Science Education and Literacy

"This article investigates the biopolitical dimensions that have grown out of the union between
biocapitalism and current science education reform in the US. Drawing on science and technology
study theorists, I utilize the analytics of promissory valuation and salvationary discourses to
understand how scientific literacy in the neo-Sputnik era has deeply involved educational life in
biocapitalist circuits of exchange and production. I lay out this emerging terrain of ‘futuricity’
through a biopolitical analysis of the National Academies highly influential policy recommendation
on science education, Rising Above the Gathering Storm as well as the Association of
American Universities’ National Defense Education and Innovation Initiative. Here it is
argued that the educational subject usually seen as a site of human capital investment can better
be understood as a ‘biovalue’ in at least two senses: the educational subject’s body as a site of
investment and as an extractable source of value directly related to the larger globally competitive
regime of the rapidly growing bioeconomy. I conclude my analysis of the vital politics at play in
the biocapitalist articulation of science education with an alternative model of scientific literacy
that is based in what I call biodemocratic practices. I explore such a rereading of scientific literacy
through the example of the GrowHaus—a sustainable urban farm situated in a marginalized
community in a major US city.The GrowHaus offers a model of scientific literacy that rejects
extractive ethics associated with biocapitalist production and instead promotes a sustainable and
socially just practice of science.

In Educational Philosophy and Theory, (forthcoming, 2011)"

The purpose of this three-paper study is to explore the process of how science teachers integrate academic disciplines during a STEM professional development grant project.  I will address this purpose by studying the classroom discourses and practices in various STEM related discourse communities, examining the work of instructional coaches who support teachers in their STEM integration efforts, and through application of these findings to expand theory of disciplinary literacy that includes a multidisciplinary approach to teaching and learning.

In light of profound socio-economic and technological changes, the research from New Literacies has raised fundamental questions on the nature of literacy in the way we read, write, and communicate. Yet, in science education, research in literacy has been largely restricted to the domain of print-oriented
academic language. This paper aims to set the issues of literacy in science education in a broader context by responding to several challenges raised in New Literacies research: (a) the attention to youths’ diverse cultural and media practices, (b) the
sociocultural practices of specific discourse communities, and (c) the increasing multimodal semiotic landscape. The paper presents a model that synthesizes various research areas in New Literacies for the development of new pedagogy and
classroom practices in the nexus of literacy and science education. The proposed model provides a convergence of diverse theoretical perspectives from research in various disciplines, and presents an opportunity for cross-disciplinary research in both science and literacy education.

The focus of this article is on how to support reading in science, a practice that is foundational to learning science successfully (Norris and Phillips 2003). While reading science texts is necessary to acquire new ideas and understandings, many teachers regularly experience the frustration of reading a science text in class and find that many or most students struggle to comprehend the text. It is easy to believe that the only challenge posed by science texts is the vocabulary they contain, but our view of reading - what we call reading to learn—suggests that the reading of science texts poses a set of unique challenges for students, only one of which is vocabulary. Moreover, these are challenges that few of us are aware of, or know how to deal with in our teaching.

This ministry project dissertation was prepared and presented to the Faculty as part of the requirements for the Doctor of Ministry degree in apologetics at Southern Evangelical Seminary, Matthews, North Carolina. It was a program evaluation of the Reasons to Believe science apologetics certificates.
https://www.amazon.com/Reasons-Believe-Science-Apologetics-Certificates/dp/B08XXY3W4G/ref=sr_1_1

This book is about scaffolding pedagogy in the primary classroom, with a particular focus on providing useful resources for educationally marginalised students: low socio-economic, Indigenous and English as a second or additional language. Building on the research project and report 'Scaffolding academic language with educationally marginalised students', the book is written for teachers. It begins with an introduction to the theory: sociocultural Vygotskian psychology, systemic functional linguistics, and Bernstein's educational sociology.
The book then gets down to the nitty gritty of teaching academic language in the classroom, using the subject of science as the example. It provides support for developing a logically sequenced topic plan (the macroscaffold), and follows with several chapters on classroom language: how teachers need to change their talk in order for students to move to independence, and in response to their moves to independence.
The book provides three lenses to support teacher talk and as a tool for analysing the talk.
The final chapter is about assessment which takes into consideration the language goals and levels of scaffold, and about transfer of this pedagogy to other learning areas.

Purpose of Study: This study is an application of differential person functioning (DPF) on the data of Taiwan PISA 2015
science literacy. We use this method to understand the strength and weaknesses of Taiwan students in science literacy. It is also
hoped that the results could help improve the content of the curriculum and remedial instruction.
Methodology: We transpose the person-item data matrix into an item-person matrix and use the Mantel-Haenszel method to
analyze this matrix. The focal and reference groups change from persons to item clusters, that is, cognitive domains in the
PISA science assessment.
Principal
Findings: Results show the proportions of DPF are very few. This implies most Taiwan students have a comprehensive
science literacy. Up to 5.9% of students perform differentially in three science competencies. Most DPF students perform better in
the explain phenomena scientifically (EP) competency than the others no matter what proficiency level they belong to. This
may reflect the current situation of science education in Taiwan. The experts and teachers should develop more curriculums to
reinforce the students’ competencies about evaluate and design scientific enquiry (ED) and interpret data and evidence
scientifically (ID).
Limitations: The effect sizes of DPF are not provided, the degree of DPF is unidentified. DPF analyses only test the relative
difference in two cognitive scales. Future studies can incorporate another cognitive diagnostic model to obtain more information
in detail.
Importance of Study: The PISA assessments provide a favourable framework to examine students’ literacy. The results of
international reports show that Taiwan students performed well in science. The application of differential person functioning
can find out the weaknesses of Taiwan students in science literacy. Furthermore, we applied the DPF procedure to explore the
characteristics of students in different levels of performance.

In this article, we explore the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) with a lens informed by the socioscientific issues (SSI) movement. We consider the PISA definition of scientific literacy and how it is situated with respect to broader discussions of the aims of science education. We also present an overview of the SSI framework that has emerged in the science education community as a guide for research and practice. We then use this framework to support analysis of the PISA approach to assessment. The PISA and SSI approaches are seemingly well aligned when considering general aims. Both approaches emphasize preparing students for life and citizenship, complex reasoning and reflective practices, and robust understandings of the nature of science particularly as it is practiced in society. However, as the focus of comparison moves from the conceptual to more specific, the connections between PISA and the SSI movement become more tenuous. For instance, many of the PISA test items, at least those that have been released publicly, seem quite removed from the intent of the SSI movement. The article concludes with a discussion of recent trends in research associated with SSI, which may provide alternative avenues for assessing progressive aims of science education. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 46: 909–921, 2009

This article argues that teachers’ awareness of how disciplinary meanings are made is an important piece of the knowledge needed to be an effective English language teacher today. Noticing language can positively impact teachers’ content and language knowledge, and thus their ability to support primary, intermediate, and secondary students’ content and language learning. To illustrate this argument, I focus on informational science texts. First, I outline a framework for noticing language patterns in disciplinary texts. Then, I present some patterns important for informational reading and writing in the science classroom. Last, I describe some activities that can be used to engage students in noticing and using aspects of science literacy.

Women in science education are placed in a juxtaposition of gender roles and gendered career roles. Using auto/biography and auto/ethnography, this book examines the challenges and choices of academic women in science education and how those challenges have changed, or remained consistent, since women have become a presence in science education. The book’s contributors span a temporal and spatial continuum and focus on how a variety of issues relate to the paradoxes for academic women in science education. Science is characterized as a masculine endeavor, while teaching is described as “women’s true profession”. Thus, female academics involved in science education are positioned in two paradoxes. First, as teachers they are involved in a feminized profession. However, within that profession, women faculty in science education work in a discipline viewed as a masculine enterprise. Further, these women work in educational institutions that have higher status and prestige than their sisters in elementary, middle or high schools. Second, female professors are “bearded mothers”. Women who have engaged in science education value rationality and logic and assume authority as participants in academe. The use of logic, the acceptance of authority and the assumption of power are masculine gender-stereotyped characteristics. This situation places women in a paradox, because others, including peers and students, expect them to display stereotypic female gender dispositions, such as mothering/nurturing, sacrificing their needs for others, and a commitment to the institution.

The topics include: discussing how their engagement with science impacted their career trajectories and re-direction from science to science education, the relationships of cultural and racial factors on career trajectories, and the dialectical relationship between women’s private|public lives and their agency (collective and individual) in the academy and its enactment within academic fields. The book documents the lives and careers of academic women in science education from the United States, Australia, the Caribbean, United Kingdom, and Europe.





Cultural Perspectives in Science Education: Distinguished Contributors volume 3

ISBN 978-94-6091-085-2 hardback USD99/EUR90

ISBN 978-94-6091-084-5 paperback USD49/EUR45

March 2010, 244 pages

En esta sociedad, como en otras, la educación no es una isla, tampoco
es una instrumentalización neutra por encima de los conflictos y desigualdades del ensamble social. Más bien, la educación está
profundamente implicada en la formación y en la acción contra
los dispositivos de diferenciación cultural, económica
y del poder político que domina a nuestras sociedades.
En consecuencia, pensar seriamente en la educación es también pensar
seriamente acerca del poder, acerca de los mecanismos con los cuales
ciertos grupos asumen sus visiones, creencias y
prácticas

Creationist opposition to evolution is a major impediment to advancing science education in the US and a growing problem in the UK. Novel education approaches could be instrumental in stemming this opposition. Rapper Baba Brinkman’s live show “Rap Guide to Evolution” is one such effort, as it combines hip hop, science, and comedy. To investigate this, pre- and post-performance tests and a one-month follow-up using the Evolutionary Attitudes and Literacy Survey were administered to 92 UK students in conjunction with a “Rap Guide to Evolution” performance. Study compliance was poor, with only five participants completing all three surveys and low posttest reliability. Nonetheless, significant improvement from pretest to retention was detected in evolution exposure, though there was also a decrease in evolutionary knowledge. Regression analysis controlling for gender, current religion, openness to experience, and creationist reasoning also indicated a borderline significant decrease in...

Writing is subject-specific. Writing is not speech written down. Writing has the capacity to facilitate the abstraction of concepts and promote high order critical thinking. The Science classroom provides excellent opportunities to improve literacy skills and in turn, improve overall student learning outcomes. Over the past few years, analyses of external national and state assessments have suggested high school student writing performance has been undergoing a slight but discernable decline (See Appendix attachment for more detail about NSW external Science assessments and results). This paper provides some explanation and examples using NSW 7-12 Science syllabus outcomes to demonstrate how teachers can improve writing in their Science classroom.

Although serious games are well established in gaming culture, they are rarely focused on as an object of study in secondary classrooms. This chapter explores ways of researching, playing and working with popular serious games with secondary Media students. It presents three popular serious games and outlines a unit that incorporates serious games in the classroom using online message boards. Importantly, it also outlines how classroom teaching and learning in the serious games unit is closely aligned with the Victorian Essential Learning Standards for the Arts (Media) and Communication. In conclusion , I outline the unit's final assessment tasks, where students were required to either make an argument for including serious games in the classroom, write a proposal for a new serious game or design their own digital game using GameMaker 7, a free popular game design software available online.

Agriscience is an emerging field at the intersection of recently separate fields of agriculture and science. For meaningful communication with and engagement of public audiences around agriscience, researchers, educators, and the public must have a consensus definition. We used personal meaning mapping to collect public audience understandings of the individual terms agriculture and science to find spontaneous overlap. We qualitatively coded them and compared them to each other. Very few participants explicitly included "agriculture" on science maps and vice versa. However, many maps included terms that related to the other topic; for example, on agriculture maps, many participants included "biology." Agriculture maps used more terms related to tangible products, while science maps contained more terms related to intangible results and specific disciplinary areas. We found some overlap of categories with both sets of standards but in differing amounts, reflecting...

This article was published on the Blog of the APA (edited by David V. Johnson), having previously received Honorable Mention in the APA Blog's first Public Philosophy Award for Undergraduates (2019). It is a narrative-style public philosophy piece which tries to understand the motivating factors behind the rejection of scientific claims - specifically, the denial by members of the public of scientific claims about climate change. It argues that, at least in some cases, this rejection is motivated by a perception of 'science' as a uni-vocal behemoth which spits out opaque claims, rather than a dynamic poly-vocal system involved in an ongoing process of explaining.

It’s the role of all teachers to develop
literacy, no matter their subject area. Could
longstanding collaborative learning tool,
Mysteries, be the solution? This article explores
the potential for developing listening, speaking,
reading and writing with a Mystery for KS3
science and geography.

Planning and conducting Workshops of scientific literacy for students has been experienced in the context of training of prospective teachers of Primary Education. We present the evaluation of this work from the perspective of in-service teachers, participating student and undergraduate teachers who were trained in advance to be monitors.

Social network sites have become an integral part of young people’s lifes. Although they offer tremendous opportunities to share online content and socialize with peers, questions raise on possible privacy issues.  These concerns have inspired the two central research questions in a study using an online survey among teenage respondents (10-19 years): To what extent are teenagers disclosing personal data and using privacy settings in social network sites (SNS)? Which factors help in predicting SNS-disclosure and the use of privacy settings by teenagers?
The study identified the following important predictors of data disclosure (in order of importance): (1) peer influence, (2) gender and (3) the perceived importance of SNS in teenagers’ lives. Teenagers who are more susceptible to the influence of their peers were found to disclose more personal information on their online profiles. Consistent with previous research, girls disclosed significantly less personal information on SNS than boys did. Teenagers who attributed more importance to SNS in their daily lives were also more likely to disclose a greater amount of personal information. Among the parental Internet-mediation strategies, only active co-surfing impacted teenagers’ online disclosure.
The most important predictors of teenagers’ application of privacy settings were (1) level of privacy concern, (2) gender and (3) perceived importance of SNS. Teenagers with higher levels of privacy concern were far more likely to restrict access to their profiles. Gender and the perceived role of SNS retained their importance as the second and third most valuable predictors (respectively), with greater use of privacy settings by girls and by those attributing less importance to SNS. Finally, as adolescents age, they tend to open up their profile to a broader audience. Implications that emerge from the central findings of this study for (SNS) policy and awareness raising campaigns, are discussed.

Please contact the authors for more information.

Pixie Hollow provides a series of useful, accessible examples for discussing gender, the mechanics of community building, and the interconnections between technological fluency and community norms. This game also provides an opportunity to talk about literacy as a fundamentally social act. Also, the overall assignment and its emphasis on journaling as a research tool meant to encourage critical self-reflexivity helps students grasp concepts central to the course as a whole, including race, class, and gender.

A copy of this paper is available here:  http://www.mariareadsalot.com/publications/

In 2008 Australians were promised a ‘Digital Education Revolution’ by the government to dramatically change classroom education and build a ‘world-class education system’. Eight billion dollars have been spent providing computer equipment for upper secondary classrooms, yet there is little evidence that a revolution has occurred in Australian schools. Transformation of an education system takes more than a simplistic hardware solution. Revolutions need leaders and leaders need vision. In this paper, I argue that we must first develop educational leaders by inspiring future teachers with a vision and by designing our teacher-education courses as technology-rich learning-spaces. A multi-layered scenario is developed as the inspiration for a vision of a future-orientated teacher-education system that prepares teachers to deliver a ‘world-class digital education’ for every Australian child. Although written for the Australian context this paper has broad relevance internationally for teacher education.