Jonathon Osbourne | SMEC 2010

Science without literacy: A Ship without a Sail?

 This talk will argue that reading, writing and talking are central to any conception of learning on science.  Scientists spend more of their time reading and writing than they do on any other activity.  Yet science does not wear its meaning on its sleeve. Rather, its meaning is communicated through the use of words, charts, symbols, diagrams and mathematics.  All of this has to be taught. Thus the teacher of science is as much a teacher of language as they are a teacher of science content. Achieving this goal requires reflective and critical engagement with texts that must be supported by using well-structured strategies some of which will be explored in this talk. In short, learning science is as much a process of learning a language as it is learning a set of new ideas. 

Biography

My research focus is a mix of work on policy and pedagogy in the teaching and learning of science. In the policy domain, I am interested in exploring students' attitudes to science and how school science can be made more worthwhile and engaging - particularly for those who will not continue with the study of science. In pedagogy, my focus has been on making the case for the role of argumentation in science education both as a means of improving the use of a more dialogic approach to teaching science and improving student understanding of the nature of scientific inquiry. I have led one major project on 'Enhancing the Quality of Argument in School Science Education'. From this we developed the IDEAS (Ideas, Evidence and Argument in Science Education) materials to support teacher professional learning. Nevertheless, much science, if not more, is learned outside the classroom and how young people learn in that environment and what it has to offer formal education is another focus of my work and I was one of the partners in the NSF funded Centre for Informal Learning and Schools (2002-7)
 Current Research activities include:

• Teaching to Learn, Learning to Teach in Science. The T2L project is a 3 year project (2008-10) exploring whether argumentation can be embedded into the teaching of science in 4 high schools and to examine what effects it has on student learning and engagement. Further details are on: http://www.kcl.ac.uk/schools/sspp/education/research/projects/tlltss.html
• Science Careers and Aspirations: Age 10-14. This is a 5 year longitudinal study of the development of student engagement with science