Abstract:

The purposes of our study are (a) to examine prospective chemistry teachers’ reflections on science and scientists through role playing a historical case (b) to investigate how historical case ensuring reflective experience of Nature of Science (NOS) could be used for evoking ideas and enhancing views of prospective chemistry teachers about science and scientists. This study is a part of an ongoing project supported by The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK, project number: 108K086) trying to design original teacher development packages and workshops with the final goal of improving elementary and secondary school students’ understanding of the NOS.
Research has consistently shown that teachers’ views are not consistent with contemporary conceptions of NOS. They need to understand and discuss NOS in their classroom. In order to help science teachers develop a proper understanding of the nature of science and the skills to deliver it in science lessons, historical approach was used in this study. Using historical cases to show the processes of science has been considered by a number of science educators to be an effective way to help pupils develop understanding of the nature of science.

27 (11 male and 16 female) prospective chemistry teachers attending their last year in a five-year Teacher Education Program at a public university in Turkey were selected with purposeful sampling method in this case study.
This study focuses on the group work conducted by the researchers in the project. Five prospective chemistry teachers were guided by the researchers to prepare a lesson with the aim of communicating various NOS aspects to high school students and to present this work to their classmates. The historical case about which prospective chemistry teachers did role playing involved the controversy between Robert Andrew Millikan and Felix Ehrenhaft on the nature of electron as well as determination of the magnitude of electron charge. The scenario was written by the group with the guidance of the researchers. Five prospective chemistry teachers played the role of key scientists in the selected historical case. A power point presentation including pictures and videos related to the historical case were shown during role playing to enrich the case through visual illustrations. Having watched the case, other prospective chemistry teachers wrote a reflection on “What did you learn about science and scientists from this historical case?” In addition, a reflective discussion was leaded by the researchers guiding the group on NOS aspects embedded within the historical case.

Data sources for this study were observations involving field notes and video records, and documents related to reflections on science and scientists. During the reflective discussions, subjectivity and theory-ladennes, imagination and creativity in science, difference between observation and inference, and some myths, especially the myth - science is a solitary pursuit- were addressed in an explicit-reflective manner. Analysis of data revealed that role playing a historical case from science created a context through which participants argued several aspects and the some myths of NOS, and easily answered the questions of “how science works?” and “how scientists act during a scientific research?”.

Keywords:

Nature of Science, History of Science, Teacher Education, Science Teaching.