4570 Students – note the additional text after the references – I have taken the liberty of combining two documents on this subject.  Also please feel free to substitute "science educator" where ever physicist appears and science for physics, etc.  The article was written for a physics journal, but the principles apply to all sciences.

 

Prospectus:

The Overarching Goals of Scientific Literacy:

Implications for Physics Teacher Preparation

 

A literature review chapter proposed for Physics Teacher Preparation book

 

Adam Johnston

Weber State University

 

Research and curriculum development in physics education often emphasizes the conceptual understanding of fundamental physics principles.  No doubt, such emphasis is important. Yet, if we consider a broader view of education and current science education reform documents (e.g., Project 2061 [AAAS]), a concentration on only these concepts could be limiting.  Instead, we might look towards more general scientific literacy and more overarching concepts, including the nature of science and scientific inquiry.  This piece reviews such scientific literacy standards and research into how these general themes are best learned. The implications for physics teacher preparation are described.

 

 

INTRODUCTION:

In recent decades, efforts on a national scale have been made towards developing a set of goals towards which science education should strive.  These have largely been put forth as a change in the philosophy of science education has taken place, readdressing the question, “Why is science education important?”  Although the answer to this question in the early and mid 20^th century was often, “So that we can produce more/better scientists and benefit from these better trained individuals,” current reforms in science education have focused less on the few of us who become trained scientists, and more on the general public.  As the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS, 1990) states:

Science education . . . should help students to develop the understandings and habits of mind they need to become compassionate human beings able to think for themselves and to face life head on.  It should equip them also to participate thoughtfully with fellow citizens in building and protecting a society that is open, decent, and vital. (p. xiii)

 

Statements such as these are both empowering and terrifying.  If it is true that science education – including physics education – can make us compassionate and thoughtful and allow us to produce a functioning democratic society, then we indeed have an amazing tool to work with.  On the other hand, if protecting and improving upon society is dependent upon the quality science education – and therefore the quality of physics classrooms and the teachers within those classrooms that we train in our departments – then we have a tremendous responsibility.

Burdened with such a responsibility, exactly how should physics teacher preparation proceed?  Specifically, what kind of science curriculum is required in order for all citizens to be science literate, and how does this apply to the physics classroom and physics teacher preparation?  This literacy is not that which is required by scientists, but by thoughtful participants in our society, those who can understand fundamentals of science knowledge, method, and philosophy.  Several national organizations have outlined what kind of knowledge every citizen should know about science in order to be science literate.  The AAAS has produced the reference, Science for All Americans: Project 2061[i], and several related works.  The National Research Council (NRC) has outlined a vision for science literacy in National Science Education Standards[ii], and the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) maintains a list of statements[iii] regarding standards for science education, and also designates standards for science teacher preparation[iv].  NSTA and other education organizations (including multiple state standards for science education) largely cite AAAS and NRC.

 

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR SCIENCE LITERACY:

In trying to make sense of what various organizations recommend for science literacy and the standards towards which we should strive, I synthesize the goals of science education into four main categories: discipline specific knowledge, unifying concepts, the nature of science, and habits of mind.

 

Discipline specific knowledge

Recommendations for science literacy are quick to point out that students need to understand fewer, fundamental concepts in a deep manner, rather than understanding a wide breadth of topics in a more superficial manner.[v]  So, concepts regarding the general rules of the universe – such as energy conservation, the basis of matter, how the Earth and solar system have formed, and the nature of forces in general – make up the basis for concepts in physics and physical science. Concepts most emphasized for science literacy are those which help organize the knowledge of science in general, and could provide a “lasting foundation on which to build more knowledge over a lifetime” (AAAS).  The findings and recommendations of the physics education community (undoubtedly found throughout the Teacher Preparation text) are quite consistent with this recommendation. 

Additionally, there are additional recommendations with an emphasis on human society.  The AAAS makes recommendations regarding understandings of human behavior, culture, and societal and global interactions all as a part of science literacy.  The NRC, as well as the AAAS, is quick to emphasize that all concepts in science are directly linked to our environmental, medical, and personal well-being, and that this interaction between science and humanity should be emphasized.

Unifying concepts

Although science is often viewed to operate as an army of individual scientists housed under a variety of disciplinary roofs, science is an integrated body of knowledge.  That is, the life sciences and the physical science and all disciplines within these are trying to describe the same natural universe, and the rules of such a universe should not be discipline specific.  The nature of matter that we describe in physics should correspond to the building blocks of life, and life and its organization must be incorporated into a description of the earth and its place in the universe.  The knowledge of science is interconnected and cohesive across and throughout all disciplines of the natural sciences.

Both the NRC and AAAS emphasize the abstract but unifying concepts which help us to better organize our thinking of many individual concepts in science.  Systems demonstrate the interaction of multiple components whose integration is something distinct from the sum of their parts.  Change and constancy and evolution and equilibrium show that many quantities and qualities in nature are in some way conserved and/or fit into specific patterns, and such are fundamentally important ways of describing natural occurrences.  Evidence, models, and explanation are used throughout all science disciplines, demonstrating that the bases and explanatory goals of all scientific endeavors are shared.  These unifying ideas all show that science knowledge has commonalities between its many individual pieces and that science looks for patterns and general themes that describe the natural world.

 

The nature of science

Perhaps the most recent emphasis in science education research and curriculum reform efforts has been placed on helping students understand the nature of science and the process of scientific inquiry.  This relatively vague descriptor refers to the philosophical underpinnings of science, how science proceeds, what science seeks, and the kind of knowledge that science can produce.  Science is a way of understanding nature in a very specific manner.  Science knowledge is based on evidence, but that knowledge is ultimately determined by humans and repeatedly tested against nature.  Thus, scientific knowledge is durable (because it has been repeatedly tested) but is always subject to review and further testing (because there is always one more test to conduct, and because the knowledge itself is produced by humanity rather than written by nature herself).  These attributes separate science from religion, clarifying what science can and cannot do for us, and these same attributes help to determine when claims are truly scientifically valid.  To really understand the knowledge that science has so far produced, one must also understand the source, purpose, strengths, and limits of such knowledge.

 

Habits of mind

Thinking “scientifically” means more than just knowing some science content.  It also involves specific methodologies, logic, problem solving, creativity, and inquiry.  To physicists, this may be especially apparent in problem solving, laboratory techniques, and trouble shooting; yet it is also inherent in the critical thinking we must do to combat pseudoscience, hoax, fraud, and other misrepresentations of our discipline and fleecing of citizenry. The “doing” of physics and the practice of specific skills in a classroom should help students hone many lifelong pursuits and the ability to analyze both person and societal dilemmas.

 

WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT FOR A PHYSICS PROGRAM?

The overarching goals of science education are easy to state, but notably harder to achieve.  For its part, physics teacher education must consider these goals explicitly for several reasons described by the literature.  First, accreditation for science teacher programs, including physics, as overseen by NSTA, are clear that these broader, overarching goals are a part of scientific “content,” and that this “content is operationally defined to include the knowledge and skills that are learned, or should be learned, in the course of the teacher’s science curriculum.”[vi]  Thus, these standards of teacher preparation cannot be add-ons by more general education coursework in a department of teacher education.  For accreditation, they must be documented to exist within the physics content of one’s teacher preparation program.

Second, research on students’ and teachers’ understandings of the nature of science and scientific inquiry is quite clear that such content is not easily learned; and it is generally not understood unless it is taught explicitly[vii].  Additionally, there is inherent difficulty for teaching students to understand the overarching themes and integrating concepts in their disciplines, even when they have majors within a scientific discipline such as physics[viii].  As myths about the nature of science are pervasive in our society and even within the teaching community,[ix] it is crucial that we arm our own students with the knowledge and ability to combat such. 

Additionally, physics teacher preparation programs, responsible for the coursework that meets accreditation standards, develop (or choose not to develop) specific themes of scientific literacy, and being the heart of students’ curriculum as they aim towards a career in physics teaching, should feel obligated to take control of their curriculum in a deliberate, goal-oriented fashion.  Just as teacher preparation courses (in a school of education, for example) emphasize “backwards design”[x] – identifying the learning goals of a curriculum, followed by assessments, and finally the curriculum itself – our programs should model and support what our future teachers should be implementing in their own classrooms.  It is one thing to tell our future teachers that they need to teach scientific inquiry, the nature of science, the integration of science, etc., but it is a whole other thing to model this explicitly in the programs we develop for them.