Abstract:

It is urgent to reinvent Education to face common challenges (UNESCO, 2022) in a changing and unpredictable world (OECD, 2015). The accelerated evolution of Science and Technology (S&T) in the 21st century implies a Science Education (SE) that values everyday life within a contextualized Science teaching, building mobilizable S&T knowledge. Building scientific knowledge and promoting Critical Thinking (CT) to a Scientific Literacy (SL), for all, are vital for a more democratic and sustainable citizenship in a context of uncertain and complex transformations and, still, heavily immersed in technology (Martins, 2020; Tenreiro- Vieira & Vieira, 2020). The educational response to this context will include developing teaching resources operationalized in the “5C”: critical thinking, creative thinking, communication, collaboration, citizenship (Tenreiro-Vieira & Vieira, 2021; 2022). Thus, SE needs updated didactic proposals developed in cooperative contexts, integrating relationships between Science-Technology-Society (STS) with the adoption of collaborative attitudes for a prosperous life (OECD, 2015).

Within the scope of an ongoing PhD research project, focused on developing innovative teaching STS/CT resources, in the context of Cooperative Learning (CL), a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) was carried out which started with the following goal/review question: “What didactic-pedagogical guidelines/specifications should STS/CT resources present in a CL context?” Search terms were established, relevant studies were mapped at SCOPUS, Web of Science, RCAAP databases. Inclusion/exclusion criteria and PRISMA protocol were defined. This work fits into the Interpretive Paradigm of a predominantly qualitative nature (Coutinho, 2011). It is a descriptive/interpretive investigation using content analysis of a corpus composed of 12 articles (Bardin, 2011).

The results reveal the scarcity of STS/CT teaching resources and their almost absence in school manuals, making it necessary to build, validate and implement new STS/CT teaching resources in the classroom context. Other results show the importance of highlighting that such resources must be designed and implemented in a real science education context and also result from a reflective process of developing and improving teaching proposals. As recommended didactic proposals with a STS/CT approach, the following stood out:
(i) games and gamification of content;
(ii) seminars;
(iii) socio-scientific debates and discussions;
(iv) writing position papers - arguing and communicating a position on the issue in focus, seriously considering reasons in favor of the opposing point of view and refuting them, deciding on an action and arguing/counter-arguing, focusing on the causes and consequences, impacts, positive and negative, of S&T on Society;
(v) scientific investigation - interpret and formulate explanatory hypotheses for the results obtained in the context of an experimental activity and
(vi) questioning - analyze and interpret information presented in different formats (text, tables, graphs and images).

This paper contributes to the discussion and reflection on the guidelines and specifications for the development of STS/CT teaching resources in CL contexts, helping researchers, teachers and students to analyze its forms of implementation within the classroom, promoting SL within the sustainable development goal (SDG) 4 of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Keywords:

Science Education, Science-Technology-Society [STS], Scientific literacy [SL], Teaching resources.