Innovative strategies for science teaching

Abstract

The purpose of this chapter is to map some of the diversity of innovative teaching strategies (usually referred to as “pedagogies” or “methodologies”) that have been recommended in the literature of the field of didactics of science (i.e., science education understood as an academic discipline) in the last two decades. I review teaching strategies understanding them according to the available taxonomies of “(post-)constructivist” or “active” science teaching. I present five of the most favoured and cited strategies: those involving the use of analogies, argumentation, models, enquiry, and narratives. I choose these strategies, belonging to a “humanist” or “citizen” conception of science education, because they appear to be supported by thereotical and empirical research, they are coherent with contemporary views on the nature of science, and they aim at enriching students’ use of the scientific language with a function of knowledge construction. I rapidly inspect the theoretical foundations provided for each strategy in classical and recent texts in order to indentify the didactical (i.e., instructional) models underneath. It is my contention that such models are supported in research and innovation in science education. The focus is put on the conception of “school science” promoted in the classroom by the didactical models under innovative methodologies. The five strategies that I analyse are student-centred, they seek to engage students’ motivation and creativity, they question what students know in order to mobilise such knowledge, they foster students’ higher-order thinking and self-regulation, they combine individual and collaborarive work, and they are related to the idea of “scientific enquiry”.