Looks at the theory and practice of science education.

Developing Scientific Literacy addresses the gap of the revelance of science in everyday life, offering a much-needed framework for teachers wishing to explore ‘science in the media’ in secondary schools or colleges.

"I read lots of books in which science education researchers tell science teachers how to teach. This book, refreshingly, is written the other way round.We read a number of accounts by outstanding science and technology teachers of how they use new approaches to teaching to motivate their students and maximise their learning. These accounts are then followed by some excellentanalyses from leading academics. I learnt a lot from reading this book." Professor Michael Reiss, Institute of Education, University of London "Provides an important new twist on one of the enduring problems of case-based learning... This is a book that deserves careful reading and re-reading, threading back and forwards from the immediate and practical images of excellence in the teachers’ cases to the comprehensive andscholarly analyses in the researchers’ thematic chapters." Professor William Louden, Edith Cowan University, Australia Through a celebration of teaching and research, this book explores exemplary practice in science education and fuses educational theory and classroom practice inunique ways. Analysing Exemplary Science Teaching brings together twelve academics, ten innovativeteachers and three exceptional students in a conversation about teaching and learning.Teachers and students describe some of their most noteworthy classroom practice,whilst scholars of international standing use educational theory to discuss, define andanalyse the documented classroom practice. Classroom experiences are directly linked with theory by a series of annotatedcomments. This distinctive web-like structure enables the reader to actively movebetween practice and theory, reading about classroom innovation and then theorizingabout the basis and potential of this teaching approach. Providing an international perspective, the special lessons described and analysed aredrawn from middle and secondary schools in the UK, Canada and Australia. This bookis an invaluable resource for preservice and inservice teacher education, as well as forgraduate studies. It is of interest to a broad spectrum of individuals, including trainingteachers, teachers, researchers, administrators and curriculum coordinators in scienceand technology education.

Asks how science teachers can make their classes more stimulating and challenging for the most able students to encourage them to continue their science education beyond compulsory schooling.

In August 2003 over 400 researchers in the field of science education from all over the world met at the 4th ESERA conference in Noordwijkerhout, The Netherlands. During the conference 300 papers about actual issues in the field, such as the learning of scientific concepts and skills, scientific literacy, informal science learning, science teacher education, modeling in science education were presented. The book contains 40 of the most outstanding papers presented during the conference. These papers reflect the quality and variety of the conference and represent the state of the art in the field of research in science education.

In August 2005, over 500 researchers from the field of science education met at the 5th European Science Education Research Association conference. Two of the main topics at this conference were: the decrease in the number of students interested in school science and concern about the worldwide outcomes of studies on students’ scientific literacy. This volume includes edited versions of 37 outstanding papers presented, including the lectures of the keynote speakers.

Inspired by a similar book in science education, the editors of this volume have put together a book with a practice-oriented approach towards technology education research.

Learning by Doing" is about the history of experimentation in science education. The teaching of science through experiments and observation is essential to the natural sciences and its pedagogy. These have been conducted as both demonstration or as student exercises. The experimental method is seen as giving the student vital competence, skills and experiences, both at the school and at the university level. This volume addresses the historical development of experiments in science education, which has been largely neglected so far. The contributors of "Learning by Doing" pay attention to various aspects ranging from economic aspects of instrument making for science teaching, to the political meanings of experimental science education from the 17th to the 20th century. This collected volume opens the field for further debate by emphasizing the importance of experiments for both, historians of science and science educators. [Présentation de l'éditeur].

There has been a growing interest in the notion of a scholarship of teaching. Such scholarship is displayed through a teacher’s grasp of, and response to, the relationships between knowledge of content, teaching and learning in ways that attest to practice as being complex and interwoven. Yet attempting to capture teachers’ professional knowledge is difficult because the critical links between practice and knowledge, for many teachers, is tacit. Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) offers one way of capturing, articulating and portraying an aspect of the scholarship of teaching and, in this case, the scholarship of science teaching. The research underpinning the approach developed by Loughran, Berry and Mulhall offers access to the development of the professional knowledge of science teaching in a form that offers new ways of sharing and disseminating this knowledge. Through this Resource Folio approach (comprising CoRe and PaP-eRs) a recognition of the value of the specialist knowledge and skills of science teaching is not only highlighted, but also enhanced. The CoRe and PaP-eRs methodology offers an exciting new way of capturing and portraying science teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge so that it might be better understood and valued within the profession. This book is a concrete example of the nature of scholarship in science teaching that is meaningful, useful and immediately applicable in the work of all science teachers (preservice, in-service and science teacher educators). It is an excellent resource for science teachers as well as a guiding text for teacher education.

Assessment is a fundamental issue in research in science education, in curriculum development and implementation in science education as well as in science teaching and learning. This book takes a broad and deep view of research involving assessment in science education, across contexts and cultures (from whole countries to individual classrooms) and across forms and purposes (from assessment in the service of student learning to policy implications of system wide assessment). It examines the relationships between assessment, measurement and evaluation; explores assessment philosophies and practices in relation to curriculum and scientific literacy/learning; and details the relationships between assessment and science education policy. The third in a series, Valuing Assessment in Science Education has chapters from a range of international scholars from across the globe and staff from Monash University, King’s College London and University of Waikato. The two previous books in the series examined research relevant to the re-emergence of values in science education and teaching across the spectrum of science education as well as across cultural contexts through the professional knowledge of science teaching. This third book now moves to examine different aspects of generating understanding about what science is learnt, how it is learnt, and how it is valued. Valuing Assessment in Science Education will appeal to all those with some engagement with and/or use of research in science education, including research students, academics, curriculum development agencies, assessment authorities, and policy makers. It will also be of interest to all classroom science teachers who seek to keep abreast of the latest research and development and thinking in their area of professional concern.