Teaching Scientific Practices: Meeting the Challenge of Change

Abstract

This paper provides a rationale for the changes advocated by the Framework for K-12 Science Education and the Next Generation Science Standards. It provides an argument for why the model embedded in the Next Generation Science Standards is seen as an improvement. The Case made here is that the underlying model that the new Framework presents of science better represents contemporary understanding of nature of science as a social and cultural practice. Second, it argues that the adopting a framework of practices will enable better communication of meaning amongst professional science educators. This, in turn, will enable practice in the classroom to improve. Finally, the implications for teacher education are explored.

Keywords:

• Scientific practices
• Teacher education
• Teaching science

Notes

1 emphasis added.

2 Abductive arguments are also known as retroductive arguments.

3 Ben Goldacre offers an excellent discussion of this issue in a TED talk (http://www.ted.com/talks/ben_goldacre_what_doctors_don_t_know_about_the_drugs_they_prescribe.html).

4 In one sense, any of these activities could be said to be ‘doing science’. In this chapter, the term ‘doing science’ is used to refer to the act of engaging in empirical inquiry.