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On Science and Society – and
knowledge for all
Mattias Lundin
&
Ragnar Olsson
Erasmus IP Ioannina
June 13th 2012
The structure of the presentation – a trialogue
• Trialogue (part one)• Short youtube clip• Discussion 1• Discussion 2• Trialogue (part two)
Also:Basis for the workshop. What we present can maybe be used in the discussions in the workshop
On Science and Society – and knowledge for all
Scientific Literacy•On today’s schoolwork•On my further education•On my contribution to the future society
On Science and Society – and knowledge for all
• The charter tourist• The backpacker
On Science and Society – and knowledge for all
• A youtube clip• 12 minutes• Attention to your own reflections• Use your teacher eyes!
Concierto evolucion
Concierto evolucion
• On your own:– What is the most important reflection that you
would like to bring up from the film? – Write down your choice on a paper and why
you made that choice
Concierto evolucion
• Together with the person sitting next to you:– What is the most important reflection that you
would like to bring up from the film (only one issue)
– Write down your choice on a paper and why you made that choice
– 5 minutes
Concierto evolucion
• Together with your (international) group:– Try to agree upon the most important
reflection that you would like to bring up from the film (only one reflection)
– Write down your choice and why you made that choice. E-mail your choice:
~20 minutes
Your reflections!
Conclusions?
Conclusions?
• Let’s see if the final part of the video-clip can give us a hint!
Science and technology for all, what is that?
• How do we address the concept science and technology for all, as teachers?
• Defining the core of science knowledge
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Science and technology for all?
Let’s teach!
• Or let’s try another approach…– Democracy– Power– Participation
Science and society – a metaphor
Science and society – another metaphor
Science and society – another metaphor
Science and society – another metaphor
Wolff Michael Roth
• Fibre- threadRoth, W.-F. (2002). Scientific literacy as an emergent feature of collective human praxis. Journal of Curriculum Studies 35(1) p.9-23.
• How do we use the different threads?• Who is to decide what to do with it?
Sustainability
• Ecological• Economic• Social
Sustainable development
Scientific literacy
• What does this mean to teachers’ assignment?
• What is important paying special attention to?
To promote learning – what learning?
• Three different approaches when designing learning situation– Essentialism– Progressivism– Reconstructivism
ESSENTIALISM
Subject content in focus
• Central concepts of the subject• Organisation of the existing subject knowledge• Knowledge is built in accordance with for example the corresponding
academic subject
The teacher becomes a crucial person in the classroom – the person that knows the subject
PROGRESSIVISM
The student in focus
• The student’s interest in focus for the activity• Meaningful activities• Students’ experiences are crucial for learning• Problem solving and cooperation• Direct experiences are to prefer
The students need to be active.
RECONSTRUCTIVISM
The construction of sustainable society
• The student’s learning is a part of the reconstruction of the society• Democratic development• Different perspectives need to be elicited• To use knowledge to argue in, for example the public debate• To critically evaluate different alternatives
Different consequences for science education
Fact based education
Normative education
Education based on sustainable development
Discription of teaching:
Facts, causes, processes
Value issues. Teaching to do the right choices
Discussions, different choices and consequences
-ism: Essentialism Essentialism (facts) + progressivism
Reconstructivism
Issues are… …to be solved by research
… value issues, solved as a moral issue
… political issues that are solved in a democratic processs.
(Sandell, Öhman & Östman, 2003)
Who has the power?
• Albert Einstein: "Concern for man himself must always constitute the chief objective of all technological effort -- concern for the big, unsolved problems of how to organize human work and the distribution of commodities in such a manner as to assure that the results of our scientific thinking may be a blessing to mankind, and not a curse."
To think about before the Linnaeus workshop
• How do we use our different knowledge?• Who has the power to make decisions
about how knowledge is used?
•Roth, W.-F. (2002). Scientific literacy as an emergent feature of collective human praxis. Journal of Curriculum Studies 35(1) p.9-23.• •Några utvalda avsnitt ur artikeln som skulle kunna ingå i vår keynote.• •When theorised from the viewpoint of praxis, ‘scientific literacy’ is not something that is owned by (or characterises) certain individuals. Rather, ‘scientific literacy’ is an emergent, collective phenomenon. Such scientific literacy may, for example, emerge when ordinary citizens question a scientist about the methodology he used, which turns out to fall short considering the problem at hand. (p. 7)•
•Thinking the relationship between individual and collective life in terms of fibre and thread allows us a new approach to theorising ‘scientific literacy’. It is no longer a property of a single fibre or a small number of fibres (scientific community) but it is a property that becomes recognisable and analysable at the level of the thread. Thinking of science as a fibre among fibres helps us to understand it as an entity and as context in a more general endeavour (thread). From the perspective of the thread, science plays a role as all the other forms of knowledge and practices (p. 7)• •Thinking the relationship between individual and collective life in terms of fibre and thread allows us a new approach to theorising ‘scientific literacy’. It is no longer a property of a single fibre or a small number of fibres (scientific community) but it is a property that becomes recognisable and analysable at the level of the thread. Thinking of science as a fibre among fibres helps us to understand it as an entity and as context in a more general endeavour (thread). From the perspective of the thread, science plays a role as all the other forms of knowledge and practices; any attempt to privilege it abstracts from the fact that it itself exists only because of all the other threads. Science education would then be the endeavour to make scientific literacy possible as a collective rather than individual characteristic. It would amount to creating opportunities for individuals (fibres) to participate, each in their own ways, to contribute to the emergence of the phenomenon at a collective level. We are then interested not only in what scientists have to say at the meeting, but also in what all the others have to say who participate (speak, listen, applaud), and specifically the residents whose access to proper drinking water is being denied. This means that not all individuals have to know a basic stock of scientific facts or concepts—we do drive without knowing anything about car mechanics and we do eat bread without knowing how to bake. If we take scientific literacy to be a characteristic of emergent collective practice, then it does not matter which piece each and everyone contributes but that in the end, decisions are made that take account of a variety of relevant (local) knowledge, values, and beliefs. (p. 7)• •Rethinking knowing and learning, science and scientific literacy, and collective public meetings and individual contributions from the perspective of fibres and thread, leads us to radically different conclusions about what and how curriculum should be designed and enacted. When learning is no longer identified with grey matter between the ears but with the relations between people and with doing things together, our views of teaching will change. When learning no longer ‘belong[s] to individual persons, but to the various conversations of which they are part’ (McDermott 1993: 292), we need to rethink what science curriculum ought to look like. (p. 8)
