Re-imagining Science Education. (May 15, 2007)

    The 80 page article making up today's Australian Education Review No 51, "Re-imagining Science Education: Engaging students in science for Australia's future" by Russell Tytler is a condemnation of current science and maths teaching in the Australian schools.

Professor Tytler set the scene in the opening of his introduction.

Science education in Australia, as in other post-industrial countries, is in a state of crisis. The language of crisis is used by government, industry and educators alike to describe the diminishing proportion of students in the post-compulsory years who are undertaking science-related studies, particularly in the physical sciences. In itself this might not be such an issue, except that this flight from science is occurring in societies that are in increasing need of science and technology-based professionals to carry the nation into a technologically driven future. It is the pipeline into this pool of expertise that seems in danger of drying up. The concern is thus largely economic, but as this review will point out, the issue is wider than this, and encompasses the need to maintain a citizenry that is literate in and well disposed towards science.

But of course the matter in hand is what is to be done about it. He closes the introduction:

This review will scrutinise the assumptions underpinning this traditional science curriculum. In doing this, it will challenge the proposition that the structured canon of abstract concepts represents the defining feature of science as an enterprise, and is the appropriate major focus for school science. What is essentially at stake here is how knowledge in science is best characterised. The question ‘what knowledge or knowledges should be the appropriate focus in science education’ is central to the work of re-imagining science education.

In his forward to the review Australia's Chief Scientist, Jim Peacock makes the point:

Professor Tytler, in his review, boldly aims to provide possible solutions to these questions. His key message is the need to re-imagine science education to suit today’s world. The author believes there is a ‘genuine mood for change’ across all sectors.

I was asked to comment on one of three propositions generated by teachers and other stakeholders at the conference [which generated this review]: ‘We need to re-imagine science education, accepting a shift that is occurring and must occur in the way we think of its nature and purposes.’

My response to this proposition was based upon three key ideas I believe to be important in school science:

• Science education shouldn’t be prescriptive – it is about the ‘spark of excitement’ that
stems from discovery

• Open-ended tasks and relevance are vital – students need to understand the world
around them and make rational decisions on important issues

• Teacher confidence and professional development is just as important as the students’
learning materials.

Some 60 years ago a comprehensive high school some 20 miles outside New York City had three science teachers for years 10-12. One for biology, one for chemistry and the third for physics.

The math teachers were competent but the three science teachers were outstanding -- all highly competent in their subjects, all enthusiastic and all had in addition to their lecture material equipment provided to them to allow fully participatory practical classes for their students.

The result? an abnormally high percentage of students in graduating classes who intended to go to university took science in their first year. Not all continued but many did and not a small number made significant contributions to their chosen fields.

In short, you can manipulate the curricula all you please but unless you have knowledgeable enthusiastic teachers who can communicate their knowledge you're doing little more than tilting at windmills.

Where to start?

Like it or not you have to begin with the material you have now in our universities, and create the environment to have them become thoroughly conversant with their chosen fields and then have them want to teach.

And give them the resources so they can do their jobs properly.