Building Nature of Science:Professional development model to enhance teaching practice

Abstract

The Nature of Science (NoS) has been introduced in the New Zealand Curriculum for English-medium teaching and learning in years 1 - 13 (Ministry of Education, 2007) as the overarching strand through which the contexts of science are developed. This new focus for the teaching of science in New Zealand schools raises the issue of how well developed teachers’ understanding of the NoS might be and how to best address the professional development needs of teachers to build this aspect. This study began by exploring the NoS understanding of a sample of teachers, and the results indicated the need for upskilling. A design-based research methodology was used to develop a professional development intervention which was trialled with three groups of teachers. Evidence from participants in the trials showed increased NoS understanding and increased use of activities to develop students’ NoS capability in their teaching practice.