Abstract
How can biology teachers create free space for their students to experience science as a living discipline where students can develop a love for science within the demands of overbearing curricular content and limited time? Using Hermeneutic inquiry, the research in this proposed paper examines how teachers experienced these tensions within their classrooms and the impact on students’ engagement in biology. In addition, faced with possible curricular changes through many countries going through attempts for major curriculum redesign, many teachers in this study demonstrated a form of pedagogical conservatism where change becomes restricted to minor adjustments. The proposed paper will, therefore, explore what seems to be a double conundrum wherein teachers claim they would like to create free space for their students but, when the possibility emerges, teacher have difficulty seeing how things could be otherwise. This paper will identify what free space may look like in practice and some of the “taken for granted” assumptions that obscure further possibilities for what teaching biology could mean.
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Science Education Hermeneutics
