Developing Scientific Literacy in a Primary School

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Developing Scientific Literacy in aPrimary SchoolKathleen Veronica Smith a , John Loughran a , Amanda Berry a &Cathy Dimitrakopoulos aa Faculty of Education, Monash University, Clayton, AustraliaPublished online: 25 May 2011.

To cite this article: Kathleen Veronica Smith , John Loughran , Amanda Berry & CathyDimitrakopoulos (2012) Developing Scientific Literacy in a Primary School, International Journal ofScience Education, 34:1, 127-152, DOI: 10.1080/09500693.2011.565088

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International Journal of Science Education

ISSN 0950-0693 (print)/ISSN 1464-5289 (online)/12/010127–26© 2012 Taylor & Francis

RESEARCH REPORT

Developing Scientific Literacy in a Primary School

Kathleen Veronica Smith, John Loughran*, Amanda Berry and Cathy DimitrakopoulosFaculty of Education, Monash University, Clayton, AustraliaTaylor and FrancisTSED_A_565088.sgm10.1080/09500693.2011.565088International Journal of Science Education0950-0693 (print)/1464-5289 (online)Article2011Taylor & Francis0000000002011Prof. [email protected]

The science education literature demonstrates that scientific literacy is generally valued andacknowledged among educators as a desirable student learning outcome. However, what scientificliteracy really means in terms of classroom practice and student learning is debatable due to theinherent complexity of the term and varying expectations of what it means for learning outcomes.To date the teacher voice has been noticeably absent from this debate even though the very natureof teacher expertise lies at the heart of the processes which shape students’ scientific literacy. Theresearch reported in this paper taps into the expertise of (participating) primary teachers by analyz-ing the insights and thinking that emerged as they attempted to unravel some of the pedagogicalcomplexities associated with constructing an understanding of scientific literacy in their own class-rooms. The research examines the processes and structures within one primary school that werecreated to provide conditions to allow teachers to explore and build on the range of ideas that pres-ently inform the scientific literacy debate. The research reports these teachers’ views and practicesthat shaped their actions in teaching for scientific literacy.

Keywords: Scientific literacy; Teacher development; Primary school

The Scientific Literacy Debate

The term ‘scientific literacy’ often appears deceptively simple, yet the implications forthe teaching and learning of science in primary classrooms can be quite confusing:

Scientific literacy has become an internationally well-recognized educational slogan,buzzword, catchphrase, and contemporary educational goal … The term is usuallyregarded as being synonymous with ‘public understanding of science,’ and while ‘scien-tific literacy’ is used in the United States, the former phrase is more commonly used inBritain. (Laugksch, 2000, p. 71)

*Corresponding author. Faculty of Education, Monash University, Building 6, Clayton Campus,Wellington Road, Clayton 3800, Australia. Email: [email protected]

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09500693.2011.565088

Vol. 34, No. 1, 1 January 2012, pp. 127–152

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Norris and Phillips (2003) moved beyond the argument about scientific literacy interms of sloganeering by distinguishing between the fundamental sense of scienceliteracy (i.e. the ability to read and write) and the derived sense of science literacy (tobe knowledge about, learned and educated in, science). The argument theymounted was based on the view that:

Conceptions of scientific literacy typically attend to the derived sense of literacy and notto the fundamental sense … [yet] scientific literacy [could be] viewed differently if thefundamental sense of literacy were taken seriously … [in so doing that has] educationalimplications [for] attending to the fundamental sense of literacy when teaching science.(pp. 224–225)

For primary schools teachers concerned about paying serious attention to develop-ing scientific literacy with their students, Norris and Phillips’ (2003) distinctionbetween fundamental and derived senses of scientific literacy is interesting. Firstly,because it draws attention to the nature of the particular literacies of science (know-ing about and using the actual and symbolic tools of inquiry in science), andsecondly because it simultaneously highlights the natural tendency of primary teach-ers to be conscious of their level of knowledgeablity about science content and howthat impacts on their teaching and their students’ learning.

In many ways, it could well be argued that mediating between Norris and Phillips’(2003) two senses of scientific literacy creates an implicit tension for some primaryteachers as they search for appropriate ways to develop scientific literacy with theirstudents while simultaneously struggling with (perhaps) vague interpretations ofwhat that might really mean and look like in their practice.

Debate about scientific literacy has flowed from the ideas proposed by Norris andPhillips (2003) in a variety of ways. It has reignited many of the traditional underly-ing tensions that exist in science education and curriculum design, particularly interms of meaningful learning, student engagement, and utilizing contemporaryissues in science learning in school classrooms.

For example, Roberts (2007) identified these ongoing tensions as either emphasiz-ing subject matter itself or emphasizing science in life situations where science playsa key role (Bybee, 2006). Roberts referred to two differing positions of curriculumdesign which he labeled as Vision I and Vision II—two extreme positions on acontinuum—and described them as: Vision I—scientist-centered and focused ondecontextualized science subject matter with the aim being to enculturate studentsinto scientific disciplines; and Vision II—student-centered, context-driven, with theaim being to enculturate students into their local, national, and global community.

Vision II, as Aikenhead (2007) pointed out, ‘seeks to enhance students’ capacitiesto function as life-long, responsible, savvy participants in their everyday lives; livesincreasingly influenced by science and technology’ (p. 1). Consequently, this visionembodies a view that curriculum should be designed to prepare students for life andwork as citizens. However, the implications of such a vision in relation to the teach-ing and learning of science are complex; what is taught, how it is taught, and whatmakes up the ‘content’ of that teaching all impact on the perceived value of scientificliteracy, and how it might be recognized or assessed. The use of the term ‘scientific

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literacy’ among science educators has at times been viewed as problematic in termsof translating scientific literacy into classroom practice and student learning, andsome have argued against the use of the term. For example, Fensham (2008) arguedthat, ‘scientific literacy does not have a fixed meaning or definition. Nor is it a singlenotion’ (p. 28). Regardless of accepted meaning or not, the practical consequencesbeg questions about how new ideas resonate and work effectively within a range ofdiverse classroom contexts and cultures and how teachers’ thinking and experiencesshape ideas in and through practice. In more explicit terms, these questions raiseissues about: how teachers define scientific literacy; how they articulate their ideasand understandings in terms of student learning, the role of the teacher and curricu-lum planning; what they value in terms of their students’ learning when consideredin terms of scientific literacy; and how they provide learning experiences in theirclassrooms to nurture and promote such learning. These are the real issues thatemerge when scientific literacy is considered in terms of classroom practice andwhen the academic debate is considered in terms of real world science teaching andlearning.

Introducing the Teachers’ Voice

This paper attempts to introduce the teachers’ voice into the discourse of scientificliteracy, a voice which has been noticeably missing in the majority of the academicdebates. Scientific literacy for many primary school teachers is, not surprisingly,closely linked to Norris and Phillips’ (2003) fundamental sense because it is soclosely tied to their typical teaching of literacy whereby the ability to read and writeis a central measure of being literate. Therefore, if Vision I is a starting point forteacher thinking about scientific literacy then a move toward practice that is moreclosely aligned with Vision II requires teachers to think differently about the mean-ing of both ‘science’ and ‘learning’. For primary school teachers, in particular, thisrethinking may rely on an acknowledgment of the importance of intellectual owner-ship of personal understandings of science not just by themselves, but also by theirstudents (i.e. a shift from science as propositional knowledge to deeper understand-ings derived of personal curiosity, inquiry and questioning of the content):

When conventional, academic, decontextualized science (a Vision I view of SL) changesto contextualized science (a Vision I–II view of SL in practice), the context and contentare mostly dictated by students’ everyday worlds, rather than by scientists’, teachers’, orcurriculum developers’ ideas of appropriate contexts and content for school science …Changing the meaning of ‘science’ in the domain of school science takes us beyondpolicy and practice. (Aikenhead, 2007, p. 2)

Working within a primary school that overtly values science as an important part oftheir students’ everyday world, the teachers involved in the research reported in thispaper purposefully worked within professional learning structures designed tosupport and actively encourage them to explore new ideas and ways of thinkingabout their science teaching and their students’ science learning. The paper attemptsto capture the insights and thinking that emerged for these teachers as they worked

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to reconsider their practice in terms of understanding scientific literacy in their ownclassrooms. In essence, as they worked toward better teaching for scientific literacyin their classrooms with their students, they came to pay more serious attention tothe nature of the type of thinking they found themselves supporting and encouragingpedagogically in their students. What this paper ultimately illustrates is that the typeof thinking these teachers were seeking to develop in their students was about howthey might learn to consider, examine and reason through issues of science in waysthat would foster the application of their resultant knowledge, skills and abilitiesthrough their questioning of the everyday phenomena they encountered in the worldaround them. In so doing, their students’ learning approach would then more likelybe seen as indicative of that which might embody a scientifically literate student.The research questions that this paper examines then are:

How do (participating) primary teachers’ understanding of scientific literacy developand change over time?

How do (participating) primary teachers’ views of scientific literacy influence their viewsof science teaching?

What do (participating) primary teachers look for in their students’ learning as indica-tors that they are developing as scientifically literate students?

Context

This study involved a medium-sized Catholic primary school (380 students and 25staff) situated in the inner Eastern suburbs of Melbourne. The school becameinvolved in a project titled Valuing & Promoting Scientific Literacy in Science Teaching& Learning as it had chosen, through its planning process, to develop a more seriousfocus on science. The project began with support from the Catholic EducationOffice Melbourne (CEOM) and set out to explore and clarify scientific literacy interms of the practical implications for both curriculum and learning by implement-ing (what became known as) a multi-domain inquiry planning approach. Throughthis approach, teachers were encouraged not only to consider some of the key ideasaround scientific literacy, but to also engage in professional discussion and examinealternative approaches to planning and teaching in an attempt to provide effectiveconditions to enhance scientific literacy for all students.

The school had developed a strong focus on science over a number of years as aconsequence of ongoing involvement in a statewide Science Teaching and Learning(STaL) project (for further details see Berry & Keast, 2009; Berry, Loughran,Lindsay, & Smith, 2009; Loughran & Berry, 2007, 2008). Through that project,over a 5-year period, a large number of the staff (n = 12) had been involved in theannual 5-day residential program, and their interest in science teaching and learninghad fueled a whole-school focus on science in a strategic manner than morecommonly seen in primary schools.

The school began to trial an all school multi-domain inquiry approach to curricu-lum planning designed to foster meaningful links across curriculum areas in order to


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enhance students’ learning across subject areas. This multi-domain approachcentered on four unit topics for the year with each topic allocated to a specific schoolterm (there are four school terms of 10 weeks duration in the year, hence one topicwas sustained for a whole term). These topics included relationships; sustainability;technology; and, safety. Each topic was covered simultaneously at all levels withinthe school at the same time; a major change to the way that curriculum was concep-tualized, developed, and implemented through the multi-domain approach incomparison to the more traditional unit topics that change across terms and yearlevels.

The school employed a consultant (first author) who was a member of the STaLproject team to operate as a critical friend to support school-based professionallearning for the project. The role of the critical friend was conceptualized in such away as to provide specific planning support for teachers at all levels within theschool. The critical friend was expected to assist with establishing a shared under-standing among staff of the project’s intentions. This was to be done by building thedecision-making capacity of classroom teachers and focusing teacher conversationson the development of key thinking and communication skills and science conceptsthat might contribute to the overall outcome of scientific literacy for each student.Essentially it was hoped that this support would help teachers think about topics indifferent ways and from different teaching and learning perspectives rather thanviewing teaching solely from a particular content area thus supporting the multi-domain approach beyond curriculum structure alone. The four topics (above) weretherefore designed to act as a stimulus for teaching and learning rather than ascontent specific units of work. Hence the notion of an integrated curriculum wasseriously pursued through this unit approach in ways not common in more tradi-tional curriculum approaches, especially in a primary school context.

The role of the critical friend was to support classroom teachers to articulate theirpersonal professional thinking and explore and develop personal initiatives and strat-egies to recognize and capture changes in student thinking through the multi-domain approach. The data used in this paper are drawn from the first two years ofthe project and draws on insights from the participating classroom teachers througha range of datasets as well as the experiences of the critical friend and the teachingand learning (T & L) coordinator.

Research Design

Initial Interview

An initial round of semi-structured interviews (see Appendix A for interview proto-col) was conducted at the outset of the project (year 1) between the critical friend(interviewer) and small groups of classroom teachers (n = 4/5) from each planninglevel within the school. The purpose of the interviews was to: (1) document therange of existing views regarding quality science teaching and the prevalence of theseviews; (2) create a starting point for discussions about the personal challenges that


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teachers faced in relation to teaching science; (3) map the range of existing viewsregarding scientific literacy and the prevalence of such views and what they mightlook like in practice; and (4) create a starting point for discussion about the personalchallenges that teachers faced in relation to teaching for scientific literacy. Interviewswere of approximately 20–30 minutes duration and were audio-taped and tran-scribed for later analysis (data from these interviews are labeled Int. 1). These datawere primarily focused on establishing a baseline (pre-test) in response to researchquestion 1.

Planning Meeting Discussions (Field Notes)

Throughout the first two years of the project, the critical friend maintained fieldnotes of the planning meeting discussions. These field notes formed the basis fordeveloping and refining the direction of the project over time and served an informa-tive role in ‘naming and framing’ the activities, focus, needs, and concerns in termsof project progression (data from planning meeting discussions are labeled FN).These data were important in relation to all three research questions.

Lotus Diagram

Lotus diagrams (see Appendix B for an example) are a graphic organizer used toassist thinking when managing information. Teachers worked in groups (four to fivemixed across school levels) and were asked to identify and list eight aspects of theirpractice that they attended to when teaching to promote scientific literacy. TheLotus diagrams were analyzed by examining the language of teachers’ responses andsorting these responses according to similarities, that is, looking for similarities anddifferences in attributes/ideas/issues. These data were important in responding toresearch question 2.

Individual Interviews

In term three (each school term runs for approximately 10 weeks, there are fourterms per year) of the second year of the project, volunteer teachers (n = 4) wereinvolved in semi-structured in-depth interviews about their perceived relationshipbetween the STaL project, scientific literacy, their science teaching, their students’science learning, and the nature of the school’s approach to science teaching andlearning. Each of these interviews lasted up to 90 minutes and were audio-recordedand later transcribed (data labeled as Int. 2). These data were particularly importantfor research questions 2 and 3.

External Observer Interviews and Planning Meetings

In term four of year 2 of the project, a science teacher educator with expertise inprimary school science curriculum and pedagogy was invited into the school to


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spend a week interviewing teachers (n = 8) and attending planning meetings (n = 4)and interviewing the critical friend, school principal, T & L coordinator and CEOMScience coordinator in order to develop an outsider’s view of the nature of the devel-opment of scientific literacy within the school. These interviews and planning meet-ings were audio-taped and transcribed (data labeled ExtObs 1). These data wereimportant in responding to research questions 2 and 3 in particular.

Questionnaire

In term four of the second year of the project, teachers (n = 15) completed an on-line questionnaire (a mixture of brief written responses and questions requiring ajudgment about the perceived extent of change on a four-point Likert scale, seeAppendix C) using the web-based software Survey Monkey. The questionnaire wasdesigned to determine how participants’ views of scientific literacy developed andchanged over time as well as their reflections on their teaching of science and theirstudents’ science learning. The first rating scale was a four-point Likert scale rangingfrom 1 (small impact), 2 (moderate impact), 3 (large impact), to 4 (very largeimpact). Questions on this section of the questionnaire invited teachers to considerthe impact of scientific literacy on teacher-thinking; student thinking; and planning.The second rating scale was also based on a four-point Likert scale ranging from of 1(small extent), 2 (moderate extent), 3 (high extent), to 4 (very high extent). Ques-tions in this section invited teachers to consider the extent to which: L & T had beenembedded in a multi-domain approach; observations of how student behavior/needs/interests had shaped learning experiences; each student had been developed as anindependent critical thinker; teacher thinking in scientific literacy had been devel-oped; student thinking in scientific literacy had been developed; there had beenpotential for each unit to link to and build on from previous units; there had beenlinks for student learning across units to allow for concepts to be revisited and tochallenge and further develop existing thinking; and teachers’ perception of ‘action’had changed. These data primarily served as a post-test in terms of change over timefor research question 1, but were also important as post-intervention data forresearch questions 2 and 3.

Results

Data derived from each of the sources outlined in the method (above) were analyzedto develop an understanding of how these teachers’ views of their science teachingand their students’ science learning had changed over the two years of the project.

Existing Views of Science Teaching and Learning (Int. 1)

Transcripts from the initial interview (Int. 1) revealed a number of shared under-standings about science and agreed components of quality science teaching asoutlined below.


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‘Hands on’ experiences. Teachers viewed science as very ‘hands on’ characterized byexperiments and investigations:

Interviewer: And what about ‘hands on’ what do you mean by ‘hands on’?Teacher 1: Things that they can touch and move around and manipulate, not just it’s

there and … I’m not sure how else to describe it, um just being able toorganize and sort out and find out themselves.

Teacher 3: Yes I think sometimes hands on can also be you doing it …Teacher 1: Yes.Teacher 3: … it doesn’t always have to be them touching. Yeah, as long as they can

see it. (Int. 1. Group 6)

Questioning. Quality teaching was characterized by the use of good questioningtechniques and the ability to deal effectively with student questions:

Interviewer: How would you know if you walked into a classroom that there was reallygreat science teaching and learning taking place? What would it look like?

Teacher 3: I think it is asking enough questions for them to realize that we don’tknow the answers that science is something that’s so open ended andalways will be. We can collect things but then we always just have toexplore them. (Int. 1. Group 6, Teacher 3)

Topics and thinking. Teachers considered it important to choose the ‘right’ topics,that is, those that provided an opportunity for a depth of thinking and learning whilealso encouraging reflective thinking and an ability to listen to, and consider, alterna-tive perspectives:

Interviewer: What about the role of the student in quality science teaching?Teacher 1: Reflective thinking.Teacher 2: Questioning.Teacher 3: Listening to other people’s ideas and accepting them as being possible

ideas where yours might not be the one and only correct idea. I think youhave to teach it as well, it doesn’t just happen. (Int.1. Group 6.)

Teacher 1: … from a purely social point of view they should respect other people’sopinions, right to make comments and ask questions and also from thescientific point of view other people might come up with something thatthey haven’t thought of so they can build on that or they might find thatyou know that everybody says something and then they can come to aconclusion, they can use other people’s thinking to draw a conclusionyeah we’ve said the same thing or we’re thinking alike so maybe that’swhat the whole things about. (Int. 1. Group 5, Teacher 1)

Scientific language. Many teachers felt that it was important to support students touse the language of science to explain their investigations:

Teacher 2: I think using that [science] language … is also really important.Teacher 1: … some language that is specific to science like ‘variables’.Teacher 2: Or ‘method’. (Int. 1.Group 5)


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Relevance to students’ world. Teachers also commented that it was important thatscience was connected to students’ everyday world (i.e. a need for science to berelevant):

I think they should be asking questions, just questioning different things, and secondlyformulating an opinion on that, for example with recycling and rubbish and so forth, it’sgoing to be part of their environment as they grow up and its going to be part of theirkids’ environment; so therefore we need to make decisions about recycling so thereforequestion why do we do these things and how do we do them? (Int. 1. Group 4, Teacher 2)

Active Learning

When considering quality learning common responses included encouraging depthof learning by providing opportunities for rich learning and fostering an environmentin which students could take an active role in their learning, questioning, and formu-lating opinions:

Teacher 1: To bring their interests into the science lessons so that they can find out.Teacher 2: To light the fire and to make them excited, taking what you have in the

classroom further … (Int. 1. Group 6)

The key challenge that emerged around this theme was in relation to linking multi-domain units to science. This was a shared concern as teachers often found itdifficult to think about topics from a science perspective, many felt their lack ofknowledge in science was a contributing factor. Hence, the idea that science mightbe more a part of multi-domain units rather than being viewed as separate contentwas still a concern for many of the participants:

I don’t come from a science background so … I personally would have to do a lot ofresearching and reading and that sort of stuff. So that is all time–consuming, and it’s notmy own personal knowledge. (Int. 1. Group 1, Teacher 1)

While the teachers seemed to express a number of shared understandings of qualityscience teaching, this was not the case regarding scientific literacy. Scientific literacyremained unclear or was defined literally as the use of scientific language in science:

… the language of science … like us expressing what we believe science to be and … Iguess out of whatever your topic is at the time, the language and the thing behind whatit is about I guess. I don’t really know. (Int. 1. Group 1, Teacher 2)

Teachers saw strong links between the type of learning associated with the timetabledliteracy block and science literacy and referred to teaching strategies that may becommon to both. Teachers were unclear about what they wanted to see students dothat might be different to that which was presently taking place and they were unsureof the changes that this project would present to their existing teaching:

We’ve learnt that that shared time at the end is probably the best time, you know thebest part of the lesson and we do in literacy still and that’s where we learnt it at the verystart, but you still often get to the end of the lesson and think ‘oooh I haven’t got timefor sharing’, and it is really naughty because you probably should have stopped it earlierand allowed for a lot of share time. I think we’ve found now we do it in maths, and weknow it’s supposed to happen in science. (Int. 1. Group 6, Teacher 3)


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Baseline Data

As the data above illustrate, the idea that quality science teaching relies on pedagogythat essentially values and works at building connectedness between students andtheir world emerged from these teachers’ thinking, and this became an importantfoundation to this project. The critical friend used this thinking to frame professionalconversations with participating teachers as part of the multi-domain approach.These conversations attempted to explore why connectedness was important forlearning, and how it could be achieved and this, at times required teachers to recon-sider the learning potential of the unit topics and move beyond traditional subjectmatter approaches to planning and teaching of unit topics. ‘The most powerfulquestion’ (FN) used by the critical friend when working in multi-domain planningmeetings with staff was ‘How might this (topic) help students to better understandhow they are connected to the world around them?’ This question often challengedteachers to think about unit topics from a different perspective. For example, in thecase of the unit entitled ‘Relationships’ teachers were challenged to move fromconsidering unit content from solely a social education perspective focusing only onfamily and individual well-being and begin to consider the biological idea that livingthings interact with other living and non-living things in their environment. In theseconversations participants’ views of connectedness broadened to include ‘encourag-ing students to see their place in, think about and interact with the world in a partic-ular way’ (FN). Thus the multi-domain approach was one way of broadeningteaching to include science concepts, thinking, approaches, and ideas that weremore traditionally confined to specific science lessons/units.

Moving beyond discussion and creating a strong focus on active learning led toaction itself becoming a major shaping factor in unit planning through the multi-domain approach. Much of the work of the critical friend, therefore, centered onencouraging teachers to consider the ‘place and purpose of action in unit planning’(FN). Multi-domain planning meetings included discussions about how authenticaction could work to ‘support the idea of connectedness and how to provide oppor-tunities for students to use and apply their learning in practical ways’ (FN). One wayof supporting this development was through the critical friend encouraging teachersto build relationships with those who had expertise beyond the classroom in order toenhance the range of learning experiences students could access. With these goals inmind, the critical friend worked with classroom teachers from each level, planningone specific unit within the year.

Building on Learning

Six months (two terms) into the first year of the project, the teachers (n = 15) wereasked to reflect on their thinking about scientific literacy, in particular, to consideraspects of ‘connectedness and action’ (FN) that were important in creatingconditions to nurture developments in their teaching that might support thedevelopment of scientific literacy. Teachers’ Lotus diagrams offered insights into


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participants’ thinking and indicated two areas that were seen as important: plan-ning and pedagogy.

The key areas of planning drawn from analysis of the Lotus diagrams included:(1) taking ownership of and feeling empowered to shape models of inquiry planningto meet specific teaching needs; (2) confronting personal ideas and beliefs aboutscience; (3) recognizing and attending to the big ideas of science; (4) recognizingand building on student input; (5) providing sequential learning experiences particu-larly in terms of linking the learning across units; (6) taking simple ideas but provid-ing a depth of learning; (7) finding links in learning to community; and (8) takingaction in meaningful ways.

In terms of pedagogy, teachers’ Lotus diagrams drew attention to the view that itwas extremely important to: (1) clarify purpose in teaching; (2) respond to students’learning needs and interests; (3) promote rich questions from students; (4) accessand use effectively a variety of contemporary resources and experts; (5) promotethinking, curiosity, and imagination in students; (6) engage students in meaningfulcontexts for learning and challenge their own personal beliefs about teachingscience; and (7) recognize possibilities for taking action.

Many of these considerations had not been mentioned by teachers in the initialinterview (Int. 1), and so it seems reasonable to suggest that this aspect of the resultscould be due to participants beginning to think differently about their practice as aresult of their involvement in multi-domain planning meetings. From the criticalfriend’s perspective, it also appeared as though participants were ‘increasingly will-ing to engage in dialogue about planning and learning in ways that had developedand changed from the views and perspectives apparent in the initial views’(FN).Therefore, the questioning and interactions between teachers and the criticalfriend were increasingly important in shaping understandings of how the multi-domain approach impacted views and practices of scientific literacy.

In the second year of the project, the critical friend’s contact time with the schoolwas increased to make support available for teachers at every level within the schooland across all topics. With this development in the project, a partnership betweenthe critical friend and the T & L coordinator was established, and together theyplanned and organized two specific planning days for each term of the school year(i.e. eight major planning days).

The agreed goals of their work together included: (1) working to establish a sharedunderstanding of the project’s intentions and consistently developing these with thestaff; (2) working together to ensure the provision of consistent, ongoing support forclassroom teachers across the school; (3) building the capacity of classroom teachersto move away from seeking outside input into their decision-making; (4) supportingclassroom teachers to more readily articulate their personal professional thinkingand explore and develop their personal initiatives with confidence; and (5) encour-aging planning conversations which explored ideas and strategies to assist teachers torecognize and capture changes in student thinking (i.e. data, evidence, assessment).

Four new unit topics were to be developed as multi-domain units across year 2 ofthe project: identity & diversity (term 1); change (term 2); communication (term 3);


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and well-being (term 4). Teachers at all levels were released to work as a level teamwith the critical friend and the T & L coordinator for 90 minutes on these planning days.

The planning days were scheduled to ensure that one meeting could be used forpre-planning to focus on the thinking necessary when beginning a multi-domainunit, while another meeting, scheduled a few weeks later, could focus on theprogress of the unit following the first few weeks of teaching. As the school yearprogressed, the beginning planning meeting was also used to review the teaching andlearning experiences of the previous unit. In so doing, there was an overt attempt tosupport teachers in tracking changes in their own thinking—particularly in terms oftheir own understanding of student learning, their practice, and the connection ofthis thinking to their planning strategies.

Emerging Understandings of Scientific Literacy

Planning conversations continued to explore the meaning of scientific literacy andthe place of ‘connectedness and action’ (FN). As a consequence of the ongoingdiscussions during these planning meetings, the critical friend and T & L coordinatorcame to the view that the participating teachers generally felt that ‘it was not enoughfor students to understand the critical concepts or big ideas of science but that to bescientifically literate, students must also able to recognize how, where and when thisknowledge could be used to affect the social thinking and behavior of their(students’) world’ (FN). These ideas carried implications for planning and furthervalidated the use of an inquiry or student-centered approach to learning and teachingthat had emerged through the multi-domain approach. This then challenged teachersto go beyond their present science teaching practice and to begin to situate criticalscience ideas in meaningful and relevant contexts for students. As a consequence,teachers began to consider how students’ questions could shape unit investigationsand content; something they perhaps more commonly did in other subject areas butnot so much in science. In this case, through the multi-domain approach, the integra-tion of science into all aspects of the unit encouraged this ‘breaking out’ and workingwith students’ ideas and responding to students’ learning interests. This led to a shiftaway from presenting science within a teacher-directed unit and focused more onpresenting science as a way of thinking, making sense of, and knowing the world.Multi-domain planning, therefore, appeared to have removed the constraints of thepreviously well entrenched subject boundaries and provided a powerful strategy fororganizing curriculum content designed to broaden and enhance learning moregenerally rather than as content-specific teaching and learning.

Again action became a challenge in planning as teachers wanted to ‘create authen-tic learning experiences that would allow students to see how science, as a way ofthinking, influenced and shaped the social, physical, and biological domains of theirimmediate world’ (FN). Therefore, the multi-domain approach, supported by acritical friend with well-organized and structured planning days based on continuallyresponding to the needs and concerns of teachers, appeared to have catalyzed a shiftin these teachers’ views and practices. These teachers’ developing understanding of


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scientific literacy for their students also carried an expectation that they wouldbecome reflective, critical, and discerning consumers and users of their science-related knowledge and thinking.

As the data suggest, there is a discernible shift in these teachers’ understanding ofscientific literacy over time. That shift is well captured in the extended transcript(below) from the interview with the T & L coordinator (Int. 2). Evidence in supportof the T & L coordinator’s perspective is offered by the other excerpt from an indi-vidual interview (Int. 2) that follows the extended transcript data. Together, thesedata offer personal perspectives on important aspects of scientific literacy in terms ofthis primary school’s developing approach to science teaching and learning and howit has changed over time through working through a multi-domain approach:

I think it [scientific literacy] comes from the bigger picture of what we want for ourlearners. So, we [now] go into our classrooms with this philosophy—that our learnersare inquirers—and we want them to participate in their world. We want them to under-stand their world, and then we want them to actually be able to take action within theirworld. So I guess when you consider all of that, they need to be scientifically literate.They need to be able to understand what’s going on around them, why it’s going on andthen how they can act in the bigger picture.

We use the [multi-domain] planning sessions to think about how we are going toimmerse the learners in what is going on, and I guess I am sitting there with the multi-domain hat on, so I’m considering all the other curriculum areas and Kathy [criticalfriend] has her science hat on. So we look at what our documentation is telling us wehave to teach and then we try to draw in that scientific component all the time …[sometimes] it is only a little snapshot of science but then other levels really take it on,and they go with it. I guess that’s where there’s that inconsistency. You see just a glim-mer of it in some levels but then in others you see that learning beyond the classroomwhere they are actually taking that [science] knowledge and using it [through] the tree-planting project or getting the water tank installed.

Everyone that has come back [from STaL] has just seen it as a huge benefit. Just gettingthem to consider their own science practice and then drawing in what we want for ourlearners, going back to we want them to understand their world, participate in it, andmake decisions. Well, to do that, you need to understand what is going on and a lot ofthat basis is scientific. So, I guess it’s been a really gradual thing. After we left STaL …we wanted to take it further. We looked at what was going on in curriculum here andhow we could enhance it by drawing in what we knew about the science.

Our topic at the moment is ‘change’ and I see how at different levels different teachersapproach that topic … I see kids using ICT skills to access weather on the Internet. I seedifferent things. I see research going on in terms of landscapes and environments andchange there. So they have taken that big idea [change] and run with it at their own level.Science here now is not a series of experiments that we are going to work through andcomplete that POE that we all used to do. It’s more general and more kind of real, it’sauthentic, it’s what the kids are interested in … and I think that’s where I would like tosee more.

Normally we use the first three weeks of term—we call that our immersion stage—where we just kind of expose the children to aspects of the topic, the concept. We don’tthink of it as science or SOSE it is just the topic. Like for change, one particular levelwent on a walk. They looked at buildings. They looked at the changing landscape. It’s


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hands on experiments, just broad. The idea from that is that the kids then have someinput into where they want their learning to go. So they come back with questions aboutwhat they want to find out, and then I guess part of the teacher’s role is in addressingthe questions and then ultimately we would like our learners to take some sort of action.So, they have their sorting out, their finding out stages and then ultimately action.

The whole, multi-domain approach [has made a difference] you couldn’t see science asa stand-alone thing anymore because it’s just not viable. We want kids to take what theylearn and transfer it to all other areas … it is a big shift in the traditional curriculumdelivery … So scientific literacy I think is about seeing the opportunities for science …It’s something about just seeing the science in the world around us, not about it neces-sarily being special or different. And trying to encourage the kids to work with sciencyideas, again, so that they are not special just a part of what we are doing. (T & L coordi-nator, Int. 2)

Interviewer: How do you know that kids are becoming more scientifically literate?

When I first started here, my science and how I worked in the classroom was we hadour units of work for each term there was usually one specifically with a science flavorto it and so when you really look back now in reflecting, you did science once a yearor once every two years. It was something, yes, you did, but I don’t think it was onethat was looked at as being as important as literacy and numeracy … then when westarted to have conversations about curriculum and children’s learning and how theylearn, that this idea of a multi-domain type unit, an integrated unit, the conversationswe’ve had about what an integrated unit of work is, how do you creatively provideopportunities for the kids to experience science, experience history, experience geogra-phy, where you have not just blocked yourself in term 1, I am doing science, and thenboom, it’s out of the way for the year. I think here we have gone beyond that sort ofthinking. It is about empowering kids—we don’t have to give them the answers all thetime. Part of learning is to provide the opportunity for them to perhaps try and sortout their learning, try and make sense of what they are doing, their world aroundthem. I’ve just had a student teacher, and I’ve had her for nearly 6 weeks. She had todo a science unit, and it was really interesting because she had to do it for universitynot for me. It proved a challenge for me because I had said to her that we were doingthis unit this term on ‘change,’ and we had talked about how you could have thedomain area coming out and the science just moving within it. But she had her, ‘Ihave to do X amount of lessons, I have to …’ exactly like what I did when I was atcollege. To try and get her to think differently, to think how we think here, or how wetalk here, or how we do science here, it was really hard … the student teacher mademe see it all [multi-domain changes] and that was interesting. I think it has been apositive thing. (Int. 2, teacher 2)

Project Review: Questionnaire Data

At the end of the second year of the project the participating classroom teachers (n =15) were asked to complete an online questionnaire (using the online software toolSurvey Monkey). The questionnaire was designed by the T & L coordinator incollaboration with the critical friend to explore participating teachers’ understandingof various aspects of teaching and learning for scientific literacy. The questionnairecontained two types of survey questions: open-ended questions and measures ofimpact/extent of change based a Likert scale (see Table 1 for results).


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Table 1. Likert scale questionnaire data

3) Please consider the impact of scientific literacy on teacher thinking.

Small impact Moderate impact Large impact Very large impact

0 3 6 6Teachers: 9, 12, 15 Teachers: 1, 3, 7, 8, 11, 13 Teachers: 2, 4, 5, 6, 10,

14

4) Please consider the impact of scientific literacy on student thinking.Small impact Moderate impact Large impact Very large impact1 6 6 2Teacher: 8 Teachers: 3, 5, 6,

11, 12, 15Teachers: 1, 4, 7, 9, 10, 13 Teachers: 2, 14

5) Please consider the impact of scientific literacy on planning.Small impact Moderate impact Large impact Very large impact0 1 11 3

Teacher: 9 Teachers: 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15

Teachers: 1, 2, 4

6) To what extent has learning and teaching been embedded in a multi-domain approach?Small extent Moderate extent High extent Very high extent0 2 10 3

Teachers: 8, 10 Teachers: 3, 4, 6, 7, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15

Teachers: 1, 2, 5

7) To what extent have observations of student behavior/needs/interests shaped learning experiences?Small extent Moderate extent High extent Very high extent0 2 10 3

Teachers: 8, 12 Teachers: 1, 3, 4, 7, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15

Teachers: 2, 5, 6

8) To what extent has each student been developed as an independent critical thinker?Small extent Moderate extent High extent Very high extent0 6 8 1

Teachers: 3, 4, 8, 9, 10, 14

Teachers: 1, 5, 6, 7, 11, 12, 13, 15

Teacher: 2

9) To what extent has your teacher thinking in scientific literacy been developed?Small extent Moderate extent High extent Very high extent0 2 9 4

Teachers: 9, 15 Teachers: 1, 3, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14

Teachers: 2, 4, 5, 6

10) To what extent has student thinking in scientific literacy been developed?Small extent Moderate extent High extent Very high extent1 7 7 0Teacher: 8 Teachers: 3, 4, 6, 9,

10, 13, 15Teachers: 1, 2, 5, 7, 11, 12, 14


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The aspects of the questionnaire that correspond to the particular focus of thispaper provide insights into the ways that these teachers came to know and under-stand scientific literacy and how that in turn shaped their students’ learning. Inanalyzing the comments that teachers provided (from the open ended responses toquestions 1 and 2) regarding their own thinking about scientific literacy, four ways ofunderstanding emerged:

(1) Scientific literacy is about the language of science with a focus on communication.(2) Scientific literacy is a way of engaging and motivating students to effectively

learn science and work scientifically.(3) Scientific literacy is when students identify science in the world around them

and use science knowledge to make sense of the world.(4) Scientific literacy enables students to function as interconnected, contributing

members of the world of which they are a part.

Each of these is considered next.

Scientific literacy is about the language of science with a focus on communication. Twoof the teachers surveyed (2/15 = 13%; Teachers 2 and 5) expressed a view ofscientific literacy that could be described as a very literal translation of the wordingwith a focus on the use of language, in particular scientific language to facilitatecommunication. An example of this view includes:

Combining everyday science, general knowledge, and facts into the children’s literacyblock as well as integrating it into multi-domain units, religious education, and as manyother subjects as possible through factual information, comprehension, and variouswriting genres. (Teacher 5)

Table 1. (Continued)

11) To what extent has there been potential for each unit to link to and build on from previous units?Small extent Moderate extent High extent Very high extent0 4 10 1

Teachers: 3, 4, 11, 15

Teachers: 1, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14

Teacher: 2

12) To what extent has there been links for student learning across units to allow for concepts to be revisited and to challenge and further develop existing thinking?Small extent Moderate extent High extent Very high extent0 8 5 2

Teacher: 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 11, 15

Teacher: 1, 8, 10, 12, 13 Teachers: 2, 14

13) To what extent has your perception of ‘action’ changed/been further developed?Small extent Moderate extent High extent Very high extent1 7 5 2Teacher: 12 Teachers: 4, 5, 6, 7,

8, 9, 11Teachers: 1, 3, 10, 13, 15 Teachers: 2, 14


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For these teachers this view was evident to them in the classroom when:

Students [are] reading information about scientific concepts during other domain areasnot just under science, but specifically in literacy. (Teacher 2)

Scientific literacy is a way of engaging and motivating students to effectively learn science and work scientifically. Four of the teachers surveyed (4/15 = 26%; Teachers 9, 11,12, and 13) expressed a view that defined scientific literacy as a way of engaging andmotivating students to effectively learn science and work scientifically. Examples ofcomments from these teachers include:

Using scientific language, asking questions like a scientist, wanting to know about some-thing, and asking the questions and researching to find out. (Teacher 9)

Scientific literacy is using a scientific method of thinking (such as predicting, recording,analyzing, observing, considering alternatives) to reflect on and question the students’prior conceptions. (Teacher 12)

For most of these teachers, the ways students questioned, discussed, observed, andanalyzed were their agreed indicators of scientific literacy in the classroom. Otherkey indicators included researching; predicting results; sharing opinions; usingdeeper thinking strategies; making connections; children following their own line ofinquiry; working at their own pace; redefining ideas; sharing information and learn-ing from each other; observing patterns; and reading scientific-based books.

Scientific literacy is when students identify science in the world around them and use science knowledge to make sense of the world. Three of the teachers surveyed (3/15 = 20%;Teachers 3, 6, and 7) expressed a view that scientific literacy pertained to studentsidentifying science in the world around them and using that knowledge to makesense of the world. This strong sense of purpose (a way of understanding) definedthis view with comments including:

Scientific literacy is about finding the science in our everyday world. (Teacher 3)

Scientific literacy is seeing the science around and being able to articulate this. (Teacher 6)

For these teachers, this view of scientific literacy was evident in a classroom that wasactive and involved investigations and unraveling information in ways that madesense for students. Further to this, scientific literacy was noticeable when childrenwere ‘getting into everyday issues from both home and abroad’ and trying to identify‘where the science is in the issue?’ Scientific literacy in the classroom and or schoolenvironment was therefore about making reference to scientific things incidentally,naturally and specifically for a purpose.

Scientific literacy enables students to function as interconnected, contributing members of the world of which they are a part. The final view of scientific literacy was expressed bysix of the teachers surveyed (6/15 = 40%; Teachers 1, 4, 8, 10, 14, and 15) and


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appeared to go further than knowing the science and using this knowledge to makesense of the world. In so doing, it enables students to function as interconnectedcontributing members of the world of which they are a part. In these responses, thewords ‘contributing’ and ‘responding’ repeatedly emerged:

Encouraging our students to be able to question and construct ideas and knowledge aboutthe world around them therefore providing them with the tools and thinking skills requiredto interact and actively contribute to their world in a meaningful way. (Teacher 1)

Developing students that reflect on the world as a connected body where their actionshave consequences. They consider the impact of their lives on others. (Teacher 4)

Exploring student learning through their own questioning of science concepts. Scientificliteracy is about encouraging students to think critically and actively respond to theirworld. (Teacher 15)

As with other views, teachers acknowledged the presence of similar learning behaviors,such as questioning, exploring, discussing, hypothesizing, etc., but importantly (forthis categorization) included analyzing; reconstructing; defining; reflecting; and creat-ing. In these classrooms, there was an emphasis on the student being engaged, takingownership of the learning, and collaborating productively with others. In these class-rooms, teachers commented that ‘students must be given a voice,’ they must ‘listento and build on the voice of other students;’ they not only question but ‘take apart’issues with teachers encouraging individual learning and progress but remaining‘impartial to student ideas and hypotheses’. Teachers allow students to ‘have a go’.

These teachers’ comments regarding action further expanded the idea of thisinterconnectedness and were also insightful about the contribution action made toachieving this learning outcome:

Action has always been the most important part of my unit but now I see it as having tomake a difference in the student’s life. Action outside the school, action that affects thestudent’s personal behavior, or action that improves the quality of life and sustainabilityof living things. (Teacher 10)

Mapping Changes in Teacher Thinking

Teacher responses in the initial interviews conducted in year 1 of the projectsuggested that participants were generally unable to articulate their understandingsof scientific literacy. They were confused and unclear about what they wanted to seestudents doing, and they had many questions about what that might mean for theirteaching. However, it is clear through the questionnaire data that teachers were able(at end of year 2) to articulate their thinking about scientific literacy and considerwhat scientific literacy might look like in the classroom.

Many of the features described by teachers as classroom indicators of scientificliteracy are similar to those described in the earlier interviews as components ofquality science teaching, so perhaps there had been a shift in understanding thenature of the concept in such a way as to suggest that scientific literacy was no longerviewed as an ‘extra’ or an ‘add-on’ specifically linked to classroom science teaching


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and learning. The questionnaire responses indicate that many teachers not onlymoved in their thinking about the nature of scientific literacy, but also that theycame to express their understandings of scientific literacy in ways that conveyed acomplex interconnecting idea of teaching, learning, and living. It seems reasonableto suggest that the school support structures (critical friend, planning days, collabo-ration between T & L coordinator and critical friend) had been effective in providingopportunities for teachers to consider alternative ideas and approaches, changed thedialogue about teaching, planning and learning and supported a reconsideration ofthe nature of their science teaching practice.

As with any developing understanding, changes in perceptions are to be expected.Hence, it may be that the four definitions that emerged from the questionnaire dataare illustrative of possible developmental points along a continuum of understand-ing. Mapping these points of change onto the Vision 1–Vision II continuum outlinedby Roberts (2007), it could be that Definition 1 may well equate to the literal trans-lation of scientific literacy and Definition 4, the more complex interconnected ideas,represents the other end in accord with a Vision II-type view. Those teachers whoexpressed a more complex understanding made comments in the questionnairewhich suggested that they expected to see students approach learning in rigorousand intellectually demanding ways including taking apart issues; analyzing; sorting;reconstructing; defining; explaining; redefining ideas; sharing information; learningfrom each other; trying to understand or make a difference to the world in whichthey live; categorizing; using deeper thinking strategies; and making connections.Where teachers listed such indicators as expectations for their students’ learning,they also indicated a higher level of impact of scientific literacy on student thinking.It may well be reasonable to suggest that these teachers’ behaviour actively nurturedand valued this view of scientific literacy through their practice.

Impact on Science Teaching and Learning

The results of those questions (3–13) that sought to determine the extent of change/impact of aspects of science teaching and learning on teachers and students followsnext. A summary of this data is offered in Table 1 including a list of teacher identifi-cation numbers for each group of responses.

Valuing and nurturing student thinking. Of the 15 teachers surveyed, eight felt scien-tific literacy had a very large (2)-to-large (6) impact on student thinking (53.3% ofthose surveyed). Six teachers (40%) felt the project had a moderate impact with oneteacher (6.6%) indicating a small impact on student thinking.

Of the eight teachers who felt scientific literacy had a very large to large impact onstudent thinking, seven of these teachers felt that scientific literacy had a very large-to-large impact on their own thinking, and one felt it had a moderate impact on theirown thinking. This suggests that within this research group there was a relationshipbetween the level of personal change in teachers’ thinking and the level of perceivedchange in student thinking.


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Six teachers (40% of those surveyed) felt scientific literacy had a moderate impacton student thinking. In this group there was not a clear correlation between impactof scientific literacy on teachers’ personal thinking and their view of impact onstudent thinking. The breakdown of this group with regard to impact on teacherthinking was 2 very large/2 large/2 moderate.

Planning, teacher expectations, and student thinking. Fourteen of the 15 teacherssurveyed felt that scientific literacy had a large-to-very large impact on planning.Thirteen teachers felt that, to a high or very high extent, learning and teaching wasembedded in a multi-domain approach. These results would be expected given thespecific structures put in place by the school leadership team to focus support forteachers with planning—particularly with a multi-domain approach. However,responses began to be more widely spread when considering two particularly valuedareas of planning, that is the extent of the potential for each unit to link to and buildon previous units and the links for student learning across units to allow for conceptsto be revisited and challenge and further develop existing thinking. These resultswould indicate that although teachers have expressed and acknowledged the need toattend to these aspects of planning when teaching for scientific literacy (seesummary of Lotus diagram feedback), these areas may still be problematic becausethey are ‘a big shift in the traditional curriculum delivery.’

There did appear to be a strong correlation between the impact on student think-ing and the impact of allowing student ideas and interests to shape the learningexperiences. Eight of the nine teachers who articulated a view of scientific literacythat aligned with Definitions 3 and 4 indicated that there was a high extent of shap-ing the learning experiences around observed student behaviors, ideas, and interests,and these teachers also indicated a large or very large impact of scientific literacy onstudent thinking (see teacher’s assigned identification numbers in each section of thedata). It may be reasonable to conclude that creating school-based conditions thateffectively support change in teacher thinking may assist teachers to consider thevalue of attending to student ideas and interests when shaping learning experiences.Such learning experiences provide an opportunity for students to engage in abroader and more intellectually demanding range of learning behaviors, which inturn become indicators of scientific literacy. So the way a teacher thinks about andunderstands scientific literacy personalizes the meaning in terms of practice, whichin turn shapes the action of teaching and learning for scientific literacy.

Conclusion

Although the meaning of the term ‘scientific literacy’ is far from agreed upon in theresearch literature, one outcome indicated through the data sources of this researchare that it is possible, over time, for primary school teachers to find ways to openconversations with colleagues about what science means and clearly identify the inten-tion of science education within their own teaching context. In so doing, they beginto develop from this a particular vision for science education in ways that are perhaps


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implicitly responsive to that which Norris and Phillips (2003) suggested about practicethrough their differentiation between the two senses of scientific literacy and the needfor these to be more closely tied together in teaching. If that is the case, then perhapsit is reasonable to suggest that a greater sense of self-confidence in science teachingemerged for these primary teachers as a consequence of engaging in more meaningfulways with the derived sense of scientific literacy through a form of scaffolding thatoccurred through the multi-domain approach. That inference is supported by one ofthe observations made by the external observer when she noted that:

My experiences of working with primary teachers is generally that they tend to lack self-confidence in teaching science and that, as a consequence, science lessons are oftenmainly teacher directed. What struck me at the OLGC was that teachers seemed to beconfident in their roles in the classroom and worked in an inquiry-based manner inwhich they stepped back and let the students be active participants in all aspects oflearning. For example, Mary spoke to me about how she had learnt that it is not alwaysthe right answer that is the important thing but that it is to help students to see thepurpose in why they learn things and the way they can use that knowledge in theireveryday lives. Hence, the idea that was continually reinforced for me was that theseteachers were not driven by the need to always have the right answer. They demon-strated time and time again that they relied on a process in which they supportedstudents in being responsible for their own learning. (ExtObs 1)

The external observers’ comments would not seem so unusual if thinking aboutprimary teachers teaching such things as social studies or literacy, but in light of teach-ing science, and in fact in teaching science through a multi-domain approach, theyare significant because they have become their standard practice, that is, science isapproached with a confidence around learning in ways similar to other content areas.Building on this view, the results of this project suggest that such development requiresteachers to confront their existing understandings, perceptions, and beliefs aboutscience and to consider how these might shape the type of learning experiences theycreate for their students. Central to this thinking has been how these teachers haveconfronted questions for their own practice through the multi-domain approachthrough questions such as: Why do we teach science?; What is the role of the teacher?;What does student centered learning mean?; What is scientific literacy?; How can Irecognize scientific literacy in the classroom?; How does this fit with my presentapproach to teaching science?; and What value is there in terms of student learning?

Datasets from this project demonstrate that all of the teacher participants attendedto these questions and considered the implications in shaping their developing think-ing about their teaching of science and that that influenced what they looked for inrelation to their students’ learning outcomes. In particular, what it meant for thetype of thinking they were looking for in their students, and how that thinking waspurposefully linked to developing their students as scientifically literate individuals.

The teacher thinking and professional knowledge literature (Carter, 1990; Clark &Peterson, 1986; Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1999; Hamilton, 2004; Inservice TeacherEducation Practice [INSTEP], 2006; Korthagen, 2004) consistently illustrates howdeveloping answers to dilemmas of practice is an ongoing process for teachers as theyactively reflect on, and think about, their practice. This process is enhanced when


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appropriate support for professional learning is available. In this project, such supportwas in the form of collaboration with their colleagues, the role of a trusted critical friendand a well-thought through strategy for change derived of the needs and concerns of theteacher participants as they pursued their agenda for the development of scientific literacythrough a multi-domain approach.

The results illustrate that developing a new frame of teaching for scientific literacydemanded a reconsideration of what it means to develop science teaching and learn-ing programs. The participant teachers came to consider the need to respond toindividual learning needs and specific teaching contexts and also to link and explorethe learning potential of contemporary issues and events in much more meaningfulways (for themselves and their students). The data in this paper suggest that the waya teacher thinks about and understands scientific literacy personalizes the meaningin terms of practice, which in turn shapes the action of teaching and learning forscientific literacy, for example, allowing students’ ideas and interests to shape thelearning experiences. When such action was present, there appeared to also be astrong impact on student thinking.

The results of this project clearly illustrate that these participants constructed andarticulated a meaning for scientific literacy that was personally relevant and evidentin their classroom practice. Their new thinking about scientific literacy impactedtheir classroom practice and their expectations for their students’ learning of science.Surely that is what a serious focus on scientific literacy in a primary school should beall about. The challenge ahead is for it to occur more frequently and more easily inthe day to day work of primary school teachers:

I was impressed by the way the teachers highlighted that there had been a shift fromtheir own thinking about where to find science in a unit to now seeing that science iseverywhere. The teachers told me that they had revised their way of thinking aboutscience and scientific literacy and that now, scientific literacy means discussion, argu-ment, communication, investigation, and questioning the everyday world. They havechanged their way of thinking of trying to have correct answers for all students’ ques-tions to take a step back in the classroom and not tell the students the right answer allthe time. They feel more self-confident in that they can work with science in the class-room and discover together with the students rather than simply teaching to thestudents. Before the project they thought (and their students thought) that science wasabout doing experiments, now they know that it is so much more. (ExtObs.1)

Acknowledgment

The authors acknowledge the support of the Australian Research Council inconducting this project. The study was supported by an ARC Linkage project.

References

Aikenhead, G. S. (2007, May). Expanding the research agenda for scientific literacy. Paper presentedat the Linnaeus tercentenary symposium on Promoting Scientific Literacy: Science EducationResearch in Transaction, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.


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Appendix A. Semi-Structured Interview Protocol for Interview 1 between the Critical Friend and Teachers

Consider the phrase ‘quality teaching in science’. What does this mean to you?What is the role of the teacher?What is the role of the student?Given this view what are the present challenges that exist for you in terms ofachieving quality science teaching?What is scientific literacy?Describe a classroom where scientific literacy is a focus of the teaching and learning?What might the teacher be doing?What might the student be doing?What challenges does scientific literacy present for your teaching?

Appendix B. Lotus Diagram


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Appendix C. Questionnaire Completed by Teachers (n = 15)

1) From your experiences to date please explain your thinking regarding whatscientific literacy is essentially about.(Written response)2) From your experiences to date please explain your thinking regarding whatscientific literacy looks like in the classroom.(Written response)3) Please consider the impact of scientific literacy on teacher thinking.

4) Please consider the impact of scientific literacy on student thinking.

5) Please consider the impact of scientific literacy on planning.

6) To what extent has learning and teaching been embedded in a multi-domainapproach?

7) To what extent have observations of student behavior/needs/interests shapedlearning experiences?

8) To what extent has each student been developed as an independent criticalthinker?

9) To what extent has your teacher thinking in scientific literacy been developed?

10) To what extent has student thinking in scientific literacy been developed?




Small extent Moderate extent High extent Very high extent






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11) To what extent has there been potential for each unit to link to and build onfrom previous units?

12) To what extent has there been links for student learning across units to allowfor concepts to be revisited and to challenge and further develop existing thinking?

13) To what extent has your perception of ‘action’ changed/been furtherdeveloped?

14) Please explain how your perception of ‘action’ has changed/been furtherdeveloped.15) Please comment on the role of the ‘Critical Friend’ in the project.(Written response)16) Please comment on the role of the ‘Head of Learning and Teaching’ in theproject.(Written response)17) Please make recommendations for next year. (Written response)





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Documents

Developing Scientific Literacy in a Primary School