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This study used three previously validated instruments, namely Science Academic Hardiness (SAH), Students’ Conceptions of Learning Science (COLS) and Science Learning Self-Efficacy (SLSE) on 431 Singaporean students. Using structural equation modeling, results showed that the SAH commitment dimension a positive predictor explaining both the reproductive (e.g. science learning as memorizing or testing) and constructivist (e.g. science learning as understanding or seeing in a new way) conceptions of science learning as well as all dimensions of students’ self-efficacy among high school students. It was also found that the SAH control dimension is a positive predictor for explaining the SLSE science communication dimension but is a negative predictor for explaining reproductive COLS. Finally, only students with constructivist COLS had significant associations with all SLSE dimensions. These findings suggest that students’ personal commitment to learning science is an important aspect to cultivate since it has the ability to predict conceptions of science learning and self-efficacy. Further, creating opportunities for students to be engaged in learning through constructivist ways—such as designing tasks to help students understand and see phenomena in new ways and occasions for students to apply their science knowledge to solve science problems—is likely to lead to positive self-efficacy in practical science work, science communication, and everyday applications of scientific knowledge. Additionally, students’ engagement in reproductive ways of learning science—such as memorization, testing, and calculating and practicing—could be reduced since these do not contribute to building students’ science learning self-efficacy.

Balancing disciplinary knowledge and practical reasoning in problem solving is needed for meaningful learning. In STEM problem solving, science subject matter with associated practices often appears distant to learners due to its abstract nature. Consequently, learners experience difficulties making meaningful connections between science and their daily experiences. Applying Dewey’s idea of practical and science inquiry and Bereiter’s idea of referent-centred and problem-centred knowledge, we examine how integrated STEM problem solving offers opportunities for learners to shuttle between practical and science inquiry and the kinds of knowledge that result from each form of inquiry. We hypothesize that connecting science inquiry with practical inquiry narrows the gap between science and everyday experiences to overcome isolation and fragmentation of science learning. In this study, we examine classroom talk as students engage in problem solving to increase crop yield. Qualitative content analysis of the utterances of six classes of 113 eighth graders and their teachers were conducted for 3 hours of video recordings. Analysis showed an almost equal amount of science and practical inquiry talk. Teachers and students applied their everyday experiences to generate solutions. Science talk was at the basic level of facts and was used to explain reasons for specific design considerations. There was little evidence of higher-level scientific conceptual knowledge being applied. Our observations suggest opportunities for more intentional connections of science to practical problem solving, if we intend to apply higher-order scientific knowledge in problem solving. Deliberate application and reference to scientific knowledge could improve the quality of solutions generated.

Student engagement in large Life Sciences classes can be problematic, especially with the course work done outside formal class contact hours. To enhance student engagement with the content outside...

To ensure the quality of pre-service science teacher education, the National Institute of Education in Singapore continuously review the programmes offered to students who aspire to become a teacher. There are two key teacher education programmes to cater to interested students with different backgrounds – the 16-month Post-Graduate Diploma in Education (PGDE) and the 4-year Bachelor of Science (Education) programme. Both programmes are built on the key principles of Teacher Education for twenty-first-century framework of V3SK (values, skills, and knowledge). The three values fundamental to pre-service teacher education in general are (1) learner-centred values, (2) teacher identity, and (3) service to the profession and community. These values are deliberately worked into all programmes to enable the development of pre-service teachers into teachers who are ready for twenty-first-century classrooms. This chapter delves into the details of how the PGDE and the undergraduate programme prepare future-ready science teachers to teach science in schools. Besides presenting the structure of the teacher preparation programmes, we use personal narratives to present the lived experiences of pre-service teachers enrolled in the programmes to bring to life the programmes. We end the chapter with four recommendations for pre-service science teacher education in the years ahead.

The Singapore Ministry of Education (MOE) encourages teachers to engage in continual professional development to keep abreast of the latest developments in research that inform teaching, learning, and assessment. Teachers can participate in formal and informal programmes to upgrade their knowledge and practices inside and outside classroom teaching. This book chapter focuses on the repertoire of opportunities available to Singapore science teachers to support them in their progression into established professionals. Besides short-term courses, obtaining a Master’s degree is yet another way to build the professional capacity of the teaching workforce. Investing time to pursue a Master’s degree requires commitment and, more importantly, support from the school leaders and MOE. In this chapter, we show how different routes to obtaining a Master’s degree and the different funding sources available to them. Bespoked professional development for teachers also come in the form of research partnerships that empowers teachers more than mere participation. Here, we describe the different projects that science teachers have embarked on to gain firsthand experience in research. Action research is popular among science teachers and has created opportunities for them to present at professional meetings such as conferences. In summary, this book chapter offers insights into how the Singapore science teaching fraternity builds up its human capabilities through committing time, effort, and many other resources into engaging teachers in research to support their evidence-based practices. In the process, these science teachers progressively develop into established professionals.

Internship attachments to research laboratories as part of undergraduate science courses offer opportunities for students to be engaged with authentic scientific research. The term “authentic research” refers to the opportunities to work under the supervision of practicing scientists. Such experiences differ vastly from typical laboratory sessions, where undergraduates complete a predetermined set of activities within a duration of between three and six hours every week during the semester. In comparison, students who participate in authentic scientific research work with faculty and research staff engage with the activity over an extended period of time, ranging from months to years. The authentic research experiences aim to expose students to the field of science practice and to gain insights about the nature of science. However, these internships programmes are both labour and resource intensive. Using an in-depth case study, consisting of observations and interviews, of a third-year undergraduate (Tom) majoring in the life sciences, this study re-examines this time-proven mode of learning from the theoretical lens of science epistemic practices. Analysis of Tom’s experiences revealed that while Tom was cognizant about the demands of science practices such as the need for rigorous data collection and analysis in the scientific process, he was unprepared for the highly repetitive nature of the experiments he conducted. Additionally, the unpredictable nature of the experimental results as well as the need for attention when experiments were in-progress meant that Tom was unable to make concrete plans outside his laboratory engagements and this resulted in low-grade anxiety.

Singapore students boast stellar performance at international benchmarking studies such as PISA and TIMSS. One of the major contributors to the consistently good performance in mathematics and science is the quality of our science teacher education in Singapore. Through a consistent, systematic and continuous system, there is a seamless transition of pre-service teacher education to continuing professional development of science teachers in Singapore. This pathway of science teacher education is important as it enables science teachers to be kept abreast of changing educational innovations. Quality of science teachers is ensured from the first step of recruitment. Prospective teachers undergo a stringent selection process before they are admitted to the National Institute of Education for their pre-service education. Factors such as strong governmental support, resource availability, high quality professional development opportunities that are responsive to changes in educational landscape, and presence of a structure to allow planning and tracking of professional development trajectory ensures quality professional development. As such, science teacher education in Singapore is a compact model that is responsive yet stable, flexible yet structured, bespoke yet inclusive, varied yet focused, and specialized yet accessible. This paper will discuss science teacher education and professional development in the light of the larger Singaporean education landscape. It will also present challenges and way ahead for science teacher education and professional development in Singapore.

Participatory action research is an empowering approach to advance research with participants. This paper describes and discusses the process and outcomes in engaging cogenerative dialogue (cogen) and coteaching in participatory action research (PAR) to support science curriculum change in a Singapore lower track classroom. The intervention was introduced after researching in a science teacher’s two lower tracker classrooms for about 18 months and observing that his lessons were teacher-centered and he experienced difficulty engaging the students. Using the empirical findings to inform teaching practice, the researchers engaged the science teacher and two selected students in two cogen sessions to identify issues with the science lessons. The students suggested solutions which were taken up and used to plan and design revised lessons co-taught by the science teacher and one researcher. This paper describes changes to the teacher’s and researcher’s teaching, learning, and research experiences through the lens of cogen and PAR. Transcripts from one cogen session, one cotaught lesson, one teacher interview, and one researcher’s written reflections were analyzed to distil affordances of PAR that led to changes in the classroom practices, views about science teaching and ways to carry out science research. The study illuminates the potentially transformative role of cogen, when coupled with action research, in Singapore and other classrooms.

Specialized science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) schools create niche areas in an attempt to attract the best students, establish the school status, and justify their privilege to valuable resources. One Singapore STEM school does this in applied science learning to differentiate its curriculum from the national prescribed curriculum. Reflecting on the issues of curriculum innovation from the perspective of a teacher and head of department in this school, the second author discusses the constraints in curriculum innovation in a specialized school context embedded within a larger system of the national curriculum. We reflect on her experiences in designing, planning, writing, and implementing applied science courses and the challenges in having to simultaneously address the standardized assessment guidelines.

This paper examines learning of science in 15 grade nine classrooms by analyzing the type of talk that teachers engaged in. Using transcripts from audio recordings that are part of the Singapore Corpus of Research in Education database, annotations were carried out on the phrases of teacher talk using Mortimer and Scott's framework for meaning making in science classrooms. Interpreted from a sociocultural view of science learning and based on text coverage per 1,000 words spoken by teachers and students, we analyzed the content of instruction and found that (1) teachers in all three sub-disciplines of science used the least number of words to make statements of generalizations, with chemistry teachers privileging description more than physics and biology teachers, while physics teachers use more words for explanation when compared with biology and chemistry teachers and (2) teachers from all three sub-disciplines depended more on empirical justification than theoretical justifications. These findings sugg...

The call for inquiry science to be a part of the school science curriculum is popular in many parts of the world. While some research in this area revealed success stories of students' learning when they are engaged in student-directed, open-ended scientific inquiry activities, others are more sceptical about how these activities impact students' learning in and of science. Using the microanalysis of classroom talk in a grade-six science classroom dealing with the conversion of energy, we illustrate the dilemma in communicative approach used by a teacher when using an inductive hands-on activity to teach canonical science content. We unravel the complexity between dialogic–authoritative approaches in establishing learning as well as the need to fulfil the teaching purposes set for each lesson. Here we illustrate how the use of fine grain analysis of classroom talk and interaction can reveal the details of classroom learning, such as mismatch of teaching purposes and adopting appropriate approach to fulfil...

To alleviate teachers’ reluctance toward practical work, there has been much discussion on teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge, teaching materials, and failsafe strategies for practical work. Despite these efforts, practical work is still regarded as a challenging task for many elementary science teachers. To understand the complexity of teachers’ conflicts in practical work, this study examines teachers’ ideas about teaching and learning that influence teachers’ decision‐making and action on teaching practical work. More important than knowing technical–rational aspects of practical work is to understand the internal contradictions that teachers have to resolve within themselves regarding their capabilities and beliefs about science teaching and practical work. Using stories and experiences of 38 third‐year university students in a science method course in Korea, we seek to understand the conflicts and negotiations that they experience as they make decisions regarding practical work throughout their ...

This paper reports how a teacher–researcher partnership examined a biology teacher's existing pedagogical practices and attempted, through a task design innovation, to create the circumstances under which more interactive and emergent assessment for learning practices could flourish in her classroom. This work involved the use of digital video playback technology as the trigger or catalyst for reflection on concrete experiences by the teacher and her students to occur. Results suggest that the digital video innovation brought about changes in student–teacher interactions in science practical work and assisted the teacher in reflecting on her professional learning. The educative effects produced by the catalyst were dependent on the teacher noticing changes in her students and moving in tandem with them along a parallel path of experiential and practitioner-based learning. Overall, the value of the study undertaken is located in sharing an authentic, lived science assessment experience with the intention of assisting colleagues notice aspects of their own pedagogic practices that may be hidden at present.

This paper considers the circumstances under which science teachers can respond positively and productively to educational policy reforms in the area of science practical assessment. To understand what might be involved in linking science teachers’ assessment capacities and their professional development, we present illustrative data from recent research studies conducted in Singapore and Hong Kong showing contrasting approaches taken in the implementation of reforms in science practical assessment. In Singapore, teachers worked together to select, discuss, clarify and refine their practices as they made decisions about what to teach and assess. In Hong Kong, teachers took a critical stance towards the new policy and learnt from their own experiences in order to build their confidence. With the same policy initiative, one group of teachers focused more on the technicalities of complying with requirements imposed on them while in the other group had their professional consciousness of what they thought was best for their students provoked so that their practices would be transformed. In an attempt to draw lessons for other contexts in supporting the implementation of assessment policy reforms through professional development work, we identify and discuss a range of factors in science teachers’ professional development that arise once in situ professional development work has started. Overall, our intent in this article is to recast assessment reform as a driver or pivot in teachers’ professional development and learning. To do this it is necessary, we argue, to afford teachers’ experiences and the processes involved in learning from them greater emphasis in order to ensure the continuance of innovation in the assessment of laboratory-based work.

Issues with assessment have traditionally been viewed with great importance as it is used (1) for placement of students in different tracks, (2) as a proxy for allocation of funds to educational institutions, and (3) for assessing students’ learning. In Singapore, assessment practices have generally been summative in nature and aimed at evaluating what students have learnt and gained from school. The idea of formative assessment is relatively new for most teachers in science classrooms. Using task probes in a questionnaire format, we examined the factors that 39 grade four science teachers consider as they decide on inquiry tasks for their students. Based on their considerations, we infer their ideas of formative assessment as they engaged in science as inquiry and highlight concerns and dilemma that emerge as they report on their practices of science inquiry and formative assessment. We raised the concerns of the low level of teachers’ understanding of the principles related to formative assessment and the perceived conflicts with summative assessment requirements and their practices of science as inquiry in the classrooms.

In this chapter, we provide promising examples of professional development (PD) programmes for teachers targeted at using inquiry-based approaches. This chapter summarises a symposium at the 2011 ESERA involving researchers from Europe, North America, Australia and Asia. Two main questions guided the discussion: (1) What are your views for supporting teachers in carrying out inquiry in the science classroom? (2) What is the evidence for effective strategies of supporting teachers in learning to teach science as inquiry? Taken together, these studies demonstrate that science teachers’ professional learning is effectively supported by providing opportunities to experiment with new teaching approaches in their classroom, sometimes in combination with authentic experiences to learn science (i.e. scientific inquiry) and to reflect on these experiences, both individually and collectively.

This paper examines pre-service teachers' reflection on teaching after participating in an online course using videos of micro-skills coupled with self reflection and group blogs. Data sources included 137 online blog entries collected from 26 participants as well as semi-structured interviews with the participants at the end of the course. Larrivee's (2008) four levels of reflection (pre, surface, pedagogical and critical) were used to code the online reflections and content analysis of the participants' views of teaching was carried out with the interview transcripts. Analysis of online reflections showed that 67% of the reflection by pre-service teachers' falls in the pedagogical category and 2% in the critical category. These findings show that these pre-service teachers are capable of engaging in reflection beyond a surface level even with limited classroom experience. The resources that these pre-service teachers used to make sense of teaching are (1) their knowledge of learning theories; (2) their ideas of teachers' roles and responsibilities; and (3) their existing ideas of what makes good teaching. The pre-service teachers' reflection upon their learning showed evidence of willingness to incorporate the learnt ideas of good teaching in their future classrooms teaching. The use of micro-skills videos and reflection allowed them to restructure their pedagogical knowledge through identification, comparison, modification and synthesising.