Understanding the Meanings Secondary Biology Students Construct around Science through Drawings

Purpose The purpose of this paper is sharing out basic guidelines and examples from an extended collaboration to move educators move online while avoiding synchronous meetings. “gPortfolios” are public (to the class) pages where students write responses to carefully constructed engagement routines. Students then discuss their work with instructors and peers in threaded comments. gPortfolios usually include engagement reflections, formative self-assessments and automated quizzes. These assessments support and document learning while avoiding instructor “burnout” from grading. gPortfolios can be implemented using Google Docs and Forms or any learning management system. Design/methodology/approach The authors report practical insights gained from design-based implementation research. This research explored the late Randi Engle’s principles for productive disciplinary engagement and expansive framing. Engle used current theories of learning to foster student discussions that were both authentic to the academic discipline at hand and productive for learning. This research also used new approaches to assessment to support Engle’s principles. This resulted in a comprehensive approach to online instruction and assessment that is effective and efficient for both students and teachers. Findings The approach “frames” (i.e. contextualizes) online engagement using each learners’ own experiences, perspectives and goals. Writing this revealed how this was different in different courses. Secondary biology students framed each assignment independently. Secondary English and history students framed assignments as elements of a personalized capstone presentation; the history students further used a self-selected “historical theme.” Graduate students framed each assignment in an educational assessment course using a real or imagined curricular aim and context. Originality/value Engle’s ideas have yet to be widely taken up in online education.

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Teaching and learning through scientific practices in the laboratory in biology education

Nordic Studies in Science Education ◽

10.5617/nordina.8766 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 17 (3) ◽

pp. 340

Author(s):

Mari Sjøberg

Keyword(s):

Teaching And Learning ◽

Scientific Practice ◽

Biology Education ◽

Scientific Practices ◽

Biology Teachers ◽

Biology Students ◽

Upper Secondary ◽

Challenges And Opportunities ◽

Secondary Biology ◽

Support Students

The overall aim of this thesis is to explore challenges and opportunities with teaching and learning through scientific practices in the laboratory in biology education. This thesis is based on three articles that are introduced and discussed in an extended abstract. My focus is on practice in the laboratory, and in the thesis, I have investigated practice in two different ways. First, I have investigated upper secondary biology teachers’ practices as reported in a survey and group interview (Article I). Secondly, I have analyzed undergraduate biology students’ practices through microscale analysis of their reasoning when constructing representations in the laboratory (Article II and III). The findings from Article I show that the biology teachers’ primarily report that they implement teacher-directed laboratory work with the aim of illustrating content knowledge. The findings from Article II and III shows how different representations, such as drawings and gestures, support students’ model-based reasoning. Based on these findings, I argue for the fruitfulness of a focus on modelling through representation construction as a scientific practice in the laboratory.

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