Context-rich vs. context-stripped approach to NOS teaching: teachers’ reflections

The inclusion of nature of science (NOS) in science education, has for a long time been regarded a crucial component in the teaching for scientific literacy. Much has been written about teachers’ views of NOS and how NOS is taught in the science classroom, but less is known about the teachers’ views of the teaching of NOS. To be able to better understand how NOS becomes (or does not become) a part of science education, teachers’ views of the teaching of NOS needs to be investigated. Therefore, in this project, we aim to shed light on teachers’ ways of coping with two different approaches to NOS teaching – contextualized and decontextualized. We explore how the teaching of NOS is planned for, and communicated in the science classroom, as well as what difficulties and gains the teachers experience with the different approaches. The participants are Swedish in-service science teachers (n=6) in grades 3-9. During the project the teachers meet in focus groups, guided by a researcher, and discuss NOS and the teaching of NOS. Sources of data are audio recorded focus-group discussions and classroom observations. The results indicate that both approaches have benefits. A larger amount and more complex NOS aspects are addressed in the context-rich approach. However, the teachers in this study find the decontextualized task easier to fit within the traditional science-teaching frame.