In this paper, the problems of challenges for science education and solutions to
overcome these problems are presented. The lack of epistemological role of
science is emphasized and the productive use of history and philosophy of
science is proposed in science education.
Todays schools need to prepare all students, rather than just a few, to
participate in some
now offer. Schools need to focus on building students learning power or capacity
to learn,
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and their ability to do things with knowledge rather than rewarding them for
acquiring
and storing bits of knowledge for possible future use. Schools need to focus on
helping
students develop certain basic competencies that are required in all areas of life,
compe-
tencies such as thinking and working with others, rather than helping them to
accumulate
knowledge-based credentials.
connections between knowledge systems rather than the details of the systems
them-
modes.
Educationalists who think this way are strongly critical of the traditional
academic curriculum, the view of knowledge that underpins it and the role it has
played in sorting stu-
dents for future employment. However, they do not devalue knowledge: rather
they are
you get but rather as a context or domain for building students capacity for
thinking and
learning through using a range of modes such as text-based, visual, oral, musical
and so
on how people learn. The next section looks briefly at some of this work.
Changes in society, schooling and science itself, coupled with a lack of clarity of
the pur
pose of science education, have produced school science programmes that are
not op
timally meeting the needs of any of our students neither high achievers headed
for
science related careers nor the majority who need science for citizenship. Solving
this
problem requires a long term strategy that takes into account purposes,
pedagogies, as-
sessment practices, teacher beliefs and values, resources and the wider
community.
In this section we provide one possible scenario of how science education could
look dif
ferent in the future. The purpose of providing this scenario is two-fold. Firstly, we
aim to
stimulate debate about what really matters in science education. Any curriculum
decision
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Annex A: Inspired by Science
involves trade-offs: thus our aim in including this scenario is to bring to the
surface deeply-
held - but often tacit - beliefs about what good science education should do.
What can
of the ideas discussed in this paper, and provide some practical ideas about
possible first
step