παιδαγωγικά ρεύματα στο Αιγαίο Θεωρείο 3 The Pedagogic Discourse of the Greek School Science Textbooks of Primary and Lower Secondary Level (original) (raw)
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The Scientific Practices on the Science's Textbook in the Fifth Grade of Greek Primary School
A plethora of studies related to science teaching and learning in the last two decades, has prompted the design and development of a new framework in order to improve the quality of scientific literacy for all students. The new framework incorporates the coexistence of three dimensions of learning: the scientific practices, the core ideas and the cross-cutting concepts. However, although the importance of the three dimensions of learning is paramount, the research that is focused on the analysis of the teaching material on the three dimensions is very limited. In this research, we focus on the dimension of scientific practices. The aim of this study was the analysis of the science textbook titled " Inquire and discover " (part of the teaching package) in the fifth grade of Greek Primary School on the scientific practices involved in its content. The term scientific practice does not coincide with the term practical skills because the participation in scientific research does not require only skills, but special knowledge and experience for every skill as well. The analysis was carried out by a grid that was structured by the scientific practices as conceptual categories. A part of the scientific practices of the new framework is not evident into the textbook content and important aspects of other scientific practices do not enter into units of analysis. The textbook is not satisfactorily aligned with the new framework of science learning and perhaps these findings negatively affect the scientific literacy of Greek students in Primary School.
Towards a Framework of Socio-Linguistic Analysis of Science Textbooks: The Greek Case
Research in Science Education, 2005
This study aims at presenting a grid for analysing the way the language employed in Greek school science textbooks tends to project pedagogic messages. These messages are analysed for the different school science subjects (i.e., Physics, Chemistry, Biology) and educational levels (i.e., primary and lower secondary level). The analysis is made using the dimensions of content specialisation (classification) and social-pedagogic relationships (framing) promoted by the language of the school science textbooks as well as the elaboration and abstraction of the corresponding linguistic code (formality), thus combining pedagogical and socio-linguistic perspectives. Classification and formality are used to identify the ways science textbooks tend to position students in relation to the interior of the corresponding specialised body of knowledge (i.e., in terms of content and code) while framing is used to identify the ways science textbooks tend to position students as learning subjects within the school science discourse. The results show that the kind of pedagogic messages projected by the textbooks depends mainly on the educational level and not particularly on the specific discipline. As the educational level rises a gradual move towards more specialised forms of scientific knowledge (mainly in terms of code) with a parallel increase in the students' autonomy in accessing the textbook material is noticed. The implications concern the way both students and teachers approach science textbooks as well as the roles they can undertake by internalising the textbooks' pedagogic messages and also the way science textbooks are authored.
Archives Internationales d'Histoire des Sciences, 2010
Introduction: The many faces of scientific textbooks Textbooks have a dubious role in the historiography of science. At first glance, the number of treatises and papers on Newton's Principia or on Mendeleev's Principles of Chemistry testify to the existence of a well established subject of study. Once, however, we move away from research on such monumental works, a curious silence prevails. Very few historical studies have been devoted to science education textbooks or to the role they played in the formation of modern science (Kohlstedt 2005, Bensaude-Vincent 2006). The intention of this paper is to show how the examination of science textbooks can lead to some interesting and original conclusions, especially when social, economical and scientific formations in the 'periphery' of scientific production are considered 1. By describing the typology of creation and publication of textbooks used in science education in the early Greek State, we aim to show that textbooks can act as both valuable mediators between the historiography of science and the historiography of education, as well as signifiers of the complex interplay between the social, political and ideological framework of each case and the scientific practice taking place within it. The very concept of the scientific textbook is a somewhat recent arrival. It acquired its present status as "a book used in the study of a subject as one containing a presentation of the principles of a subject or as a literary work relevant to the study of a subject" 2 only during the last decades of the 18 th century (Brock 1975, Patiniotis 2006). As far as philosophy of science is concerned, a textbook is the 'last existential act' of the scientific community and thus the least interesting of its practices (Brooke 2000) 3. Going back to the writings of Auguste Comte, for example, the scientific textbook shifts from representing the historical to describing the dogmatic order of science, as science mature (Comte 1830). On the other side of the positivistic fence, Gaston Bachelard describes the creation of the textbook as an effect of the 'epistemological rupture' between the pro-and meta-scientific era of a discipline (Bachelard 1938). Even T. S Kuhn's locus classicus, The Structure of Scientific 1 The concept of the 'center' versus the 'periphery' has come under some well deserved scrutiny in recent historiography of science (Gavroglou 2003, Patiniotis 2006). Here, it is used to denote cultural and scientific spaces which did not have a noticeable effect in the formation of the canonical scientific theories of the 18 th and 19 th century. The Greek speaking, mostly Orthodox communities in the Ottoman Empire or abroad were, in this strict sense, in the periphery. Considerations on a methodology of historiographical textbook research Research on the role of science textbooks seems, thus, to call for a more detailed examination of methodological assumptions usually taken at face value. The first such assumption is the dichotomy between 'science in action' and 'textbook science', a differentiation stemming from the traditional view of textbooks. In scientific spaces similar to the early Greek State, where a scientific community, with all its accompanying practices, did not exist in the classical sense, but where science textbooks were nevertheless published, these two images of science become blurred. Science education comes to the forefront as a candidate for the defining action of the scientific community. As a result, it must be considered an open question whether the unnamed, everyday scientific textbook helps formulate the practice of the scientific community and not the other way around. Secondly, the two overlapping definitions of a science textbook, that of a 'book used in teaching science ' in contrast to a 'book intended for use in teaching science'
Squaring the Circle and Saving the Phenomena: Reading Science in the Greek Language Classroom
Teaching Classical Languages, 2015
Our students live in a world where scientific achievement and knowledge are profoundly significant, just as they were to the Greeks, and it becomes increasingly important to ensure that the language requirement is as enriching an experience as possible for all students, not only for students in the humanities, but also for those pursuing STEM tracks. Here we explore the significance of science in Greek culture together with the incorporation of Greek scientific texts in the beginning and intermediate Greek language classroom. Science (knowledge) was a seminal component of the Greek intellectual experience, and approachable "scientific" texts can be found in authors identified strictly as "scientists" (e.g., Euclid), as well as in the literary canon (e.g., Homer, Aeschylus). Appended is an extensive, generously annotated appendix of "scientific" texts drawn from a variety of authors and treating the major scientific discipline.
Nature of Science in Greek Secondary School Biology Textbooks
CEPS Journal, 2022
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World Journal of Education
The present study examines the integration level of the Nature of Scientific Knowledge in secondary school science classes in Greece. The research was designed and organized on the basis of the Cultural-Historical Activity Theory. The activity system of the researchers, who use the proper tools each time, are in network relations with the activity system of Science Education. Major components of the educational system are studied (the curriculum, textbooks, teachers’ know-how and teaching methods, school inspectors’ viewpoints, students’ knowledge) in relation to the nature of scientific knowledge, to ensure valid results. The curriculum and textbook content is decoded, the knowledge of teachers and students is assessed with the use of an internationally validated questionnaire, and interview protocols are analyzed. Research results reveal that the nature of scientific knowledge is included in a small degree in the curriculum and textbooks, teachers refer intuitively to some of thes...