Crossing Boundaries of Science Subjects: A collaborative perspective for teacher education

Dr. Manfred Lang, IPN at the University of Kiel. Germany

Paper presented at the European Conference on Educational Research, University of Hamburg, 17-20 September 2003

SummaryTraditional school sciences are too narrowly defined assuming a notion of scientific literacy as an instrumental aim for disciplinary training and controlling behaviour. They undermine responsible interaction of teachers and learners in the context of complex life-world problems. Of central importance is a more generally enabling dialog about larger issues that face societies. Such a version of scientific literacy transcending boundaries of disciplinary knowledge and putting human values at the centre of educational practice needs a collaborative perspective for teacher education. Central to the broader view of scientific literacy is the idea that the curriculum be built on issues that are of concern to students and society and that these issues transcend traditional subject boundaries. Science topics for education need to imply issues and ideas that depend on contributions from subjects but in a framework that is not regulated by them. In the case of citizenship, subject matter is selected to promote discourse about issues important in the political commons justifying normative positions in education that are outlined and exemplified in the EUDIST project.

1. Problems and needs for scientific understanding as citizens

As Aikenhead (2003), Olson & Lang (2002), Eisenbart, Finkel & Marion (1996), Solomon & Thomas (1999) Eijkelhof & Lijnse (1988) and others suggest the goals of traditional school science are too narrowly defined by disciplinary training and knowledge transmission and should be renegotiated for the more diversified demands of present students and societies. A change from learning of canonical science content toward a more everyday relevance and a student-centred view is expected to overcome deficiencies of students' interest in science learning and the declining recruitment in science subjects (Sjoberg, 2001; Solomon, 1999; Eijkelhof & Lijnse, 1988).

In science education we see a rising emphasis on formal reasoning: systematic and disciplined approaches to the teaching of higher order thinking skills. It rejects any attempts to integrate ideas from outside the sciences or allow a discourse across or beyond boundaries of science subjects. In a "hard" science approach disciplines are still accepted as major sources for education. The sources from sciences are considered "more important than the arts for understanding the world", and that "only a scientific methodology is intellectually acceptable" (Noordhof, 1995). Learning is reduced to key scientific concepts as essential content to prepare students to act like "real" scientists. Teaching strategies to act in socially responsible ways are not included. Students are expected to absorb theories of science, presented in a kind of dead language unleavened by a social and inevitably fractious framework.

Cobern (1998), for example, takes science education to task for being culturally insensitive by virtue of this alienation. We think this is a fair criticism of science education. This alienation shows up in the different guises of what he calls “scientism” – the scientism being a symptom of the detachment of science from human concerns. Taylor (1991) takes this concern further. He identifies three malaises of modernity which we can see giving rise to problems of scientism in education. The malaises, he says, stem from individualism; instrumental reason; and the loss of democratic participation. The first has to do with the loss of something bigger than oneself to believe in – a loss of purpose. The second concerns the narrowing of the bases on which decisions are made to technocratic, cost-benefit analysis leaving out important areas

we are concerned about which are hard to quantify. The third has to do with the political consequences of lack of purpose and the narrow, technocratic basis of action – the sense of being trapped in a system which we do not control – an alienation from community.

Taylor (1991) points to the view that science and technology are valuable for doing good things. But what is lacking is a frame in which individual responsibility and reason can operate in concert in the individual and amongst individuals for the good of community – which in the end implies political action. Action lies at the end of this story – not just knowing. We have to think about a procedure how to get to human welfare and for that one must go beyond science to a humanistic perspective with moral horizon which cannot be set aside, neither in the world of practical action, nor in the process of deliberation in political decisions about adequate science curriculum (Aikenhead, 2003, p. 2).

Coming from outside the school are important questions about what to admire, what to shun, how to act, what to extol and to excoriate and from whence to have the strength to keep a steady gaze when confronted with "real problems" that are often fuzzy. Salient issues are not represented by textbook problems or in courses for teacher education. These are prescriptive and imply the "correct" answer in a well-structured scientific formalism. As Knab (1983) points out functional rationality of the dominant curriculum offers mainly prescriptions for teaching and learning outcomes without justification.

There are signs that science curriculum making is seeking to encompass broader material than that which comes exclusively from the disciplines themselves. For example, in an overview of research in environmental education, Posch (1993) comes to the conclusion that school-based environmental initiatives are changing traditional modes of disciplinary teaching and learning toward personal experience and commitment, interdisciplinary learning and research, socially important action and collaboration. These initiatives develop dynamic networks of communication for exchange in their communities and new structures for teacher professional development at the school level. Parts of these networks are local governments, industry, parents, media or environmental groups, sharing similar goals.

Likewise some integrated science or STS projects incorporate science topics into practical or social projects in order to promote broader reflection (Black & Atkin, 1996). It was found in the OECD study "Changing the Subject" that integrated science, mathematics and technology education involving everyday life problems and practical concerns gave rise to questions about context and values and thus to ethical argumentation. Projects such as the US CalSci (Science Framework for California Public Schools) or PING in Germany (Practicing Integration in Science Education) involve social issues that go beyond educational goals of traditional discipline-oriented subjects.

The views of scientific literacy, as an instrumental aim, stand in contrast to other aims justified by the needs of citizenship in a democratic society and civil society. Gräber et al. (2001) point to controversies underlying the emphasis of instrumental purposes in the way scientific literacy is defined. They give preference to competencies of the individual to cope with a complex world and less to national needs of a scientifically literate workforce. Olson (2003) argues that a central task for education is "helping people pursue their chosen interests and careers in the context of becoming citizens". Scientific literacy is seen as a tool for citizens to make informal choices or to probe issues for themselves. It gives them the tools to evaluate, for example, conflicting claims from experts about the ecological impacts of different forms of transportation. The problem with the narrowly instrumental definition of scientific literacy is that it is too much a question of learning facts and too little a search for perspectives and underlying values.

Alternative concepts of scientific literacy in a deliberative procedure need to be developed (Aikenhead, 2003). Roth (2003) points to the importance to participate in public debates over

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"real" issues and concerns instead of facts of science knowledge. The development of a "collective production of certain competencies" is central to a radically different way of scientific literacy. Alternative concepts for school reform movements are good examples such as: general science (Jenkins 1972), liberal education (Donnelly, 2002), science for public understanding (Solomon & Thomas, 1999), Science Technology Society STS (Solomon & Aikenhead,1994), humanistic science curriculum (Aikenhead 2003), interdisciplinary or transdisciplinary education (Drake, 1998) or progressive education (Terhart, 2003). They all have in common a special social and everyday life concern in a democratic society with science content and method as a tool but not an end in itself.

Of central importance is to sort out what is needed in the curriculum. The curriculum choices are not so much about employability lists and other reductionistic expressions of national interests but much more generally enabling a dialog about larger issues that face societies. Such a version of scientific literacy crosses boundaries between disciplinary knowledge and puts human values and issues that are of concern to students and society at the centre of educational practice. Such a curricular perspective transcends subjects per se.

Different ideas are needed about how curriculum decisions are justified. As Löwisch (2000) suggests, deciding what significant issues to include in a citizenship oriented version of scientific literacy. These issues need to involve science but to also transcend science. These decisions bring into play the need for discourse amongst diverse curriculum players as they explore the reasons for incorporating this or that issue. This must allow participants a fair opportunity to express their views without coercion or power plays. Thus, this approach to curriculum is incompatible with a pre-formed dictum of government mandated content based on its interests. Such a version of scientific literacy is imposed and not based on a process of justification.

Justification is the result of an overlapping consensus in constant need of revision. In this process discursive thinking is expanded to include the results of negotiation based on the shared values of groups that shift and look different from a public perspective and from various non-public ones. Taylor's (1991) comment on the fundamental dialogical character of human life suggests that these conversations are crucial for both community and the process of the formation of self.

In discussing the needs of the commons and of individual, of public and private spaces, there is a need of mutual exploration of different approaches to these issues and the background thinking that gives rise to these differences. Such an approach to curriculum is based on a discourse between equal partners for justification of plans for curriculum. Justification is concerned with participation in public debates over "real" educational issues determined in a procedure of collective responsibility governed by discursive rules and the counterfactual assumption of equality in communication (Habermas, 1981). "Real" educational issues in this sense are not self-evident such as extreme examples like the 11 September 2001 or "something at stake" for ordinary citizens as imagined by Roth (2003) and neither as a list of science literacy characteristics functional for a productive life (Hurd,1998).

2. Teachers as central agents of changes in school

Science education crossing disciplinary boundaries for scientific literate citizenship is a twofold challenge for teachers: to transcend their disciplinary knowledge in general categories of scientific understanding and to negotiate science related topics relevant for students’ everyday life. It also requires certain institutional support and authentic leadership beyond professional expertise in a complex set of social circumstances and value conflicts.

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One cannot take science out of the social context and hope it will do curriculum work, but curriculum work needs scientific understanding embedded in a broader educational discourse. Central to this kind of curriculum work are teachers in a school-based community of students, colleagues, teacher educators and researchers. Arguing for a broader base for science education, Hiebert, Gallimore & Stigler (2002) suggest that the professional knowledge base for teachers must extend across boundaries of disciplines and be shared and discussed with others. This involves not only the challenge to build and reorganize knowledge of different subject matter specialists, but to justify educational planning through collective responsibility (Loewisch, 2000; Oser, 1992). Teachers’ collaborating within schools and in a network of different schools in such a process requires new skills and roles for teachers which lie beyond a specific classroom level. Within this context collaboration crossing boundaries of science subjects is dependent on teachers, teacher educators and researchers. It is not the individual, isolated, specialist teacher of hard sciences in the classroom but the teacher leader with professional, social and communicative interests who can promote student progress and better learning results (Riel & Becker, 2000).

The improvement 'within us' is a steady process of enculturation, needed in an early stage of professional development (Terhart, 1998) and be continued in a culture of collaboration within a community of practice. Enculturation of a self is imbedded in a dynamic social process of a community with a common culture and a historical heritage. Within this community shared goals, meanings and practices are developed and interconnected within a greater social system: Individuals develop a sense of self in relation to a community of practice, and this can only arise by enculturation into the history of the community.

How to embody these principles in the process of teacher education? In present educational planning based on the assessment of competencies for work and global competition schools are excluded from the discourse about school values. But there are alternatives to this narrow view of schooling to prepare students for their economic role in society and the limited role teachers, parents and students can play in formulating educational policy. It is worth looking at discursive approaches to school policy and practices. At the classroom level Oser's (1992) model of round table is of central importance - putting student's development as persons into the centre. Students are accepted and taken for serious as individuals with a potential to discover moral norms and develop an ethos of responsibility in discursive procedures. At a higher level curricular arguments in a political discourse will be a decisive step toward participation in a public space.

How can teachers and their students come to grips with the frameworks that underlie science and technology in society and thus understand better the culture they live in? Not simply by pretending to be scientists. Shared goals, norms, meanings and practices in school are not equivalent to that of scientific research communities in universities or science labs. A community of teachers and students at school can participate in inquiry based in part on science as a valuable tool for everyday life, personal enlightenment, cultural development or improvement in society.

Curriculum projects in science education which involve school communities in practical engagement and moral justification of a school community stand in a marked contrast with the conventional pedagogy promoting decontextualised understanding. The European project EUDIST is positive examples how teachers and their students can gain understanding of science and technology in their culture.

3. EUDIST - European collaboration for change in science teaching

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EUDIST (European Development of Innovative Science Teaching) is a European project of collaborative initiatives among schools and institutions for research and teacher education (SBCs) in Sweden, Spain, Austria, England and Germany. Partners in the project establish a network of national school-based collaborations (SBCs). A curricular framework will be created by a series of Curriculum Workshops (CWs), case studies and cross case analyses

The Curriculum Workshop (CW) is a discursive approach to school improvement and curriculum development with teachers as central agents (Mulder & Thijsen, 1990). It involves structured meetings and collaboration of teachers, teacher educators and researchers in schools with the aim of developing a curriculum document for educational practice. Collaboration in a CW allows teachers to play an active role in a school based discourse about experiences, purposes and ends of their work. As suggested by Fullan & Hargreave (1992), Little (1993) and others continuous collaboration and partnerships between school teachers, student teachers and tertiary teacher trainers as a source for bridging the gap between theory and practice in teacher education and for educational reform. A central element of the CW is a discourse of participants aimed at curricular justification.

A philosophical background of the CW is educational deliberation and reflection as a potential of professional development. It implies a conception of democracy that emphasises discursive decision making in local educational communities besides of political sovereignty in legislative bodies. What teachers and students learn and how they learn has to be grounded in a deliberative procedure characterised by equality, autonomy and reciprocity.

The discourse is based on well defined premises; especially agreement about the selection of participants with pre-defined criteria, a work schedule and invitation, collection of materials about the topic, nomination of a leader and several specialists of different background for support, rules of the discourse and topic-centered interaction, development of a curriculum document for a topic. Scientific jargon is reduced to elementary language that can be understood by all of the participant in the conference, scientific content is related to historical background, assumptions and aims for understanding of the practical fundamentals of science. Consequences for everyday life are elaborated. These basic elements as outline in the following design are fundamental for the discourse of participants about arguments, interests and values related to an educational topic:

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:

During the discourse in the CW participants consider circumstances and rules for normative and rational argumentation. All participants need to accept the basic rule that they are equal partners with equal rights in the discourse, who take one another serious as a person of equal value. The methods of the CW are based on theories of curriculum justification (Frey, 1975; Malliou, 1990), formal or procedural ethics (Löwisch, 2000; Oser, 1992) and structured argumentation in problem solving (Jonassen, 1995; Jonassen & Remidez, 2002).

4. ConsequencesThe role of the teacher is central of how science teaching is being reformed in the curriculum. To build a professional knowledge base, practitioner knowledge must be made public. Teachers need to construct theories of teaching based on testing their local hypotheses and sharing their knowledge with others. Over time these local hypotheses can be tested and replicated across a range of contexts – resulting in more abstract theory and professional knowledge that is accurate, verifiable and continually improving.

A key challenge is a change in science teachers' traditional socialisation into science disciplines initiating students into the culture of their disciplines. Therefore, Aikenhead (2003) concludes that a central task of future educational research and educational practice is a deliberative inquiry for a consensus on curriculum policy involving teachers as central

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agents of reform. Teachers and others involved in school-based collaboration are called upon to act as responsible and reflective persons in a process in which ideas are held in a tentative and insecure way. Certain skills and attitudes of responsibility are needed both interpersonal and analytical and these need to be elaborated.

In present educational planning, based on the rationale of competencies for work and global competitiveness, schools are excluded from the discourse about justification of school values. A basic assumption is that schools are preparing students for their economic role in society. There are alternatives to this narrow view of schooling and the limited role teachers, parents and students can play in formulating policy.

How can such a new system be established? Not by repair of ideological positions but by a different educational practice, networks and thinking ahead about citizenship. The usual way of curriculum development with well-defined objects and materials does not help very much. Research-based curriculum development itself is usually dedicated to a scientific approach to controlling "input" and "output", even when cause-effect relations are unknown: "This is the adoption or prescription, under the mantle of scientific applications, of specific educational procedures to be unvaryingly used to produce specific results." (Darling-Hammond & Snyder, 1992, p. 44).

Teaching and learning need to be committed to practical work and its moral consequences through a process of justification. This can be initiated by new projects – such as those we referred to above – based on justified, authentic materials and situations, collaborative teacher education, reflective procedures and a curricular frame which reflects the larger culture. The process and outcome of dialogue and commitment to practical work with moral consequences cannot be prescribed because it depends on a process 'within us'.

For school-based projects, the notion of integration is useful viewing collaboration across subjects as a way to connect expertise and skills of teachers and educators with different background and awareness of a global context beyond narrow standards. Integration is a process within a comprehensive context of standards, professional practices and school development, embracing the established disciplines. This consideration of complex processes is due to the insight that changes of educational contents and values with relevance for students can only be realised through teachers' active school based participation.

It takes courage to step down from the position of authority and security so that teachers can meet the challenges of school-based collaboration and thus lead the way to new kinds of justified curriculum making practices and new curricula. Thus not only are conditions for effective discourse at issue, but also what those who come to the table bring with them by way of the virtues that are needed to support a discourse based practise. It may involve accepting that there are zones of grey; this is a message that teachers - especially those with a science background - perhaps do not want to hear. Certain interpersonal and analytical skills and attitudes of responsibility are necessary - and these attributes need to be elaborated upon - to create enriched teaching material from within the resources of the group and a selected set of subject matters.

A way to change science education is through looking across and beyond boundaries of science subjects in a collaborative process. In this view integrated science is justified in a discursive process. This might lead to a new understanding of science teaching, but might as well come to conflict in a democratic and pluralistic society, where the result of a public space in a representative democracy and round table discourse are different sources for justification (Strike, 1994). Here a bureaucratic administration may reframe political action as demanded by Taylor (1991) toward more autonomy of teachers as professionals.

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Dr. Manfred Lang, IPN, Olshausentr. 62, D 24098 Kiel, Germany. Email: langm@ipn.uni-kiel.de.

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Prof. John Olson, Queens University, Kingston. Canada.Email: olsonj@educ.queensu.ca.

http://www.ipn.uni-kiel.de/projekte/eudist/

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