HOW SCIENCE WORKS
Scientific challenges
Science writer and physics teacher Alom Shaha discusses the challenges that the changes to the science curriculum in 2006, including the “how science works” aspect,
have posed for many teachers I
F YOU were going to compile a list of qualities for an “outstanding” teacher, what would you include? I suspect you would want things like
“excellent subject knowledge”, “inspiring to students and colleagues”, and “gives up spare time to help students”.
I would be willing to bet you wouldn’t include “has
successfully coped with frequently revised curricula”. Yet this is exactly one of the things the Institute of
Physics says it is looking for when judging entrants for its 2010 Teachers’ Award. If this is indeed a key criteria in judging an outstanding
teacher, then there are fewer outstanding science teachers out there today than there were a few years ago – many science teachers have struggled to cope with changes to the science curriculum which were implemented in 2006, particularly the introduction of a whole new area of the curriculum called “how science works” (HSW). Alongside traditional science content, such as
atomic structure, teachers are now required to teach students a range of things, including about “the use of contemporary scientific and technological developments and their benefits, drawbacks and risks”, “how and why decisions about science and technology are made”, and “how uncertainties in scientific knowledge and scientific ideas change over time and about the role of the scientific community in validating these changes”. These changes to the science curriculum were
prompted by the publication in 1998 of theBeyond 2000 report, which argued that the old curriculum presented science as “a body of knowledge which is value-free, objective and detached (which resulted in) a growing tension between school science and contemporary science as portrayed in the media, between the needs of future specialists and the needs of young people in the workplace and as informed citizens”. The report recommended that: “The science
curriculum from five to 16 should be seen primarily as a course to enhance general ‘scientific literacy’.” Despite the fact that many teachers I respect and
admire disagreed with the report, and vehemently opposed the changes to the curriculum it suggested, I personally think that the introduction of HSW into the science curriculum was a good idea. I passionately believe that the science curriculum
should explicitly convey what is special about science as an approach to acquiring knowledge. As for getting students to think about the ethical, cultural, social and political implications of scientific research, it seems perverse not to want to do that. I believe that, given time, the proper teaching of
HSW will diminish the gap between the “two cultures” and lead to citizens who are better able to differentiate between science and pseudoscience, better able to make
SecEd • June 17 2010
sense of data presented to them in the media, and better able to fully appreciate the significance of science as a cultural achievement. But there are problems – one of which was hammered
home to me as I watched an online discussion about science and religion unfold. During the debate, one teacher used a creationist website to support his “scientific” point of view. Another teacher responded that “had any of my
students offered (your argument), they and I would be having a long chat about how to properly judge the reliability and validity of sources”. I have no doubt that the first teacher could explain the wave properties of light to me in precise detail, but it was apparent from a number of his statements that he had a limited understanding of the nature of scientific knowledge. Good science teachers have no problem teaching
about atomic structure or osmosis or electrical resistance because these are ideas with which they are familiar – material they themselves learnt at school and which they usually understand at a far deeper level than is necessary for them to teach it. The same is not true of the material they need to teach for HSW. Mary Whitehouse, a co-director of the 21st Century
Science project, has had many discussions with teachers about the value of teaching HSW. She told me that these discussions reveal that “while these teachers recognise the importance of teaching these ideas, many have had no direct experience of learning about the nature of science”. It is not a criticism but an observation: most science
teachers have a first degree in the subject they teach; few of them will have had any formal education in ethics or the history and philosophy of science, the very things which HSW requires them to teach. It seems clear to me that we need more CPD to enable teachers to approach the HSW elements of the curriculum with the same confidence they have when teaching material with which they are more familiar. I know I have not been absolutely scientific in
my comments above. I know I have only presented anecdotal evidence, but that is only because, as far as I am aware, there is very little research on this issue. We need to collect more data and then perhaps we might actually be able to take a scientific approach to improving the teaching of “how science works”. SecEd
• Alom Shaha teaches physics at a comprehensive school in north London. He also works as a film-maker, science writer and science communication consultant. He recently produced the web-based project Why is Science Important? at
www.whyscience.co.uk, and has written, produced and directed television programmes ranging in subject matter from particle physics to mathematics.
Exclusively online from summer 2010
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