Teaching and Learning Science: Towards a Personalized Approach

✍ Scribed by Derek Hodson

• Year: 1998
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 209
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

This book extends and unifies recent debate and research about science education in several disparate fields, including philosophy of science, cognitive psychology and motivation theory. Through an approach based on the personalization of learning and the politicization of the curriculum and classroom, it shows how the complex goal of critical scientific literacy can be achieved by all students, including those who traditionally underachieve in science or opt out of science education at the earliest opportunity. Current thinking in situated cognition and learning through apprenticeship are employed to build a sociocultural learning model based on a vigorous learning community, in which the teacher acts as facilitator, co-learner and anthropologist. Later chapters describe how these theoretical arguments can be translated into effective classroom practice through a coherent inquiry-oriented pedagogy, involving a much more critical and wide-ranging use of hands-on and language-based learning than is usual in science education.

✦ Table of Contents

Cover......Page 1
Teaching and learning science : towards a personalized approach......Page 4
Contents......Page 8
Acknowledgement......Page 9
1 In pursuit of scientific literacy......Page 10
2 Towards a personalized science......Page 18
3 The significance of prior knowledge in science and learning......Page 32
4 Constructivist approaches to teaching and learning science......Page 43
5 The paradox of constructivism......Page 53
6 Prioritizing the affective......Page 67
7 Exploring some social dimensions of learning......Page 83
8 Science education as enculturation......Page 93
9 Problems of assimilation and exclusion......Page 109
10 Authenticity in science and learning......Page 121
11 Walking the line: enculturation without assimilation......Page 136
12 Exploring and developing personal understanding through practical work......Page 152
13 Exploring and developing personal understanding through language......Page 163
14 Making it work: the role of the teacher......Page 177
References......Page 190
Index......Page 207