Abstract:

Science education intends to equip both scientists and non-scientists with the knowledge, skills and values necessary to make their own contribution to our society. This twofold goal of science education is essential for the development of modern technology-based democratic societies and for achieving the aims of responsible research and innovation (RRI) in order to better aligned research outcomes to the values, needs and expectations of our contemporary society. The European Project PARRISE (Promoting Attainment of Responsible Research and Innovation in Science Education) intends to contribute to these goals. PARRISE aims to share and improve best practices for professional development of primary and secondary science teachers across Europe. These best practices integrate two pedagogical approaches: inquiry-based science education (IBSE) and learning based on socio-scientific issues. This integrated approach is called Socio-Scientific Inquiry-Based Learning (SSIBL). The SSIBL approach introduces the challenges of Responsible Research and Innovation in education.

In this paper we highlight some main features of a SSIBL course for prospective teachers. The SSIBL module consisted of a number of sessions and activities that engaged prospective teachers in knowing about SSIBL and how they could use this approach in their day-to-day teaching, preparing them to analyse SSIBL best-practices and reflect about key issues within PARRISE framework. The main aim of that module was to widespread SSIBL approaches among pre-service teachers. Through this SSIBL module prospective teachers had opportunities to experience and learn about, tools, strategies, resources and competencies which could help them to select, design and/or adapt tasks that will resonate with their forthcoming teaching needs, actual beliefs and their emergent teaching model aligning with a more informed view of trends in Science Education.

Different cycles of implementation and evaluation will be carried out for the refinement and improvement of the SSIBL module. Analysis and evaluation of the first implementation round was based on several instruments such as:
a) teachers´ feedback questionnaire (open-ended) about the module and
b) the first version of the questionnaire about teacher’s beliefs, attitudes and knowledge with regards to SSIBL.

A quasi-experimental design (pre-test and post-test) was used to gather a rich picture of prospective teacher knowledge and gains related to SSIBL. This paper describes those questionnaires and some main preliminary results and findings taking into consideration some SSIBL dimensions. Data will be used as formative evaluation within the project and along different cycles of SSIBL course implementation.

Keywords:

Inquiry-based learning, socio-scientific issues, science education, prospective teacher, initial teacher education.