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Fuchs, Travis Thomas Henry

University of British Columbia

In the revised provincial curriculum, secondary school science teachers in British Columbia, Canada, are expected to prepare students to critically understand and address socioscientific issues (SSI). SSI are issues pertaining to science and society that highlight risks and uncertainties in their development. Despite this new curricular initiative, professional development necessary to support these goals and teacher accounts detailing its actualization in classrooms remains limited. This study aims to support science educators (and, in turn, their students) in creating more just and sustainable futures through what I call socially responsible science education or SRSE. A 30-week professional development approach – a Learning study – was implemented to support and study four secondary teachers’ learning experiences toward SRSE. A Learning study is a collaborative action research variant that distinguishes itself through an explicit focus on theoretical perspectives. These perspectives help structure teachers’ classroom research, acting as a lens through which they collaboratively plan, enact, and evaluate classroom practices. In this work, Sjöstrom et al.’s (2017) Three Visions of Scientific Literacy Heuristic (3-VSL) was drawn on to frame participants' engagement in the Learning study. Data sources included transcripts of teachers' semi-structured interviews conducted before and after the study (n=8), audio-video recordings of Learning study meetings (n=26), lesson observations (n=22), and artifacts of teachers’ work (e.g., lesson plans). Sixty hours of audio-video recordings were transcribed and analyzed. By borrowing phenomenographic perspectives, I constructed three qualitatively different ways participants understood, enacted, and developed strategies to pursue SRSE. The description of the categories included several ways the teachers overcame challenges faced in SRSE. This study provides practical examples of SRSE approaches and illustrates how they might be effectively employed to support teachers’ evolving ideas, their classroom practice, and enrich students’ learning. The results showcase teacher and professional development attributes essential for SRSE adoption, offering considerations for teacher professional learning and development. This work makes novel contributions to teacher and science education scholarship. The 3-VSL is unique in Learning study literature – its employment supported the teachers in building and shifting their science education beliefs and practices towards action-oriented and emancipatory outcomes.

Text

2023-08-31

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/85744

Curriculum Studies

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/