EDSC 9870: Seminar in Science Education Syllabus

Goals

• Process/Inquiry Goals
  • Understand how different perspectives can be used as filters/lenses to further one's understanding of the field of SciEd.
  • Use the literature and research from SciEd to expand and enrich your present notion of the perspectives of science education.
  • Think about and consider the implications of this seminar in light of your own progression and development as a science educator.
• Conceptual Goals
  • Reconstruct the history and trends in science education to the extent that you make meaning about your own place within the science education community, and acknowledge that the future is constructed by a variety of forces.
  • Compare and contrast feminist, social-cultural and Deweyan theories and perspectives on science education and make implications for your own work as a science educator
  • Draw implications from the work on social responsibility for science education; how does this impact your view of the goals and curriculum of contemporary school science?
  • Cross cultures; consider the implications of working across cultures within and outside the realms of this country; how does this connect you with the "community of practice?"
  • Connect with another educator; how does your experience with this educator impact your current views of science teaching and learning; what did you learn from this, anyway?
  • Be theoretical; how did your work investigating a theorist help you formulate and expand your ideas about science teaching and learning.
  • That's enough! Please add your own!

Requirements

There are several aspects of the seminar that are required

1. The first is that you make a list of the goals you will work on during the summer term and an action plan outlining how you will accomplish your goals, and how you will evaluate/assess your progress. Make a three column chart outlining your goals. Turn this in on June 26th. Thank you!
2. The second is that you participate in and complete a series of projects outlined below. In each case you will write a "paper" that will be presented in class and posted on your seminar website.
3. The third is that you participate "actively" in online discussions of the experiences connected to the seminar. On one occasion you will be the "qualitative researcher" in which you will document the seminar and then post it on the seminar bulletin board.
4. The fourth is that you create a web page for the seminar and that you post your work there as a contribution to the science education community of this class.
5. Fifth, please write a paper-et which may be a brief or as lengthy as you wish about your own most significant values and the ways they have changed or not changed as a result of this seminar.
6. Sixth, please turn in to me a statement of your own evaluation of your work and the grade you think is appropriate. This statement should include a) the criteria by which you are judging your work; b) a description of the ways in which you have met or failed to meet those criteria; and c) the grade you think appropriate to the way you have met or failed to meet your own criteria.
7. And finally, I want to have a conference with you at the end of the seminar in which we discuss your progress and reflect on your work in the community of the class.

Projects

1. Science Educator Project

In this project, you will contact a (science) educator at an institution other than Georgia State University. Your goal is to find out about and report on your science educators' career and their views on topics of interest to you. The activity is designed to give you some insight into the kinds of things that science educators do, especially in the area of communication, teaching, research, and publications. But at the same time, it is hoped that this will humanize this aspect of your doctoral work.

I have made contact with several science educators, some of whom are from other countries. Your task is, in a limited number of Email communications, to "interview" or establish an online relationship with your science educator.

Procedure:

1. You will find out who your science educator is in class. When you do, you should write an E-mail letter introducing yourself and telling something about who you are, what you do, and what your aspirations are. Be sure to keep your E-mails brief.

2. Develop a very short list of questions and use them as the core for E-mail messages. You should maintain a focus in your communication knowing that you are interested in your science educators' career.

3. Prepare a report on your science educator, and be prepared to share your findings in class on the assigned Science Educator day. Reports should be interesting, and can include either/or low or high tech visuals.

4. Turn in a written written hard copy report (one for each member of the class), and post your report on your website.

5. You should complete the project by writing a "thank you letter" to your educator. You also might want to point them to your website where they could read your report, or you might simply send a copy of the report with your thank you letter.

2. My Theorist Project

In this project you are going to research the work of a person who is considered by our peers as a theorist that has "influenced" science education. The goal here is for to become quite familiar with "your theorist" and to draw implications for your own work as an educator as well as other educators. Prepare a written theoria-report that will be shared with others in class. The theoria-report should help others understand the theoretical tenets of the person you investigated, and the implications of your theorist to the field of science education.

3. Peer Day Seminar Project

As a doctoral student I would like you to be responsible for co-creating a seminar on a topic in science education drawn from the content of the seminar. Your team will be allotted 1.5 hours to enact the seminar. A paper must be distributed to each member of the class on the day of the seminar. Also, prior to the seminar, class members should be directed to a web page that will give us some background and relevant links on the topic.

Here are some potential topics:

• Implications from the history of science education: Lessons learned from the SciEd history and how education can progress from this knowledge.
• World view theory, and urban education: How can Cobern's theory of "world view" be helpful to improving urban education (suburban and rural for that matter!)
• Constructivist theory: What do constructivist theorists claim about knowledge and science education, and what do the critics say?
• Across Cultures: What can we learn by looking into other cultures and opening ourselves to their ideas and views of learning and teaching?
• Feminist Perspectives on Science Learning: What is the feminist perspective? How does the feminist perspective impact the way one looks at curriculum and learning issues?
• Sociolcultural Perspectives: How might a sociocultural approach to science teaching make itself felt in classroom practice? What work has been done that might support your suppositions?
• The Deweyan Perspective: What were Dewey's central and driving concepts (such as "experience") and how might the science education community gear itself to embrace these concepts?

Resources

Books

Bybee, Rodger W. (1993). Reforming science education: Social perspectives & personal reflections. New York: Teachers College Press

Cobern, William W. (1991). World view theory and science education research. Manhattan, Kansas: National Association for Research in Science Teaching

Gallagher, James J. (1991). Interpretive research in science education. Manhattan, Kansas: National Association for Research in Science Teaching

Gess-Newsome, Julie & Lederman, Norman G. (1999). Examining pedagogical content knowledge: The construct and its implications for science education. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Press

Hassard, Jack. Minds On Science Online. http://scied.gsu.edu/mos/mos.html

Hurd, Paul DeHart (1997). Inventing Science Education for the New Millennium. New York: Teachers College Press

Mathews, Michael R. (1998). Constructivism in Science Education: A Philosophical Examination. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Press

Articles (Note: Articles will be provided, except for those online.)

Perspectives on Learning Science (Special Issue of Journal of Research in Science Teaching---Volume 38, Issue 3, March 2001

Brickstone, Nancy (2001). Embodying science: A feminist perspective on learning. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, Vol. 38. No. 3, PP 282 - 295

Lemke, J.L. (2001). Articulating Communities: Sociocultural Perspectives on Science Education. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, Vol. 38. No. 3, PP 296 - 316

Wong, David, Pugh, Kevin and the Dewey Idea Group at Michigan State University (2001). Learning science: A Deweyan perspective. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, Vol. 38. No. 3, PP 317 - 336.

Crossing Cultures and Multiculturalism

Cobern, William C. & Loving, Cathleen C. (2001). Defining "Science" in a multicultural world: Implications for science education. Science Education, Vol. 85, No. 1.

Lawrenz, Frances, Huffman, Douglas & Welch, Wayne (2001). The science achievement of various subgroups on alternative assessment formats. Science Education, Vol. 85, No. 3.

Hassard, Jack (1997). Teaching students to think globally. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, Vol. 37, No. 1, 1997, 24-63.

Settlage, John. (2001). Learning to teach science across cultural boundaries. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Association for the Education of Teachers in Science, Costa Mesa, CA, January 16 - 21.

Constructivism, Teaching and Teacher Education

Dias, Michael & Hassard, Jack. (2001). From practice to theory, narrowing the gap: First year science teachers emerging from a constructivist science education program. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Association for the Education of Teachers in Science, Costa Mesa, CA, January 16 - 21.

Glaserfeld, Ernst von. (1998). Cognition, construction of knowledge and teaching, in Michael R. Mathews (ed). Constructivism in science education. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.

Magnusson, Shirley, Krajcik, Joseph, & Borko, Hilda. (1999). Nature, sources, and development of pedagogical content knowledge for science teaching, in Julie Gess-Newsome & Norman G. Lederman (eds) Examining pedagogical content knowledge. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Press

Nola, Robert (1998). Constructivism in science and science education: A philosophical critique, in Michael R. Mathews (ed). Constructivism in science education. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.

Historical Perspective of Science Education

Krajcik, Joseph, Mamlok, Rachel, & Hug, Barbara (2001). Modern content and the enterprise of science: Science education in the twentieth century, in Lyn Corno (ed). Education across a century: The centennial volume. Chicago, IL: National Society for the Study of Education.

Hassard, Jack (1992). Goals and history of science education, in Hassard, Jack, Minds on Science. New York: Harpercollins, Publishers. http://scied.gsu.edu/Hassard/mos/chapter_3.htm

Social Responsibility

Cross, Roger (2000). Science and the citizen, in Roger Cross and Peter Fensham (eds). Science and the citizen. Melbourne: Arena Publications.

Cross, Roger, Zatsepin, Veniamin, and Gavrilenko, Ivan (2000). Preparing future citizens for post "Chernobyl" ukraine: A national calamity brings about reform of science education, in Roger Cross and Peter Fensham (eds). Science and the citizen. Melbourne: Arena Publications.

Dunkerly-Kolb, S. and Hassard, J. 1997. Citizen Scientists: Student Experiences in the GTP Georgia/Russian Exchange Project, Journal of Science Education and Technology, Vol. 6, No. 4, pp. 315-321

Hassard, Jack, Weisberg, Julie (2001). Impact of global school/university partnerships on science teacher enhancement. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Association for the Education of Teachers in Science, Costa Mesa, CA, January 16 - 21.

Hassard, J. and Weisberg, J. 1999. The emergence of global thinking among American and Russian youth as a contribution to public understanding. International Journal of Science Education, Vol. 21, No. 7, 731 - 743

Settlage, John. (2001). Learning to teach science across cultural boundaries. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Association for the Education of Teachers in Science, Costa Mesa, CA, January 16 - 21.

Watson, Fred (2000), Black holes and killer asteroids: The public perception of astronomy, in Roger Cross and Peter Fensham (eds). Science and the citizen. Melbourne: Arena Publications.