Reproducing and transforming science teaching in a collaborative atmosphere

Abstract

The adoption of new theoretical perspectives sheds fresh light on the ways in which people experience social life and make sense of participation in their everyday life. I consider possibilities that this new era of research and science teaching has –especially in regards to the interfaces between research, policy and professional practice. For almost 40 years I pursued two parallel lines of research: science learning and teaching, and learning to teach science. I continuously developed theoretical frameworks to improve the quality of my research, changing foci and research methods, and affording simultaneous changes in issues identified as salient. For example, teaching and learning were theorized as culture and associated to dialectical theory, models that previously emphasized human agency included passivity, and emotions were framed as ever-present parts of science education. I present a review of research in cogenerative dialogue (cogen) as an example of a collaborative approach to science education that holds the promise of overcoming many persistent problems. Participants in cogen expanded their agency and learned how to collaborate with others who differed from them socially and culturally. Research in cogen highlights the potential of building schooling around collaboration, rejecting the hegemonic axiom that effective science education needs to submit itself to metaphors such as competition, individualism, and control over others.