Nature Of Science

Position Paper: Teaching NOS in High School Curriculum Nature of science or NOS is a term that refers to the epistemic knowledge of science, the knowledge of constructs and values that are intrinsic to the subject. The constructs and values include historical groundwork to scientific discovery and social incorporation such as sociology, philosophy, and history of science (“Nature of Science”). Nature of science, in my opinion, should not be explicitly taught in high school science curriculum. The basis for my standing on the issue is representative of the lack of a fundamental standard understanding of what Nature of Science is, as well as the lack of effectiveness in explicitly teaching Nature of Science which I will expand on further in

When integrating Nature of Science into curriculum, assumptions are made about students and instructors. These assumptions include that students are all at the same level in terms of science understanding and concepts as the rest of their classmates, and also assumes that the students learn at the same rates (NGSS: Appendix A). These assumptions are detrimental to science education when focus needs to be on the content being taught rather than teaching background of science as a standalone. Teaching NOS explicitly becomes increasingly difficult when students aren’t given access to proper science learning environments. As mentioned in the High Hopes – Few Opportunities reading, it is stated that, “California students do no typically experience high-quality science learning opportunities[.]” (Dorph et al., 2011). When students don’t have a basis for scientific concepts, it becomes increasingly difficult to teach NOS. America’s Lab Report further expands on the idea that this style of learning is not likely achievable, as “[N]o single […] experience is likely to achieve all of these learning goals.” (Schweingruber et al., 2005) where learning goals is referencing the goals of laboratory experiences that include understanding Nature of Science. Again, when a lack of understanding for general science exists, its arguably much more difficult to teach

Three particular studies that I considered in determining my view on NOS being taught explicitly came to the same conclusion that NOS teaching doesn’t necessarily yield better results. In a 1997 study, researchers found that while participants seemed to have an adequate understanding of NOS, it was rarely taught in the classroom, as NOS was seen as less significant than other instructional outcomes such as classroom management, and some of the blame was attributed to lack of resources and lack of planning time that would likely be representative of any classroom (Abd-El-Khalick et al., 1997). This further perpetuates the idea that NOS is difficult to teach explicitly and problems occur because of a developmental lack that exists for planning curriculum. Another study conducted in 2001 found that, “The present state […] necessitates a focus on individual classroom interventions aimed at enhancing learner’s NOS views, rather than on mass assessment.” (Lederman et al., 2001) This study basically found that difficulty exists in the preparation and assessment of NOS learning when applied to a classroom versus an individual which would make if difficult to assess whether improvement on learning scientific concepts is occurring with NOS integration. Basically, its going to be difficult to determine the accuracy of improvement for this new and arguably underdeveloped science teaching method unless we single handedly