Changing Perspectives: Exploring a pedagogy to examine other perspectives about stem cell research

Abstract

This study explores how teachers developed and critically evaluated a range of teaching strategies that could support the discussion of a socio-scientific issue (SSI) that had the potential to be controversial. The issue was stem cell research and six New Zealand teachers of senior biology students (grades 12/13) took part in an action research project that was situational, collaborative and self-evaluative. The focus of the research was to identify communication barriers that interfered with classroom discussion and how teachers could help students cross cultural borders when they discussed SSIs that were outside their life worlds. The barriers to communication were access to relevant science knowledge, religion, language, an inability to question issues and cultural expectations of girls. Teachers trialled and adapted two discussion strategies, ‘Drawing the Line’ and ‘Diamond Ranking’ that provided a vehicle for their students to explore and discuss this issue from a range of perspectives. These discussion strategies enabled their students to take part in a dialogue where reciprocal conversation could occur because they had opportunities not only to explore their own perspectives but also other people's viewpoints.

Keywords:

• Socio-scientific Issues
• Dialogic Interaction
• Stem Cell Research

Notes

LENScience provides school teachers and students with access to scientific research communities. All programmes are designed by experienced secondary school science teachers working in collaboration with scientists. http://lens.auckland.ac.nz/index.php/Main_Page.

A school's decile rating reflects the average family or whānau (commonly used Māori word to describe the extended family who interact closely) backgrounds of students at the school and are used by the Ministry of Education to allocate school funding. There are 10 deciles and approximately 10% of schools are in each. Decile 1 schools have the highest proportion of students from low socio-economic backgrounds. The lower a school's decile rating, the more funding it gets to support students’ learning needs. http://www.minedu.govt.nz/Parents/AllAges/EducationInNZ/SchoolsInNewZealand/SchoolDecileRatings.aspx.

EFPost stands for ‘Electronic Funds Transfer at Point of Sale’. The UK equivalent is Direct Debit.

The New Zealand national qualifications system within senior secondary school—the National Certificate of Educational Achievement—is a standard-based assessment system which measures student performance on a three-point scale, Achieved, Merit and Excellence. In Biology, achievement relates to being able to describe concepts of biology, merit requires students to explain how or why something occurs and excellence requires students to link biological ideas into discussions which may involve students in justifying, relating, evaluating, comparing and contrasting, and analysing.