation of summarizing sentences increases the generative processing in memory. The summary must ensure that the summary is true to the original meaning and decide what to include, what to eliminate, and how to reorganize information. Finally, educators think that

Engaging students in answering thought provoking questions or in generating them will help them gain the knowledge and skills necessary for managing their own learning.

Inquiry Strategies: Science has a unique nature and specific teaching strategies might be needed to help students to understand the content, methods, and nature of science. Scientific knowledge is inferential, creative, and socially and culturally embedded, so learning has to be meaningful because, when students learn science by rote they develop unrealistic and unacceptable notions of the nature of science as a collection of disconnected facts.

There are different strategies by which teachers can provide the context within which students can learn science meaningfully while concurrently understanding the nature of science. Science educators have developed many student-centered strategies to enhance meaningful learning and help students understand the nature of science. One of the characteristics of these strategies is that they are both hands-on and minds-on, a characteristic that allows students to manipulate objects and experience events while at the same time engaging their minds in thing about science and reflecting on their experiences. Inquiry strategies include general inquiry and problem-based learning and 5E Model.

 Inquiry is a teaching strategy that aims to teach students about conducting investigations and using and assessing evidence in order to answer questions or solve problems. Scientific inquiry refers to the varied ways by which students study the natural world and propose explanations based on the evidence derived from their work. Inquiry also refers to the activities of students in which they develop knowledge and understanding of scientific ideas as well as an understanding of how scientists study the natural world. Inquiry teaching aims to develop students’ higher order and critical thinking skills and in-depth and meaningful. When teaching by inquiry, teachers assume the role of a facilitator; they plan the different aspects of the lessons and guide students in the investigations. Moreover, they insure that students plan and implement their investigations carefully; taking their time to identify multiple sources of data and to think through alternative sources of evidence and alternative solutions.

Problem-Based Learning (PBL) is a form of experiential learning that involves students in posing real-world problems, preferably from the students’ environment, and using resources, under the guidance of the teacher, to resolve the problems while at the same time developing content knowledge and problem solving skills associated with the problem.

The 5-E model –involves engaging students in an activity, allowing them to explore the problem identified in the activity, explain the results of their exploration, extend their knowledge, and finally evaluate their work.

 Conceptual Change Strategies: Science educators realize that students’ brains are not empty vessels waiting to be filled with knowledge transmitted by the teacher. Rather students come to the classroom with preconceived notions and understandings that they have developed from their experiences. These preconceived notions are sometimes called alternative conceptions (or misconceptions). The existence of alternative conceptions necessitates the use of conceptual change strategies that address them directly because they have been resistant to change by ordinary teaching methods.  Conceptual change Strategies was developed by Driver and Scanlon (1989). This model includes five steps: 1) Orientation, during which students are introduced to the task, 2) Elicitation of students’ ideas, 3) Restructuring of ideas during which students are involved in a variety of activities to restructure their ideas, including the exposure to cognitive conflict among other activities, 4) Application of the new ideas in new situations, and 5) Review change of ideas by comparing the initial ideas to the new ones.

Strategies to Address Environmental Issues:  Students living in the 21st century will eventually have to participate in decision-making regarding science-related issues that are environmental or controversial socio-scientific in nature. Preparation for such participation can be accomplished by adopting a science- technology-society-environment approach (STSE). The aims of including STSE issues in the teaching of science are helping students to learn and understand science content and at the same time make informed decisions about scientifically-based environmental issues. STSE can be incorporated in the science curriculum by using a variety of strategies that include the study of products and systems, issues awareness, moral development, issues investigation and action learning. While action learning is the ultimate aim of using STSE approaches, students need to develop the skills to investigate issues in preparation for decision making and action learning.  

 Metacognition Strategies: Metacognition is thinking about thinking. It is an increasingly useful mechanism to enhance student learning, both for immediate outcomes and for helping students to understand their own learning processes. So metacognition is a broad concept that refers to the knowledge and thought processes regarding one’s own learning. Reflective thinking, as a component of metacognition, is the ability to reflect critically on learning experiences and processes in order to inform future progress.

Crossover Learning: Learning in informal settings, such as museums and after-school clubs, can link educational content with issues that matter to learners in their lives. These connections work in both directions. Learning in schools and colleges can be enriched by experiences from everyday life; informal learning can be deepened by adding questions and knowledge from the classroom. These connected experiences spark further interest and motivation to learn. An effective method is for a teacher to propose and discuss a question in the classroom, then for learners to explore that question on a museum visit or field trip, collecting photos or notes as evidence, then share their findings back in the class to produce individual or group answers. These crossover learning experiences exploit the strengths of both environments and provide learners with authentic and engaging opportunities for learning.  

Learning Through Argumentation: Students can advance their understanding of science and mathematics by arguing in ways similar to professional scientists and mathematicians. Argumentation helps students attend to contrasting ideas, which can deepen their learning. It makes technical reasoning public, for all to learn. It also allows students to refine ideas with others, so they learn how scientists think and work together to establish or refute claims.

Teachers can spark meaningful discussion in classrooms by encouraging students to ask open-ended questions, re-state remarks in more scientific language, and develop and use models to construct explanations. When students argue in scientific ways, they learn how to take turns, listen actively, and respond constructively to others. Professional development can help teachers to learn these strategies and overcome challenges, such as how to share their intellectual expertise with students appropriately.

 Incidental Learning: Incidental learning is unplanned or unintentional learning. It may occur while carrying out an activity that is seemingly unrelated to what is learned. Early research on this topic dealt with how people learn in their daily routines at their work places. For many people, mobile devices have been integrated into their daily lives, providing many opportunities for technology-supported incidental learning. Unlike formal education, incidental learning is not led by a teacher, nor does it follow a structured curriculum, or result in formal certification.

Context-Based Learning: Context enables us to learn from experience. By interpreting new information in the context of where and when it occurs and relating it to what we already know, we come to understand its relevance and meaning. In a classroom, the context is typically confined to a fixed space and limited time. Beyond the classroom, learning can come from an enriched context such as visiting a heritage site or museum, or being immersed in a good book.

We have opportunities to create context, by interacting with our surroundings, holding conversations, making notes, and modifying nearby objects. We can also come to understand context by exploring the world around us, supported by guides and measuring instruments. It follows that to design effective sites for learning, at schools, museums and websites, requires a deep understanding of how context shapes and is shaped by the process of learning.

Computational Thinking: Computational thinking is a powerful approach to thinking and problem solving. It involves breaking large problems down into smaller ones (decomposition), recognizing how these relate to problems that have been solved in the past (pattern recognition), setting aside unimportant details (abstraction), identifying and developing the steps that will be necessary to reach a solution (algorithms) and refining these steps (debugging).The aim is to teach children to structure problems so they can be solved. Computational thinking can be taught as part of mathematics, science and art or in other settings. The aim is not just to encourage children to be computer coders, but also to master an art of thinking that will enable them to tackle complex challenges in all aspects of their lives.

Such computational thinking skills can be valuable in many aspects of life, ranging from writing a recipe to share a favorite dish with friends, through planning a holiday or expedition, to deploying a scientific team to tackle a difficult challenge like an outbreak of disease.

Learning By Doing Science with remote labs: Engaging with authentic scientific tools and practices such as controlling remote laboratory experiments or telescopes can build science inquiry skills, improve conceptual understanding, and increase motivation. Remote access to specialized equipment, first developed for scientists and university students, is now expanding to trainee teachers and school students. A remote lab typically consists of apparatus or equipment, robotic arms to operate it, and cameras that provide views of the experiments as they unfold.Remote lab systems can reduce barriers to participation by providing user-friendly Web interfaces, curriculum materials, and professional development for teachers.

With appropriate support, access to remote labs can deepen understanding for teachers and students by offering hands-on investigations and opportunities for direct-observation that complement textbook learning. Access to remote labs can also bring such experiences into the school classroom. For example, students can use a high-quality, distant telescope to make observations of the night sky during daytime school science classes.

Embodied Learning (Simulations): Embodied learning involves self-awareness of the body interacting with a real or simulated world to support the learning process. When learning a new sport, physical movement is an obvious part of the learning process. In embodied learning, the aim is that mind and body work together so that physical feedback and actions reinforce the learning process.

Technology to aid this includes wearable sensors that gather personal physical and biological data, visual systems that track movement, and mobile devices that respond to actions such as tilting and motion. This approach can be applied to the exploration of aspects of physical sciences such as friction, acceleration, and force, or to investigate simulated situations such as the structure of molecules.For more general learning, the process of physical action provides a way to engage learners in feeling as they learn. Being more aware of how one’s body interacts with the world can also support the development of a mindful approach to learning and well-being.

 Adaptive Teaching: All learners are different. However, most educational presentations and materials are the same for all. This creates a learning problem, by putting a burden on the learner to figure out how to engage with the content. It means that some learners will be bored, others will be lost, and very few are likely to discover paths through the content that result in optimal learning. Adaptive teaching offers a solution to this problem. It uses data about a learner’s previous and current learning to create a personalized path through educational content. Adaptive teaching systems recommend the best places to start new content and when to review old content. They also provide various tools for monitoring one’s progress. Data such as time spent reading and self-assessment scores can form a basis for guiding each learner through educational materials. Adaptive teaching can either be applied to classroom activities or in online environments where learners control their own pace of study.

Artificial Intelligence(AI): Artificial Intelligence is one of the  techniques to customize the experience of different learning groups, teachers, and tutors.Artificial Intelligence helps find out what a student does and does not know, building a personalized study schedule for each learner considering the knowledge gaps. In such a way, AI tailors studies according to student’s specific needs, increasing their efficiency.AI helps to Produce Smart Content like Digital lessons,Information visualization and Learning content updates.
AI can make administrative tasks simple, grading, assessing, and replying to students is a time-consuming activity that could be optimized by the teacher using AI. AI can do Tutoring.Continuously evolving personal study programs take into account student’s gaps to fill during individual lessons. Personal tutoring and support for the students outside of the classroom help learners keep up with the course. AI tutors are great time-savers for the teachers, as they do not need to spend extra time explaining challenging topics to students. AI ensure Access To Education For Students With Special Needs.The adoption of innovative AI technologies opens up new ways of interacting for students with learning disabilities.

Stealth Assessment: The automatic data collection that goes on in the background when students work with rich digital environments can be applied to unobtrusive, ‘stealth’, assessment of their learning processes.

Stealth assessment borrows techniques from online role-playing games, in which the system continually collects data about players’ actions, making inferences about their goals and strategies in order to present appropriate new challenges. This idea of embedding assessment into a simulated learning environment is now being extended to schools, in topics such as science and history, as well as to adult education.The claim is that stealth assessment can test or measure aspects of learning such as perseverance, creativity, and strategic thinking. It can also collect information about students’ learning states and processes without asking them to stop and take an examination. In principle, stealth assessment techniques could provide teachers with continual data on how each learner is progressing.

Techniques in Science Education:

Blended Learning (Hybrid Learning): Blended learning is a combination of offline (face-to-face, traditional learning) and online learning in a way that the one compliments the other. It provides individuals with the opportunity to enjoy the best of both worlds. For example, a student might attend classes in a real-world classroom setting and then supplement the lesson plan by completing online multimedia coursework. As such, the student would only have to physically attend class once a week and would be free to go at their own pace.

Flipped Classroom: A flipped classroom is a type of blended learning where students are introduced to content at home and practice working through it at school. This is the reverse of the more common practice of introducing new content at school, then assigning homework and projects to completed by the students independently at home.

In this blended learning approach, face-to-face interaction is mixed with independent study–usually via technology. In a common Flipped Classroom scenario, students might watch pre-recorded videos at home, then come to school to do the homework armed with questions and at least some background knowledge.

 Design-based learning (DBL), also known as design-based instruction, is an inquiry-based form of learning, or pedagogy, that is based on integration of design thinking and the design process into the classroom . DBL, as well as project-based learning and problem-based learning, is used to teach 21st century skills such as communication and collaboration and foster deeper learning.

Deeper learning is supported when students design and create an artifact that requires understanding and application of knowledge.Here students create, assess, and redesign their projects. The work's complexity often requires collaboration and specialized roles, providing students with the opportunity to become “experts” in a particular area. Design projects require students to establish goals and constraints, generate ideas, and create prototypes through storyboarding or other representational practices.

Learning through games: Although young children come to school with innate curiosity and intuitive ideas about the world around them, science classes rarely tap this potential. Many experts have called for a new approach to science education, based on recent and ongoing research on teaching and learning. In this approach, simulations and games could play a significant role by addressing many goals and mechanisms for learning science: the motivation to learn science, conceptual understanding, science process skills, understanding of the nature of science, scientific discourse and argumentation, and identification with science and science learning.

 

Learning through Social Media: Social media platforms can provide teachers and students a multitude of resources and guides to teach and learn various materials. Twitter, Pinterest,YouTube, Facebook, Google+ are  examples of the possibilities for finding educational resources and professional development news through social media.

 

Online Learning Platform: An online learning platform is an integrated set of interactive online services that provide trainers, learners, and others involved in education with information, tools and resources to support and enhance education delivery and management. One type of e-Learning platform is a learning management system (LMS).

The purpose of a successful e-Learning platform is that it creates a robust learning experience that feels like a classroom experience, offering the traditional classroom characteristics (like instructor-student interaction, Q &As, discussion, games, collaborative projects, quizzes, etc.) but either online or through a device (e.g. a laptop, desktop, tablet or mobile.) Just as there are many learning styles for different types of learners, the learning platform  should be able to host different content formats to address your learner’s specific learning styles. Some examples of content formats include articles, interviews, webinars, charts, PowerPoint presentations,  simulations, video etc.  Learning platforms also include content modules, learning modules, evaluation modules, and communication modules etc.

Assessment in Science:

Using Multiple Measures in Classroom Assessment: Multiple measures of formative and summative assessment can be used in schools. Multiple indicators and sources of evidence of student learning, of varying kinds, gathered at multiple points in time, within and across subject areas can be used for assessment of students. Examples: science labs or field work, from short tasks to extended projects; oral presentations in any subject; extended math problems that require application to real world uses; reading aloud and conversing with the teacher about a book; in-depth history reports, presented orally, in an essay, a PowerPoint, etc.; writing a paper in a second language; art or music projects; and answering questions from an expert panel about a project the student has done,   Many of these can be done individually or in groups. These materials can be organized so that it can be re-scored by other, independent educators, to ensure the accuracy of the classroom teacher, a process known as “moderation.”

Technology enhanced Assessment: Technology Enhanced Assessment (TEA) is a broad term that encompasses the diverse methods by which technology can be used to support the management and delivery of assessment. TEA does not mean simply replacing existing assessments with digital versions, but rather making use of technology to tackle some of the operational and pedagogic issues of assessment.

For example, technology-enhanced assessment uses a wide range of technologies to deliver questions (e.g., via computers, laptops, tablets, and smartphones), to let students interact with questions (e.g., watch videos, take digital notes, view closed captions, highlight and zoom in on text), and to provide prompt feedback and score reporting (e.g., automated essay scoring). Various types of technology-enhanced assessments have been developed for a broad scope of educational assessment aspects and purposes, such as formative or summative assessment, classroom or large-scale assessment, and self- or peer-assessment. The following are examples of well-established technology-enhanced assessments:

Examples: Online multiple choice questionnaires for formative assessment or summative assessment; Self-assessment of project work via a reflective blogs; formative assessment using a personal response system (PRS).