Authors:Marianne Isaksen, Steinar Thorvaldsen Pages: 337 - 352 Abstract: Inquiry-based science education is highly emphasized in recent curricula. Our paper aims to find out more about the connections between science teachers' orientation toward the textbook and the enabling of inquiry-based teaching. It will be important to map this connection better in improving how to facilitate inquiry-based education. The textbook has a strong position in the Norwegian school system, and teaching based on the textbook is often seen as oppositional to inquiry-based teaching. On a national level, more research about the use of textbooks and its implications for science teaching is needed. A survey has been conducted among science teachers at 68 lower secondary schools in three (recently merged into two) counties in Norway. The survey data is used to measure the textbook’s importance for science teachers, and the extent to which the textbook contributes to inquiry in science teaching. Results show that the textbook has a central role for science teachers. The textbook is partly perceived as supportive for facilitating inquiry activities, especially for textbook-oriented teachers. At the same time, the study shows that those teachers who frequently facilitate inquiry are not closely tied to the textbook. PubDate: 2022-11-30 DOI: 10.5617/nordina.9350 Issue No:Vol. 18, No. 3 (2022)
Authors:Sanne Nielsen, Jan Alexis Nielsen Pages: 369 - 383 Abstract: A new national science curriculum for lower secondary education was initiated in Denmark in 2015-2016. The intentions behind the new curriculum include substantial changes to how teachers should address models and modelling (MoMo) in their practice. This study focuses both on those intentions and on teachers’ practices, rationales, and experiences in this regard. Data were generated by means of semi-structured interviews and lesson planning workshops among three pairs of teachers. Our findings suggest that: (1) teachers’ practices and rationales for integrating MoMo into their teaching reflected an approach by which MoMo were treated largely as the product of a scientific process rather than part of a scientific process; (2); the dynamic process of designing, evaluating and revising models based on students’ own inquiry only played a minor role; and (3) teachers had multiple experiences in their efforts to enact the curriculum intentions. Finally, based on the findings, we discuss how to enhance the alignment between curriculum intentions and teachers’ practice. PubDate: 2022-11-30 DOI: 10.5617/nordina.9340 Issue No:Vol. 18, No. 3 (2022)
Authors:Peter Vinnervik, Berit Bungum Pages: 384 - 400 Abstract: In recent years, many countries have revised their school policy documents to incorporate digital competence, computational thinking and programming. This study examines and compares how and in what contexts Nordic curricula, Swedish and Norwegian in particular, embody aspects of computational thinking. Results show that only parts of the practices defined in the computational thinking framework used for analysis could be explicitly identified in the curriculum documents. The most salient computational thinking practice represented in both the Swedish and Norwegian curricula is programming, and programming is primarily recognized as a method and tool for learning other subject content and not as a knowledge domain in its own right. Implicitly both curricula leave leeway for teachers to implement a broader approach to computational thinking. However, this would need much time, teacher competence and effort, and what it requires seems to be under-communicated in the curricula, leaving schools and teachers with major challenges. PubDate: 2022-11-30 DOI: 10.5617/nordina.9296 Issue No:Vol. 18, No. 3 (2022)
Open Access journal
