Conceptual play: foregrounding imagination and cognition during concept formation in early years science education. The National Quality agenda has created the need for better understanding learning in early childhood. This study seeks to find out how the imagination of preschool aged children helps them to learn scientific concepts. The outcomes will help early childhood educators in childcare centres and kindergartens to teach science to young children.
Scientific play-worlds: Researching play, imagination and science teaching. This project aims to investigate how imaginative play, as a pedagogy of science teaching, promotes children’s scientific visualisation and imagination in contexts of contradiction and drama. The project expects to generate new knowledge about teaching science to infants, toddlers and preschoolers in play-based settings. The expected outcome is an evidence-based model of early childhood science teaching and a method for m ....Scientific play-worlds: Researching play, imagination and science teaching. This project aims to investigate how imaginative play, as a pedagogy of science teaching, promotes children’s scientific visualisation and imagination in contexts of contradiction and drama. The project expects to generate new knowledge about teaching science to infants, toddlers and preschoolers in play-based settings. The expected outcome is an evidence-based model of early childhood science teaching and a method for measuring imagination in scientific play. Potential benefits include improved pre-service and in-service education and improved cognitive outcomes young children in their formative years.Read moreRead less
Affective imagination in science education: exploring the emotional nature of scientific and technological learning and engaging children and teachers. Children are born into an increasingly complex world and knowing how to engage with technologies and to think scientifically is central, yet preschool teachers are becoming reluctant to teach science. This project explores the emotional dimension of concept formation, so as to generate methodologies that engage teachers to teach more science.
An investigation into the relations between imaginary situations and scientific abstractions in preschool digital play. Imaginative play is the leading activity of preschoolers. But imagination is also important in scientific work, for example in the work of Niels Bohr and Barbara McClintock. Aided through digital tablet technology to create animations of scientific learning, this study examines how imaginative play helps children to imagine scientific explanations not visibly supported in real ....An investigation into the relations between imaginary situations and scientific abstractions in preschool digital play. Imaginative play is the leading activity of preschoolers. But imagination is also important in scientific work, for example in the work of Niels Bohr and Barbara McClintock. Aided through digital tablet technology to create animations of scientific learning, this study examines how imaginative play helps children to imagine scientific explanations not visibly supported in real life, such as the Earth circling the Sun, or science concepts not directly observable, such as, how sugar dissolves faster in hot water. Studying imagination in play and imagination in science will contribute to new understandings about the nature of science teaching in preschools.Read moreRead less
Drawing science diagrams to enhance students’ scientific creativity. This project aims to explore the potential benefits of engaging high school students in drafting their own science diagrams. The project integrates theories of creativity and multi-modal visual literacy, to generate a comprehensive analytical framework to help education researchers identify and nurture scientific creativity. This framework, along with supplemental teaching and learning resources, is expected to support the dev ....Drawing science diagrams to enhance students’ scientific creativity. This project aims to explore the potential benefits of engaging high school students in drafting their own science diagrams. The project integrates theories of creativity and multi-modal visual literacy, to generate a comprehensive analytical framework to help education researchers identify and nurture scientific creativity. This framework, along with supplemental teaching and learning resources, is expected to support the development of creative scientific minds across a wide student population so they can successfully address complex future challenges.Read moreRead less
Using pedagogical reasoning to explicate expert practice that aligns with national teaching standards. Standards and accountability are being used to measure and judge teachers, thus the ability to determine pedagogical expertise is increasingly important. Standards alone give little about the teacher reasoning and expertise required to demonstrate them. This project will research how pedagogical reasoning (PR) can be used to understand expert teachers’ professional knowledge, to offer richer wa ....Using pedagogical reasoning to explicate expert practice that aligns with national teaching standards. Standards and accountability are being used to measure and judge teachers, thus the ability to determine pedagogical expertise is increasingly important. Standards alone give little about the teacher reasoning and expertise required to demonstrate them. This project will research how pedagogical reasoning (PR) can be used to understand expert teachers’ professional knowledge, to offer richer ways of interpreting and using standards in judging expertise in practice. This project intends to map the PR of science teachers whose pedagogy generates deep understandings and high levels of engagement onto the standards and research how to represent the outcomes to provide others with scaffolds and expertise to make the standards meaningful in daily practice.Read moreRead less
Advancing future primary teachers' engagement in science inquiry learning. Australia's challenges in regard to scientific literacy and growth of student enrolments in science need to be addressed at multiple levels, starting with the preparation of future primary teachers. Promoting children's early interest in inquiry-based science is essential, yet a challenge for many teachers. This project examines the complex and dynamic interplay of cognitive, metacognitive and emotional processes in futur ....Advancing future primary teachers' engagement in science inquiry learning. Australia's challenges in regard to scientific literacy and growth of student enrolments in science need to be addressed at multiple levels, starting with the preparation of future primary teachers. Promoting children's early interest in inquiry-based science is essential, yet a challenge for many teachers. This project examines the complex and dynamic interplay of cognitive, metacognitive and emotional processes in future primary teachers' engagement in collaborative inquiry-based science activities. A comprehensive intervention based on these insights aims to determine how scaffolding productive engagement can improve the quality of primary teachers' preparation for inquiry-based science.Read moreRead less
Promoting scientific literacy of secondary science students through studying socioscientific issues and argumentation. This project will develop a model of professional development and effective classroom strategies to improve 12-16 year old school students' decision-making about socioscientific issues. Key outcomes will be improved scientific literacy and willingness by young people to use scientific evidence when making personal and community decisions.
Enriching mathematics and science learning: an interdisciplinary approach. This international, longitudinal project aims to investigate the effectiveness of an innovative interdisciplinary learning approach in mathematics and science. Through collaborating primary schools in Australia and the United States of America (USA), it will investigate how students’ invention and transformation of representational systems can connect to support deeper reasoning and learning. The project will form the ba ....Enriching mathematics and science learning: an interdisciplinary approach. This international, longitudinal project aims to investigate the effectiveness of an innovative interdisciplinary learning approach in mathematics and science. Through collaborating primary schools in Australia and the United States of America (USA), it will investigate how students’ invention and transformation of representational systems can connect to support deeper reasoning and learning. The project will form the bases for new curricular designs that leverage students’ representational practices across science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) disciplines to promote more robust and generative knowledge.Read moreRead less
Exploring quality primary education in different cultures: a cross-national study of teaching and learning in primary science classrooms. This project uses video studies of primary science classrooms in Australia, Taiwan, and Germany to explore teaching and learning practices, situated in diverse cultures, which provide opportunities for quality reasoning and learning in science. The findings will inform primary science teacher education to improve student achievement.