Fostering student understanding: Evaluating a explicitly research-based
approach to supporting classroom teachers
Deborah Corrigan, Richard Gunstone, Ian Mitchell, Gregory Lancaster
(Centre for Science, Mathematics and Technology Education, Monash University)
& Melanie Issacs
(Department of Education and Early Childhood Development, Victoria)
ABSTRACT
The current school years P-10 (student ages 4/5-15/16) curriculum in the state of Victoria,
Australia, places emphasis, inter alia, on pedagogies to engage students and foster student
understanding. To support science teachers in such classroom changes, the science education group
at Monash University worked with those with responsibility for school science curriculum in
Victoria to develop a web-based support structure for science teachers which is explicitly linked
with research on learning, curriculum and the structure of science. The resource is called the
“Science Continuum P-10.”
The resource has been structured around “focus ideas” (e.g. “friction is a force”, “melting and
dissolving”, “internal body organs”, “doing science authentically”). For each focus idea the website
gives a brief account of the relevant ideas and beliefs students will bring to the study of the idea, an
acceptable (age-appropriate) account of the science idea, our view of the critical teaching ideas, and
some pedagogical approaches for developing students’ understanding of these critical teaching
ideas. The website also contains “science concept development maps” (the “Conceptual Strand
Maps” from the American Association for the Advancement of Science work from the 1980s), a
glossary, etc.
This paper begins by outlining the policy and research contexts in which the Continuum was
developed, briefly describes the structure of the Continuum, then considers some data about the
ways the structure can be used and the consequences of this use.
Paper presented at the annual meeting of the National Association for Research in Science Teaching, Orange
County April 2009
INTRODUCTION
The research-based approach to supporting classroom teachers that is the focus of this paper is a
web based resource progressively developed over 3 years for a client; the resource was developed
by some members of the science education group in the Centre for Science, Mathematics and
Technology Education at Monash University, the client was the Victorian Department of Education
and Early Childhood Development (DEECD). What DEECD wanted from this resource was, in
simple terms, support to effectively implement the current P-10 Science curriculum for Victorian
schools (the ‘Victorian Essential Learning Standards in Science’). The resource is known as the
‘Science Continuum P-10’.
In this paper we begin by outlining some relevant aspects of broad curriculum policy and
consequences of this for the Victorian Essential Learning Standards in Science, because these are
central to the somewhat different structure for the Science Continuum P-10. Then we briefly discuss
the research contexts from which the Continuum evolved, research contexts for which members of
the development team had considerable and long term direct involvement, and outline the structure
and features of the Science Continuum P-10. A more complete account of these matters, including
illustrative examples from the science curriculum, is in Isaacs, Corrigan and Mitchell (2008).
In the final section of the paper we describe some data relevant to the use of the Continuum, in
particular its use by members of the Monash Science Education Group in a face-to-face professional
development context, and the consequences of this use.
THE POLICY CONTEXT BROUGHT TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF
THE SCIENCE CONTINUUM P-10
The Science Continuum P-10, is one of a suite of resources developed as part of the Student
Learning Strategy within the 2003 Blueprint for Government Schools adopted by the Government
of Victoria. The Blueprint for Government Schools addressed three priority areas for reform:
 recognising and responding to diverse student needs;
 building the skills of the education workforce to enhance the teaching-learning
relationship; and
 continuously improving schools.
The aim of the Student Learning Strategy is to develop new evidence based approaches to
curriculum, pedagogy and assessment to prepare students for life in the global knowledge economy.
The concern with evidence based approaches was one important policy reason for the Science
Continuum project that is the essential focus of this paper having strong links to relevant research
on learning and teaching in science classrooms. Other relevant initiatives coming from the Student
Learning Strategy included the Victorian Essential Learning Standards (‘VELS’, in Science and
other curriculum areas), a set of “Principles of Learning & Teaching P-12” and accompanying
support program and resources (these principles are intended to provide a strategy for planning and
implementing pedagogical change in Years P-12 that has a focus on improving the ways students
learn), and “Assessment Advice” and the “Assessment Professional Learning Modules” (designed
to support schools in implementing assessment ‘for, of, and as learning’ to ensure that teachers and
students make informed, consistent and relevant judgements to improve future student learning).
As the VELS were implemented, the need for ‘progression points’ between standards was
identified. The development of Mathematics and English progression points, built around
developmental progressions typical of students in these domains, enhanced the Student Learning
focus on ‘placing the learner at the centre’. These were further supported through the creation of the
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Mathematics and English Continua; resources that identified ‘indicators of progress’ and associated
teaching strategies at specific developmental points. These resources were aimed at building
teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge; strengthening their understanding of both the content of
the domain and the implications for learning and teaching within that domain. In line with the
DEECD’s emphasis on development of digital resources, the Continua were only published online,
as were all supporting documents.
It was with this background, and in the context of other science education policy influences (e.g.
previous DEECD funded initiatives, a major ‘Inquiry into the Promotion of Mathematics and
Science Education by the Parliament of Victoria) that the specifications for the Science Continuum
were developed by one of the authors of this paper (Isaacs). The P-10 Mathematics and English
Continua provided models for the Science Continuum P-10, both as approaches to providing
pedagogical content advice and as online resources for teacher professional development.
Contemporary research issues and teacher resources were reviewed and it was determined that the
Science Continuum would differ from the other continua in ways that would acknowledge the
specific requirements of teaching and learning in the science domain, including the greater
emphasis in this domain on building understandings of concepts, as distinct from the mastery of
skills which is such a focus of the English and Mathematics Continua. Hence, it was specified that
the Science Continuum would incorporate “Concept Development Maps”, to illustrate progression
in student ideas in multi-faceted ways rather than in linear ways, focus on student alternative
conceptions, and would be linked only to the Science Standards rather than the science progression
points. (The “Concept Development Maps” are the “Conceptual Strand Maps” from the American
Association for the Advancement of Science that are designed to “show how students’
understanding of the ideas and skills that lead to literacy in science, mathematics, and technology
might develop from kindergarten through 12th grade.” (AAAS, n.d.; see also AAAS 200?, 200?),
The Science Continuum P-10 was also to emphasise the focus on ‘placing the learning at the centre’
and incorporate key messages from the policy positions specifically noted above, and particularly
the notion of interweaving the Personal Learning, Interpersonal Learning, Thinking Processes and
Communication Domains of the Victorian Essential Learning Standards.
THE RESEARCH CONTEXT BROUGHT TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF
THE SCIENCE CONTINUUM P-10
There were three strands of research brought to the development of the continuum by the Monash
Science Education Group: research into alternative conceptions in Science; research into broader
issues of learning and teaching; research into teacher learning and teacher change.
The Monash group, referred to in the first person from this point, has a long background in research
into students’ alternative conceptions (e.g. Brumby, 1984; Gunstone & White, 1981; Mitchell &
Gunstone, 1984; West & Fensham,. 1976) and the closely related areas of learning involving
conceptual change rather than just addition of new concepts (e.g. Champagne, Gunstone & Klopfer,
1982; Gunstone, Champagne & Klopfer, 1981) and metacognition (e.g. Baird & White, 1984;
Gunstone, Grey & Searle, 1987). The range of our early work is discussed and placed in a context
of the evolution of these ideas in Gunstone, White and Fensham (1989).
From early on we recognised the need for strong links between research and practice, and worked
very actively at building these. For example, the Monash Children’s Science Group (Gunstone &
Northfield, 1988), begun in November 1985, was a group of teachers of school science (both
primary/ elementary and secondary) and Monash Science Education academics who explored the
classroom implications of what had begun as a body of academic research on alternative
conceptions and conceptual change. This and other related initiatives meant that our work on the
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development of the Science Continuum began with a rich body of relevant wisdom, in all of the
conventional broad domains of science (biology, chemistry, earth science, physics), and much of it
involving first hand experience that synthesized research and practice.
There were several aspects to this wisdom. One was that we had evidence from many classrooms
that it was possible to teach successfully from this perspective of a focus on conceptual change, and
that such changes often resulted in better performance on conventional assessment tasks as well.
We also knew that a conceptual change focus consistently lead to changes in student engagement,
class dynamics and classroom learning environments that provided powerful incentives for teachers
to adopt these approaches (Gunstone 2000). Another aspect to this ‘group wisdom’ we held was a
range of teaching procedures designed to promote different aspects of the thinking needed for
conceptual change such as eliciting, clarifying and then challenging prior views and later reflecting
on the nature of these changes (a few examples from very many: Group, 1986; Mitchell, 2000;
White & Gunstone, 1992).
There was also considerable understanding in the group about the influence of content. Much of the
early research into conceptual change was done in (school) physics and led to the researchers (some
of us and many others) developing general pedagogical sequences that set out to stimulate student
conceptual thinking and engagement, with the generation of cognitive dissonance via approaches
such as Predict, Observe, Explain (White & Gunstone, 1992) having a central role. This approach
appears many times in the Continuum. However the broad classroom base of the research that we
drew on meant that we had learnt that in many content areas it was not possible to develop an
acceptable scientific view from experimental challenges to existing beliefs because central
components of the concepts involved are not observable and hence cannot ever be determined from
observations alone, hence other pedagogies were needed. (The particle model and energy are, very
obviously, two such conceptual areas.) Other areas of research undertaken by the group had
explored the importance of content in different ways such as in understanding and developing
pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) in science teachers, (Loughran, Berry and Mulhall, 2006)
and in preservice chemistry teachers (Corrigan, 2009).
A third early finding from classroom research, that was crucial to our development of the Science
Continuum, was the regular need to rethink what were the ‘ideas’ in a topic in ways that were
appropriate responses to knowledge of science learning. Text books and curriculum documents
describe pieces of science such as the particle model in ways that flow from the logical structure of
the discipline: tiny particles that are arranged differently in different states of matter, for example.
However these descriptions often do not resonate with issues of learning. In the example of particle
model, two ideas that are more central to learning difficulties with the concepts are that the particles
have quite different properties to very small bits of the (macroscopic) matter that they compose (it
makes no sense to think about the colour of a water molecule, for example) and that there is nothing
in between particles –matter is not continuous. At its heart, this issue is a specific and fundamental
example of the distinction drawn by Ausubel over four decades ago between ‘psychological’
meaning and ‘logical’ meaning (e.g. Ausubel, 1968).
A fourth highly relevant finding from research (including much by members of the Monash group)
was the fundamental importance for conceptual understanding of building qualitative explanations
of ideas before introducing mathematical representations and manipulations. Part of our research
base was projects that involved very detailed explorations of learning in specific areas of content:
energy (Carr et al., 1996), mechanics (e.g. Champagne, Gunstone & Klopfer, 1985; Gunstone &
Mitchell, 1997) and electricity (e.g. Gunstone, McKittrick & Mulhall, 2005). For example, these
studies indicate that university physics teaching does not attempt to develop further students’
understandings of sophisticated and abstract ideas such as voltage and energy, because this
undergraduate teaching focuses on more sophisticated mathematical elaborations of these ideas.
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This broad perspective had important influence on the development of the Science Continuum: it
affected initial selection of ‘Focus Ideas’ to include in the Continuum; it explains why there is
virtually no mathematics; it explains why the Continuum occasionally contains explicit statements
of an epistemological nature such as “The concept of energy and our understanding that it is
conserved have taken a long time to develop and are invented ideas… Scientists do not know what
energy is… Attempts to teach energy by starting from a textbook definition are not helpful because
they do not apply to all situations involving energy.”
As well as students’ existing conceptions, there are other aspects to the thinking associated with
quality learning that were informed by different research from Monash, again with many
contributions by those of us working on the development of the Science Continuum. For example,
Baird (1986) developed a list of “poor learning tendencies” – habits that students develop that
reflect various aspects of passive, unreflective, dependent learning. Baird’s list led to Mitchell’s
founding of the Project for Enhancing Effective Learning (PEEL) in 1985 as a collaborative actionresearch project that, again, set out to research and develop practice against a template of theory
(Mitchell & Baird, 1985). PEEL, which has involved several members of the Monash group, has an
agenda of promoting metacognition and a wider range of thinking than is the focus of the alternative
conceptions research. It has resulted in a rich body of knowledge about learning, teaching, student
change and teacher learning that influenced this project. These metacognitive perspectives relate
very closely to the Thinking Processes and Personal Learning dimensions of the VELS (explicit
curriculum goals in areas such as metacognition, student reflection on learning and students taking
more responsibility for their learning).
In other research work undertaken by the Monash group (Corrigan, Mitchell & Lancaster, 2008;
Keast & Berry, 2008; Cooper, 2008), the focus has been on understanding how to promote the
engagement of students in science learning, and building high levels of understanding and expertise
in teachers about student learning in science and the implications of this for teaching. These have
again added to the collective wisdom, but this time not only through classroom research but also
through professional learning sustained in a virtual environment supported with limited face-to-face
interaction. Similarly the group has undertaken sustained research that develops new ways for
science teachers to look into their teaching and their students’ learning (Loughran & Berry, 2006;
2007; 2008; Berry & Keast, 2009).
The breadth and depth of the research background of the Monash Group has made them sensitive to
issues central to student learning and the implications for teaching science, and to what areas/ideas
can and should not be opened up at particular year levels for student exploration. The development
of the science continuum reflects a great deal of this wisdom.
THE STRUCTURE OF THE SCIENCE CONTINUUM
In summary, the Science Continuum resource is structured around “focus ideas”. For each focus
idea there are four components: a brief account of the relevant ideas and beliefs students will bring
to the study of the idea (“Student everyday experiences”), an acceptable (age-appropriate) account
of the science idea (“Scientific view”), our view of the critical teaching ideas (“Critical teaching
ideas”), and some pedagogical approaches for developing students’ understanding of these critical
teaching ideas (“Teaching activities”). The website containing the Science Continuum is open
access,
at
http://www.education.vic.gov.au/studentlearning/teachingresources/science/scicontinuum/default.htm).
We now give a description of the nature and logic of each of these –the overarching “focus ideas”
and each of the four components. These descriptions of the final forms of each give no sense of the
ways each evolved over time; that evolution is laid out in some detail in Isaacs, Corrigan and
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Mitchell (2008). Of particular interest we believe is the ways in which the multiple development
processes – from considering just what would be the most appropriate ‘Focus Ideas’ for
development through to considering what are the ‘Critical Teaching Ideas’ for each Focus Idea –
hassled us to examine our own understanding of aspects of these science ideas. We have had to
combine ideas and beliefs from research, practice and personal experiences in coming to an agreed
position about the significant aspects associated with each Focus Idea. The process provides an
informative model for the elaboration of aspects of a knowledge base for expert science teaching, an
issue we are exploring in another context (Corrigan & Gunstone, in preparation).
Focus Ideas:
There are five broad categories of science under which we have developed Science Continuum
resources - “Forces and Motion”, “Living Things”, “Matter and Energy”, “Earth and Space”,
“Science Skills”. Within each broad category we have used the notion of “Focus Ideas”, a concept
or a form of relationship or a significant proposition, etc as the basis for determining the scope of
each entry for the Continuum. The spread of Focus Ideas across the categories of science (above)
and by student age (represented by “levels” that are ubiquitously used in Victorian schools, and are
described in Table 1) is shown in Table 1.
Table 1: All Focus Ideas by broad category of science and by student level
Category of science
Level 3
Level 4
Level 5
Level 6
(grades 3/4)
(grades 5/6)
(grades 7/8)
(grades 9/10)
Force & Motion
3
5
1
2
11
Living Things
3
4
2
3
12
Matter & Energy
5
2
6
6
19
Earth & Space
1
2
2
2
7
Science Skills
2
1
1
1
5
Totals
14
14
12
14
54
Totals
In order to illustrate the nature of ‘Focus Ideas’ we list in Table 2 the titles (with very brief
explanation where appropriate) of all these in two of the five broad areas.
In the outlines we now give of the four components of each Focus Idea we give brief illustrations by
drawing on “Doing Science authentically”, a Level 3 Focus Idea from the area Science Skills. In
using this as an illustrative example we also intend to give some notion of how we approached the
area “Science Skills”.
Student everyday experiences
Each Focus Idea begins with an account of what research has to tell us about student alternative
conceptions that are relevant, written very much with the intended audience (teachers of grades 3
and 4 students) in mind. References are given, for those who might find both the motivation and
time to pursue some issue or another.
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Table 2: All Focus Ideas for the broad areas of “Forces and Motion” and “Science Skills”, by level
(with explanation of nature of content where appropriate)
Curriculum level
“Forces and Motion”
“Science Skills”
Level 3 (grades 3 & 4)
Pushes and pulls
Introducing scientific language
(primary school)
What is a force?
Doing Science authentically
(early aspects of nature of
science and significance of
data for science)
Making a change (a very early
and qualitative beginning to
consideration of how the motion
of objects can be changed)
Level 4 (grades 5 & 6)
(primary school)
Forces without contact
Forces on stationary objects
Scientific models (still under
development)
Friction is a force
Floating and sinking
Electrostatics
Level 5 (grades 7 & 8)
(secondary school)
Level 6 (grades 9 & 10)
(secondary school)
Simple machines (still under
development)
The work of science (why science
involves investigations; the
nature of evidence)
Forces on passengers
Science and decision making
(science as a human endeavour)
Newton’s understanding of forces
and motion
For the case of “Doing Science authentically”, alternative conceptions revealed by research that are
described include ‘doing science means being in a lab doing experiments’, a common belief that
field work and experiments are somehow totally unrelated activities, the idea that making
observations, particularly in the natural environment, are not part of ‘doing science’ and difficulty
in distinguishing between observations and inferences.
Scientific view
This section is, again, written with the intended audience in mind; it is also written is ways that are
very conscious of what will be important matters of teacher understanding of the particular Focus
Idea in terms of the students the teachers will teach (the Level of the Focus Idea). It is for this
reason that we sometimes describe this component as having been written to give “age-appropriate”
statements about the Scientific view.
For the case of “Doing Science authentically”, issues that are discussed are the importance for
science of systematically observing and recording in natural situations, and age-appropriate
meanings for ‘Observations’, ‘Inferences’, ‘Explanations’, ‘Systematic Observations’.
Critical Teaching Ideas
These are indications of the ways the Monash group see the significant points on which teaching
should focus, a “psychological” (that seriously considered issues of students constructing meaning)
rather than “logical” (presenting the scientific view as a ‘fait accompli’) analysis of the Focus Idea.
The Critical Teaching Ideas also allow teachers to more clearly see ideas / teaching foci that should
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be revisited across Focus Ideas and levels if students are to appreciate the “Scientific View” if this
is different from their own views. In almost all cases there is elaborating commentary following the
Critical Teaching Ideas.
For the case of “Doing Science authentically”, there are 4 Critical Teaching Ideas:
 Science is an attempt to explain our natural environment and make predictions about it.
 Observing the natural environment and recording data carefully and systematically is an
important process of science.
 Scientists use observations to draw inferences.
 Scientists make systematic observations in order to identify patterns, draw inferences and
create explanations.
In commentary following these, there is additional information and focus, including a hotlink to the
“Concept Development Maps” (see p.3 above)
Teaching activities
In each case these are examples of teaching activities that (a) reflect the Critical Teaching Ideas, (b)
have a focus on, in simple terms, helping students move from “everyday experience” towards the
“scientific view”, and (c) is an example of one of 11 different “Pedagogical Purposes” that underpin
every teaching activity in the Science Continuum. Examples of Pedagogical Purposes include
“Promote reflection on and clarification of existing ideas, “Open discussion via a shared
experience”, and “Encouraging students to identify phenomena not explained by the (currently
presented) scientific model or idea”.
THE USE OF THE SCIENCE CONTINUUM
Levels of accessing the Continuum website
With any web-based resource such as the Science Continuum P-10, issues of accessibility and
knowledge of the resources by intended users is as significant as any other factor in the use or
otherwise of the resource. Given that the Continuum was to support teachers in their teaching of
science, it was obviously very important to have teachers aware of the resource. This was a
difficulty for the Monash group as this was not part of the project brief, nor within our resources.
We were conscious from previous research (e.g. Fullan & Pomfrey, 1977) and experience that
producing definitive (print) material for tightly prescribed programs did not result in
implementation. And we were writing a resource, which from initial data from website hits
indicates that this resource was not different to how teachers perceive such curriculum resources.
(see Table 3).
Table 3: Single visit hits to the Science Continuum P-10 website.
Oct
07
Nov
07
Dec
07
Jan
08
Feb
08
Mar
08
Apr
08
May
08
Jun
08
Jul
08
Aug
08
Sep
08
Oct
08
Science domain
–all pages
(single visits)
1211
3957
2170
2858
4902
5575
5897
7011
5682
5081
6373
7818
9718
Science
continuum
(single visits)
974
3251
1807
2383
3868
4402
4622
4670
3410
3103
3754
4909
6544
Table 3 contains two sets of data: the first set indicates ‘hits’ to the entire science domain page of
the Department of Education which includes the VELS – Science (which incorporates the Science
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Continuum P-10), while the second set are hits specifically to the Science Continuum P-10 only.
When the Continuum was published in October 2007, the number of hits to the website (both the
science domain and the Continuum) was relatively low. An email announcement about the
electronic publication of the Continuum was made to all schools in late October 2007. This may
well account for the increase in hits during the months November 2007- January 2008. These
increased hits in these months, particularly to the Science Continuum P -10, are encouraging as
although teachers may be undertaking initial planning for the subsequent year at this time, the
months of December and January are the major summer holiday period in Australia.
Throughout February – May 2008, the number of hits has continued to increase as teachers
undertake substantial planning responsibilities at this time of the year. It is impossible to distinguish
at this stage the pattern of usage between different levels or indeed school sectors (such as primary
or secondary). While there is a lull in the number of hits in June and July 2008, again coinciding
with the end of Semester 1 and the beginning of Semester 2, the number of hits builds again to
reach a peak in October 2008. This peak may be due to a number of factors, including the
publication of Continuum updates in “Student Learning Updates’, an electronic document emailed
to all teachers in the government school system in Victoria, Australia. Such data indicates some
success for the Science Continuum P-10 in at least getting teachers to access this resource in their
planning and teaching of science.
Using the Continuum resource in Professional Learning Contexts
In addition, members of the Monash team have been involved in conducting a number of
professional learning programs/experiences where the Science Continuum P-10 has been used as
stimulus material. Data from such experiences have revealed some useful insights into the
effectiveness of the Science Continuum P-10 as a resource for supporting the teaching of science.
Importantly the Science Continuum P-10 does not provide units of work. When teachers read
through a focus idea they need to read the entire idea if they are to get a sense of what is involved in
each idea. For example, providing student everyday experiences gives teachers the confidence to try
relatively ‘low risk’ approaches to finding out what their own students think. For many teachers,
these everyday experiences also capture some ideas that they may also hold. By explaining how
students may have come to think in these ways has been important to teachers, particularly primary
teachers, as it has “given them permission” to think this way based on the experiences they have
had rather than condemning them for thinking “the wrong thing”. These everyday ideas can also be
contrasted with the scientific view, which for many primary teachers, who are generalist teachers, is
not common knowledge. Contrasting these ideas in this way has provided the teachers with the
confidence that they need if they are to shift their own thinking to a more acceptable view as they
are no longer receiving the message that they re wrong. In the case of the focus idea “Doing science
authentically”, such a comparison leads teachers to think about science, its nature, and where
science can be done. For example, the notion of using the natural environment to gather data and to
then use such data to create explanations and predictions about this environment is not always a
view of science held by teachers. Rather, they tend to see that a laboratory is always needed, that
“experiments” always need to be done in order to gather data that is “scientific” in origin.
Considering the “critical teaching ideas” for each Focus Idea has been valuable for many teahers.
This has been particularly so for secondary science teachers, who have some science discipline
knowledge: in our use of the Continuum in professional learning contexts secondary teachers have
stated that the critical teaching ideas help them focus on what is important in providing experiences
to move students from their everyday explanations for science to those more acceptable to the
scientific community.
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Secondary teachers have also indicated the Focus Ideas “Doing Science authentically”, “the Work
of Science”, and “Science and Decision Making” have made them rethink their ideas about the
nature of science. For example, teachers have worked through these three Focus Ideas. Firstly they
have worked through a “writing on a reading” process where teachers were given the students’
everyday experiences and the acceptable scientific view for each of these ideas and were then
encouraged to write comments on the text as they go through it. They then examined statements
about the nature of science such as “ an experiment can prove a theory true” or “science is partly
based on beliefs, assumptions, and the non-observable” and “scientific theories are just ideas about
how something works”, these teachers have begun to rethink whether they believe these statements
to be true of false. Suddenly a list of statements about the nature of science has become less clear
cut for them in terms of their own understandings of science. They have also begun to realise their
own beliefs about the difference between what is an observation and what is an inference may by
unclear, even quite uncertain. For these teachers the Science Continuum P-10 is prompting them to
rethink their routines for teaching science and reflect on the implications this rethinking may have
for their teaching. A summary of some of these teaching implications is represented in Figure 1 and
presented in a “Lotus Diagram” which was used as a reflective tool with these teachers.
For primary teachers, the use of the Science Continuum has provided them with a great deal more
confidence to approach teaching science through the use of the pedagogical purposes that are
provided for each of the Focus Ideas. While their knowledge of science may be more limited than
their secondary counterparts, their expertise in pedagogy has given them the confidence to try and
teach science by providing science learning experiences for their students through these pedagogical
approaches that are focussed on developing the critical teaching ideas. The “making explicit” of
what is to be taught and how this could be achieved has raised the confidence levels of primary
school teachers in teaching science. Some cases that articulate such findings can be found in
Loughran and Berry, 2008 and Berry and Keasty, 2009.
CONCLUDING COMMENTS
In developing the Science Continuum P-10, the Monash group have all learnt more from the
experience than we expected. The kinds of questions, as well as the order in which we asked them,
reflect a planning approach different from what many teachers use in unit design. However the
significantly longer time that it took a group with very high expertise to do this suggested to us that
we had underestimated some of the complexities of designing teaching that is highly responsive to
student learning. In part (and only in part), this was an issue of tacit knowledge in that there were
sometimes significant aspects of the first or second hand classroom experiences that we were
drawing on that were not well articulated. However it was clear that we needed to think through
much more carefully the issues of content, teaching and learning than we had realised was needed.
One reason why the Monash group participated in this project was that it intended a different kind
of resource that connected research and practice in ways potentially facilitated by an electronic
environment. More research will be needed to determine further the effectiveness of the Continuum
in the field, however it does have some features that are different (at least in emphases) from earlier
resources. The most important differences lie in the totality of the four sections of each Focus Idea
and the links between these sections. The resource not only exposes teachers to common student
conceptions and supports them with relevant acceptable science, but it suggests significant
rethinking of key ideas and then links teaching advice to this rethink. While this resource may share
some similarities with others, such as the CLIS materials (Carr et al., 1996), it also differs
significantly in three main ways. The notion of the Critical Teaching Ideas in reshaping the focus of
the teaching, the notion of Pedagogical Purposes which try to articulate the type of thinking
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Figure 1: Summary of teachers’ ideas about issues arising for their teaching of science.
required and the teaching needed to achieve such thinking, and the Focus Ideas as an integrated
whole in representing the rich interconnections that exist within these ideas. From the Department’s
perspective, a key difference from past practice is that it gives teachers’ advice which is contestable
– or at least invites a range of reactions; previous Department resources allowed little room for
contestation.
The Science Continuum was developed because there was a convergence between some elements of
government policy and long standing research interests of the Monash group. One way of framing
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this is that Policy finally caught up with Research in its goals for Practice, however it is worth
pointing out that Research alone had been trying to influence the practice of science teaching in
Victoria for over 20 years and had had limited effect. There were many teachers who had been
involved with projects based on the research that underpins the Continuum and who had made
significant changes to their practice, but they were still a minority of science teachers. A system
cannot mandate change in how teachers interact with students, but it can establish legitimate
pressures, that, when combined with appropriate support for teachers, can facilitate change in ways
beyond what the world of research can do.
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