In this proposal I want to present an alternative way to study learning in students’ asynchronous online discussions generated in a collaborative project joined by student teachers at Stockholm University and the University of Hong Kong. I use practical epistemology analysis - a method that allows descriptions of meaning making in socially shared practices - to explore in students´ written posts what students learn about a central topic in science teacher education and in interaction with students from with different teaching traditions. The source for these asynchronous online discussions were students´ reflections around two teaching sequences in which the students were encourage to use a theoretical framework for the analysis of communication in the classroom. I present some examples of online discussions that evidence of students´ learning as a process of meaning making in the teaching activity. The analysis suggests that studying learning in online discussions from a pragmatic perspective provide the possibility to focus in more content specific aspects of the curriculum in science teacher education and complement other analytical approaches that normally focus more in generic aspects of learning (Gao et al., 2009).

Scientific representations of human evolution often embrace stereotypes of ethnicity and gender that are more aligned with socio-cultural discourses and norms than empirical facts. The present study has two connected aims: to understand how ethnicity and gender are represented in an exhibition about human evolution, and to understand how that representation influences learners’ meaning making. First, we analysed an exhibition with realistic reconstructions of early hominids in a museum of natural history, to identify dualisms related to the representation of gender and ethnicity that have been recognised in research. Then, we studied the processes of meaning making in the exhibition during an out-of-school educational activity, in which groups of teenaged students explore and discuss the hominid reconstructions. Our results show that the exhibition displays human evolution in the form of a linear sequence from a primitive African prehistory to a more advanced European present. Behind this depiction of human evolution lies stereotypic notions of ethnicity and gender: notions that were incorporated into the students’ meaning making during the educational activity. When students noticed aspects of ethnicity, their meaning making did not dispute the messages represented in the exhibition; these were accepted as scientific facts. Conversely, when the students noticed aspects related to gender, they often adopted a more critical stance and challenged the representations from different perspectives. We discuss the implications of our findings for exhibit design and evolution education more generally. In doing so, we offer our perspectives on the design of learning environments to salvage inherently sexist, racist, imperial science. 

The overall participation of university students in Sweden – particularly in Teacher Education – in activities of international mobility is still low and far from the EU goals. Indeed, students are interested in international academical experiences, but these can be afforded by a minority of them. While study abroad is an effective option, there are a broad array of experiences of on-campus internationalization that can effectively develop global perspectives and skills for students while at their home. With the help of new technologies, online teaching involving students from different countries are one of the most inclusive and accessible method to “bring the world to the classroom” (Commander et al., 2016; Svensson & Wihlborg, 2010). Here, I want to present some experiences of an ongoing international project of online teaching jointly developed by science teacher educators at Stockholm University and the University of Hong Kong (Piqueras & Chan, 2021). An aim of this project was, through different online activities, to promote cross-cultural perspectives on teaching in our respective courses. The second important aim of the project was to support students’ learning about communicative approaches in Secondary school science teaching. During the project, students enrolled in a Master’s programme in Science Education in Sweden and Post-graduate Diploma of Education (PGDE) students in Hong Kong met virtually in Zoom seminars to discuss issues related to communication in the science classroom. Additionally, the students performed collaborative video-analysis of science teaching from schools in Sweden and Hong Kong, and shared the products of the analysis and reflections in different platforms (Padlet and Digital Exhibition). In my presentation I would also like to discuss the curricular and educational underpinnings that motivated several didactical choices in our project and some consequences for students' learning.

References

Commander, N., Ku, K., Ashong, P., Gallagher, P., Deng, L. & Li, S. (2016). Cross-national Online Discussions with U. S. and Hong Kong Education Students. Journal of Technology and Teacher Education, 24(4), 383-413.

Piqueras, J., & Chan, K. (2021). An online international teaching initiative on communication in the science classroom. The Newsletter of the East-Asian Association for Science Education, 14(1), 6–9. https://theease.org/read.php? bdid=2&page=1&msid=301&st=

Svensson, L., & Wihlborg, M. (2010). Internationalising the content of higher education: the need for a curriculum perspective. Higher Education, 60, 595-613.

In this study, we explored how learning progressions were established in a context-based science teaching unit. A science class in secondary school was followed during a teaching unit in Biology, in which the Ebola disease was used as context. Teaching was planned using the didactical model organizing purposes. Learning progressions were studied as continuity between teaching purposes, the science content and the context in four sequential lessons. The analysis of teaching evidenced a considerable variation in how learning progressions were constituted within lessons and showed how learning progressions could develop between lessons through the combination of different teaching activities. By consistently mentioning and referring to Ebola, the teacher had a pivotal role in establishing relations between teaching purposes, the content and the context. Furthermore, our results evidence the important role of the context in supporting students’ learning of science content. Finally, we discuss concrete actions in the planning of the unit to improve lessons that evidenced a weaker connection to the context.

The use of dioramas in educational activities at the museum provides exceptional opportunities for students’ learning. In this study, we present a detailed analysis of student teachers’ moment-by-moment learning during a teaching activity in a museum of natural history. Specifically, we focused on the content and the direction learning takes in response to what students notice in a diorama. Data comes from the videotaped conversations of ten student teacher groups of encounters with a diorama representing a natural scene of animal behaviour. Using analysis of practical epistemologies, the students’ talk was segmented and examined for different themes emerging during the activity. The ten students’ conversations elicited during the activity were, on average 12 min long, with 15 different themes evolving in the conversations. Surprisingly, the most common theme engaged in by the students was not the most related to the curatorial intention of the diorama. Even though each conversation developed differently, it was possible to identify certain temporal patterns in the order that themes appeared. When examining the relationship between the different themes in the conversation, our results showed that the relationship established to certain details of the diorama helped the students significantly to go further with the conversation and the process of meaning-making. Furthermore, teacher’s intervention was important when details of the diorama were not noticed spontaneously by the students.

Educators' work is a key element in museums' learning experience, yet knowledge about their professional development is still limited. In this study, we followed three science museum educators' professional growth during collaboration with researchers, with special focus on the introduction of research‐based frameworks in their practice. To analyse the dynamics of educators' changes in knowledge, practices, and beliefs, we used the interconnected model of professional growth (Clarke & Hollingsworth, 2002. Teach Teacher Edu, 18, 947‐967). During the collaboration, key educators' changes were evidenced in a progressive acquisition of the concepts and ideas and their transformation in functional tools for museum practice. However, the anticipation of potential benefits of the use of the theoretical frameworks, as well as the close collaboration in dialogue between researchers and educators, were pivotal for the development of these changes. Furthermore, our results show the significance of the contextualization of the frameworks in familiar practices, exhibits, and specific science content to use the theory in new contexts. Overall, our results suggest that introducing research‐based frameworks in the work of museum educators was a successful approach in the collaboration but, at least to some extent, challenge the use of learning theories as solely ground for professional development in informal settings.

Recently, museum dioramas incorporating naturalistic reconstruction of hominids have emerged as an innovative means to represent and communicate human evolution. But historically, visual representations of hominids have tended to reflect dominant discourses about human evolution rather than empirical fact; dominant discourses that can potentially be absorbed by viewers. In the present study we explored teenage students’ reasoning about human evolution as they studied dioramas containing reconstructions of hominids from different periods. The analysis of students’ conversations showed that they do, to some extent, draw on the dominant discourses represented in the dioramas to interpret hominid evolution. We discuss our findings, and offer our perspectives on how hominid dioramas can be used to promote increased equity in science education

In this paper we present experiences from a joint collaborative research project which may be described as an encounter between a school science teaching practice and a university science didactics research practice. We provide narratives which demonstrate how the encounter between these two communities of practice interacted to produce hybridization between the two in terms of mutual influences, resulting in the conceptual and practical development of both communities of practice. We argue that what happened in the project suggests one way of reducing the gap between educational research and teaching through the emergence of practices where the roles of teachers and researchers become blurred.