OFSTED research review series: science
@Ofstednews @educationgovuk @theASE @IOPTeaching @RoySocChem @RoyalSocBio @ErduranSibel @DrKeithSTaber @profneilmercer @leighhoath @STEMLearningUK @emilyjaneperry @ViciaScience @chrisharriKings @jametllerul #ASEChat https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/research-review-series-science/research-review-series-science

I’ve read this document and find much I agree with – in terms of both research synthesis and implications for practice. Most is not new: old lags like me remember CLISP, CASE, Beyond 2000...

Science for Public Understanding, 21st Century Science, the KS3 strategy, the ESRC’s synthesis report etc. that made similar points. The challenge lies in implementation against a policy climate pushing in the opposite direction.

The report is wide in scope touching on all school phases, science selection at points of choice (i.e. 14 and 16), learning, teaching/pedagogy, curriculum, teaching materials, practical work.

Each section ends with bulleted implications for practice. Pretty much all of these are justified in evidence and command reasonably broad support in the research community. [Go on, prove me wrong!]

For example, I think most researchers would broadly support that:

There’s a link between teaching the ‘products’ and ‘processes’ of science in both curriculum and pedagogy

Content knowledge needs a strong focus to make it coherent, to be introduced through the curriculum in a logical sequence, and to be taught in appropriate contexts with planning for progression

The curriculum should include time for practice and appropriate ‘chunking’ of content so as not to overwhelm learners, and address known ‘misconceptions’

Resources need to be high quality and coherent rather than a bricolage of more random stuff picked off the internet

Like all pedagogical approaches practical work is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ according to the learning aims it addresses – it is never good for allowing learners to ‘discover’ concepts that took humankind millions of years to ‘create’

Assessment has multiple purposes: to inform future teaching, to assess learning and to support learning

Teachers (and others supporting learning) need to ‘know stuff’ about both the content being taught and how it is learnt to do their jobs effectively

So far so good, and I encourage the science education community to get behind these aspirations – as much school science curriculum development, assessment, teaching and (dare I say it) inspection evidence really mitigates against putting them into practice

In the discussion on aims of science education there’s no recognition of the distinction between ‘science curricula for future specialists’ and ‘science for future citizens’.

This is key to retention at points of choice and the content of curricula. Initiatives like 21st Century Science were abandoned for ideological reasons as they focused on the latter rather than the former.

There’s no mention of institutional/social processes in the validation of scientific knowledge: it’s all empirical according to this. Yet we’ve seen on our TVs/computers the institutional bodies of science and govt setting what counts as reliable public knowledge every day

There’s confusion throughout about curriculum (what society deems as appropriate to be learnt), learning (what’s actually learnt) and teaching/pedagogy (what we do to engender learning).

The structures of school and professional sci are different. Professional sci isn’t divided into P/C/B/Earth Sci! Most ‘biologists’ don’t do a first degree in biol– think molecular biology/ecology etc., so ‘interdisciplinarity’ between P/C/B needs to be thought of differently.

Pedagogy: call me old-fashioned but I’m not persuaded by all the ‘neuroscience-speak’ here. It seems to be saying nothing more than ‘give opportunities to practice using new ideas, teach in a coherent sequence, don’t overwhelm’.

I got this in my PGCE in the early 80s and I’m sure my predecessors did. The key insight for me is ‘don’t assume that what you’ve SAID has been UNDERSTOOD, and don’t assume that UNDERSTANDING in the context of teaching enables APPLICATION in other contexts.

Practical work: there’s an error here. Sci ideas are not ‘there to be seen’ by observing natural phenomena/events cos they’re IDEAS. Learners need introducing to the ideas then practice USING them. This is why so much PW ‘doesn’t work’, and why good sci t needs to rethink PW.

‘Misconceptions’ – argh! It's like all the work of the 80’s-noughties didn’t really happen: a very un-nuanced treatment. It’s a shame that my article with the late, great #PhilScott wasn’t cited

We set out the difference between everyday and social languages and explained the implications of enabling learners to ‘speak’ school science from AND ALONGSIDE their ‘everyday’ social language – SEEING THE DIFFERENCE and knowing when each is appropriate.

Prof scientists and sci teachers do this all the time. We all know it’s sometimes appropriate to say ‘shut the door to keep the cold out’ – though in GCSE physics we are ‘shutting the door to stop heat escaping’. [Physicists: don’t @ me!]

And sometimes everyday social language directly contradicts school science social language – this makes school science particularly hard to explain and be applied by learners.

So what happens next? It would be good for practitioners, researchers and policy makers (eg @Ofstednews) to come together to put all this into practice.

However – I suspect the products would be vetoed by @NickGibbUK et al as they would involve introducing ‘non-content stuff’ to curricula, having discussion in classes not kids facing the front and listening to Sir/Miss, and having less ‘content’ to enable ‘practice’. We’ll see.

If you've ploughed through this - thanks!