This study presents the findings of a collaboration between teachers and a researcher who worked together through didactic modelling. The aim of the study was to explore how the mangling phase can be designed and managed in a way that values and utilise teachers’ unique knowledge. Data, comprising audio and video recordings of conversations and lessons, collages and sketches, were analysed with practical epistemology analysis (PEA). Based on how a didactic model changed when mangling the model in primary science, the findings show how teachers’ experience and expertise can be incorporated into the modification of the model. The mangling process resulted in a significant number of suggestions for modifications to both the illustration and the model’s range of applications. The way in which the mangling was organised encouraged teachers to contribute with new insights and suggestions that can further develop the model into a functional tool for teaching primary science.

The purpose of this chapter is to illustrate the idea behind the notion of mangling as part of the empirical development of didactic models. Didactic models range from macro theories concerned with the selection of goals, content, and methods to micro level modelling of individual lessons and students’ performance, and may take various shapes such as schemata, classification patterns, and rationales for didactic action, i.e., for teaching and learning. Didactic modelling consists of three core activities: extraction, mangling, and exemplification. Mangling designates a process of successive and deliberate adaptation of didactic models by applying them in didactic analysis and design in new contexts. We provide an example of mangling of two existing didactic models, the curriculum emphases (Roberts, Science Education, 66(2), 243–260: 1982) and subject foci (Fensham, Development and dilemmas in science education. The Falmer Press: 1988; Östman, Journal of Curriculum Studies, 28(1), 37–55: 1996). These models were initially developed for didactic analysis of science textbooks and national curricula. In this study we show how these models needed to be modified when mangled through a different practice, viz., analyses of actual teaching in science classrooms. Through the mangling process, the models were modified in the following three senses: (1) Their application range was extended, as a result of demonstrating that they could be meaningfully applied to a new context. (2) The conditions for their application needed to be changed, particular by the need for dividing classroom data into workable pieces that could thereafter be analyzed. (3) The application purpose of the two models changed, from analyses of regularities to analyses of variation in meanings offered to students. These modifications testify to the need for mangling of didactic models in different practices, rather than assuming that they may be unproblematically applied across contexts.

We present an empirically based model for modeling the quality of pre-service teacher reflection. Conversations from twelve groups of a total of 47 pre-service teachers were video recorded and transcribed verbatim. First, we analyzed their conversations through practical epistemology analysis and an operationalization of Dewey’s definition of reflection to identify the moments of reflection that appeared in the pre-service teachers’ talk. Thereafter, we employed Dewey’s reflective attitudes, responsibility, open-mindedness and whole-heartedness, with the aim of understanding their roles in moments of reflection and how they relate to the quality of reflection. Our results show that the reflective attitudes played different roles and based on these roles and on particular patterns of the attitudes in our data it was possible to use them for modeling the quality of the pre-service teachers’ reflection. We suggest that presence of all of the attitudes corresponds to higher quality than absence of any of them. Moreover, identifying absence of one or more attitudes in PSTs’ reflection makes it possible to explicitly talk about what aspects of the reflection that should be improved, and why. Our results contribute with a first tentative model which may support teacher educators work with the development of pre-service teachers’ reflective practice. 

We explored the potential for addressing nature of science through a historic narrative about disagreement between researchers concerning a socio-scientific issue, incidence of juvenile thyroid cancer following the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident. The narrative was developed from authentic sources and tested in two cycles. Eight groups of three to four high-school students were audio recorded. Transcripts were analyzed regarding what nature of science emerged in the discussions and what understanding about NOS could be discerned, using three complementary NOS-frameworks (Consensus-NOS, Whole Science-NOS, FRA-NOS). Together, the student groups touched upon 19 different NOS-themes as they tried to make sense of the disagreement related in the narrative. All groups addressed a common core of NOS-themes, most of which were central to the narrative itself, although some themes that were not part of the narrative also emerged. Students displayed a basic understanding of the tentative, empirical, and subjective nature of science together with the role of evidential relevance and completeness of evidence related to the choice of scientific methods. On the other hand, students did not reckon with peer review as a means for establishing knowledge and resolving disagreement. Moreover, although students readily accepted disagreement as a basic property of science, they had difficulty handling this disagreement when coping with the SSI in the narrative. We discuss how the combination of history of science-in-the-making and SSI in narrative form offers opportunities to teach NOS without risking simplified messages of how scientific knowledge develops or how science can be used to address socio-scientific issues.

Research is needed to explain in more depth what happens and why in teacher-researcher collaboration. Previous research on collaboration points out issues such as asymmetric power relations and cultural differences between professions that can potentially cause problems. This paper examines a Swedish action research project in which teachers and researchers worked together to write a textbook for pre-service teacher education. To study the collaboration, theory on recognition was used to interpret how teachers and, to some extent, researchers understand and value themselves and each other's participation and contribution. Data was collected from a two-day dialogue meeting in the middle of the process where teachers and researchers met to discuss their on-going writing. The result shows that, through well-structured dialogues, the participants transformed their understanding and valuing of both themselves and others in relation to the task of producing new didactical knowledge. This is interpreted as transformed self-recognition for the teachers, who started to acknowledge themselves as knowledge producers. This transformation was crucial for developing the mutual recognition through which new didactical knowledge emerged as a result of the collaboration.

In the current debate, there is no consensus on the relationship between knowledge and values in students’ reasoning and argumentation in socio-scientific and sustainability issues, i.e. if these should be addressed as separate entities or rather treated as a whole. In this study, we address this question empirically, with students engaging in two language games–aesthetic and epistemological–as they deliberate on ethical issues associated with genetic engineering. The study reports on a course unit that includes lectures, group work and student-led value-clarification exercises. The ways in which the language games interact were analysed using the established methods of Practical Epistemology Analysis (PEA) and analysis of Deliberative Educational Questions (DEQ). Our results show that aesthetic and epistemological language games were intricately intertwined in the students’ reasoning. Given this close entanglement, each language game was conducive to the development of the other and in so doing, deepened the understanding of the content as a whole.

We present an empirically based model for teaching about planning in pre-service science teacher education as part of on-campus courses. Planning is usually taught through the introduction of theoretically based planning models, but these models commonly assume a linear idea of planning that does not match how teachers go about planning. We examined how pre-service middle school science teachers planned a 20-minutes microteaching lesson on sustainable development. Six groups of pre-service teachers' conversations were video recorded, transcribed, and analyzed through practical epistemology analysis and deliberative educational questions, with the aim of extracting empirically based components of a model for teaching about planning. Our results confirm that the pre-service teachers' planning did not constitute a linear process. However, it still had certain regularities. In particular, all components of the planning model reappeared frequently, but were successively dealt with in new ways. Moreover, the pre-service teachers dealt with aspects of planning beyond those of the original model. These aspects concerned questions about (1) planning rules, (2) inauthenticity and (3) sources. We interpreted these aspects as additional components which, together with the original planning model, may constitute the beginnings of a general model for how to teach about planning in science teacher education.

Socioscientific issues (SSI) concern social issues, often lacking simple solutions, that relate to science and often also risk controversies. SSIs have become an established part of science education, aiming to teach students not only about content knowledge but also about the nature of science and to offer them practice in argumentation and decision making. We performed a scoping review of the literature on SSI in science education research, in order to investigate if the topics covered would lean themselves to education about risk, and if risk is raised in these works. Using Web of Science we identified 296 empirical publications and 91 theoretical or review publications about SSI teaching in science education. The empirical publications covered studies performed in primary to tertiary school, most commonly upper secondary school (32%). The most frequently taught SSI themes were nature conservation, biotechnology, and climate change. Despite that these, as most of the other identified themes, clearly are connected to risk analysis and risk management, few publications raised the concept of risk and the methods of risk analysis. In fact, almost half (empirical: 48%, theoretical: 49%) did not mention risk at all. We argue that SSIs present an opportunity for risk researchers to engage with educators to incorporate risk in school science education and to contribute in developing teaching materials suitable toward that aim.

In continental Europe didactics is identified as the professional science of teachers. A central concern of didactics is not only to deliver teaching methods for teachers and teacher education, but also to develop analytical units, analytical methods and design principles that are useful for teachers in making decisions on planning, carrying out and assessing teaching and learning. Didactic research provides rationales and conceptual schemata for choosing certain content and for choosing appropriate methods to teach that content with specific groups of students. We give a methodological account of a central field in didactics, namely didactic modelling, analysis and design. We review what didactic models are and how they can be produced. We describe the methodologies of modelling, namely (1) how models can be extracted from classroom data in conjunction with theory, (2) how extracted models need to be mangled with teachers, that is adapting models to make them more useful practically, and (3) procedures of collecting exemplars to illustrate how models can be used with various content and students. We also explain how extracted and mangled didactic models can be used for analysing teaching and learning, and for educational designs.