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Self‐directed, informal learning is a less recognized and understood form of professional development. Researching informal learning is almost an oxymoron. The process of studying learning contexts, such as informal, self‐directed professional development, raises new challenges for researchers. Gaining insights into self‐directed professional development requires teachers’ permission and active participation; it requires creating a context of trust and reflection. Science in Action is a collaboration of researchers – teachers, members of community‐based science organizations, educators from community colleges and university and graduate students who worked together to create and implement an afterschool science program for upper elementary (Grades Three to Five) and middle school (Grades Six to Eight) students. In this paper, we share what we learned about the potential for collaborations, especially models like cooperative inquiry, to negotiate the interface between research and informal learning spaces....

CRYSTAL Atlantique researchers were prolific, with over 200 publications and presentations. However, of this number, not one of the papers ended up in informal learning publications. Very few of the presentations were given at informal learning gatherings. Without the frame of this book, it is likely that this body of work would be lost to the informal learning community.

Students typically lose interest in science by the time they get to middle school. Research has shown that usually about the time children leave grade five the majority of them perceive science to be a boring subject that requires listening to the teacher lecture about hard-to-understand concepts, using language that has little or no personal relevance (Viebert & Shields, 2003).

In 2005, the Canadian Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) launched a pilot program on research toward improving science education in Canada. NSERC funding allowed the creation of five regionally based research collaborations across the country.

Informal learning has been defined as “activities that occur outside the school setting, are not developed primarily for school use, are not developed to be part of an ongoing school curriculum, and are characterized by voluntary as opposed to mandatory participation” (Crane et al., 1994). Children thus become involved with informal learning at a very young age.

Canada’s Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) launched its CRYSTAL program in 2004 in an effort to promote research into science and math teaching at the K12 level. Educators were invited to form regional collaborations, often with practicing scientists, in order to compete for five funding streams ($200,000 yearly for five years).

In 2005, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council funded five Centres of Research into Youth Science Teaching and Learning (CRYSTAL) across Canada in response to their concern that few Canadian students were choosing to pursue science careers. Each CRYSTAL had a specific theme.

After attending a summer institute on gifted education, teachers reported they changed their beliefs about gifted learners. This article traces the nature and course of the changes these teachers made in their classrooms over a two year period. Factors that supported and impeded change are considered. These include student success, personal challenge and increasing self confidence. Obstacles are feelings of isolation, school bureaucracy, large class sizes, fear and lack of time.

Does studying about the nature(s) of science contribute to a prospective teachers' effectiveness as a science teacher? This research grew out of a course created by a science educator and historian of science who believed prospective teachers needed more complex understandings of the cultural wars surrounding science. The research team consisted of five prospective teachers who participated in the course as well as the two instructors. This paper describes the experience of participating in the course from both perspectives. We argue that studying the cultural wars over science contributes to prospective teachers' professional growth as much because the course elicits tacit beliefs about school science as it introduces more complex understandings of science. We found that prospective teachers' tacit beliefs about school science were their greatest barrier to developing more complex understandings about the nature(s) of science. We contend that willingness to grapple with complexity and developing a professional identity by locating oneself in the conversations about the nature(s) of science are better criteria for determining the professional growth of prospective teachers than knowledge measures. Finally, we argue that prospective teachers should be viewed as professionals who are responsible for finding their own voice, making their own decisions, and considering the consequences of their beliefs on their practice. This study raises questions critical to teacher education programs for prospective teachers and teacher-educators alike. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 37: 895–915, 2000

Programs for the reform of K-12 science teaching today usually insist that science teachers must introduce their students to the nature of science, as well as to scientific content. The academic field of science studies, however, evinces no consensus about what the nature of science really is. This article examines how science educators and educational researchers have drawn on the fragmented teachings of science studies about the nature of science, and how they have used those teachings as a resource in their own projects. It identifies three competing movements for the reform of science teaching that owe a particular debt to science studies: history and philosophy of science (HPS), science, technology, and society (STS), and constructivist pedagogy. The article analyzes some of the deep assumptions about the relationships between research science, school science, and children’s learning that pervade the educational literature.