Nations worldwide consider education an important tool for economic and social development, and the use of innovative strategies to prepare students for the acquisition of knowledge and skills is currently considered the most effective strategy for nurturing engaged, informed learners. In the last decade especially, European countries have promoted a series of revisions to their curricula and in the ways teachers are trained to put these into practice. Updating curriculum contents, pedagogical facilities (for example, computers in schools), and teaching and learning strategies should be seen as a routine task, since social and pedagogical needs change over time. Nevertheless, educational institutions and actors (educational departments, schools, teachers, and even students) normally tend to be committed to traditional practices. As a result of this resistance to change within educational systems, implementing educational innovation is a big challenge. The authors of the present volume have been involved with curriculum development since 2003. This work is an opportunity to present the results of more than a decade of research into experimental, inventive approaches to science education. Most chapters concern innovative strategies for the teaching and learning of new contents, as well as methods for learning to teach them at the pre-university school level. The research is focused on understanding the pedagogical issues around the process of innovation, and the findings are grounded in analyses of the limits and possibilities of teachers’ and students’ practices in schools.

This informative book looks at science learning in a wide range of contexts. It is divided into three parts. Part one deals with the arguments put forward for studying science, and includes a discussion on what science learners need to know about the nature of science and how decisions about what forms science curricula are made. Part two includes articles on the processes by which science is learned and part three deals with inclusivity and diversity in science learning and what widening participation means for science education. This is a companion book to Mediating Science Learning through ICT also published by RoutledgeFalmer. Reconsidering Science Learning will be of particular interest to teachers on masters courses in science education and academics with an interest in science education.

Border-crossing in Education comprises a series of case studies covering a variety of cultural areas, in order to reveal the density of connections and exchanges that inform educational practices, policies, and systems. It attaches particular importance to individual and collective actors that govern these flows – initiating, promoting, or reconfiguring transfers of policy models. The contributors explore various aspects of the circulatory mechanisms that have been deployed in the field of education during the modern and contemporary period. Varying the observation scales, from local to international, they demonstrate the multilateral character of the circulatory dynamics observed. The implementation of rich and varied approaches to these complex processes offers a perspective that complements and renews our knowledge of the genesis and evolution of educational policies and systems, most notably highlighting their foreign inspirations. However, these studies do not merely evoke borrowings and hybridization, as if national borders proved porous or non-existent. Instead they show that the phenomena of resistance, reinterpretation, and rejection are also an integral part of transnational mechanisms of exchanges. The book thus demonstrates the relevance of a historical approach in addressing these transnational mechanisms in the field of education and childhood policy. This book was originally published as a special issue of Paedagogica Historica.

This book offers a comprehensive overview of research at interface between History, Philosophy and Sociology of Science (HPSS) and Science Teaching in Ibero-America. It contributes to research on contextualization of science for students, teachers and researchers, and explains how to use different episodes of history of science or different themes of philosophy of science in regular science classes through diverse pedagogical approaches. The chapters in this book discuss a wide range of topics under different methodological, epistemological and didactic approaches, reflecting the richness of research developed in Spanish and Portuguese speaking countries, Latin America, Spain and Portugal. The book contains chapters about historical events, topics of philosophy and sociology of science, nature of science, applications of HPSS in the classroom, instructional materials for students and teacher training courses and curriculum.

This book provides a comprehensive overview of humanistic approaches to science. Approaches that connect students to broader human concerns in their everyday life and culture. Glen Aikenhead, an expert in the field of culturally sensitive science education, summarizes major worldwide historical findings; focuses on present thinking; and offers evidence in support of classroom practice. This highly accessible text covers curriculum policy, teaching materials, teacher orientations, teacher education, student learning, culture studies, and future research.

As humankind moves deeper into the Anthropocene, a period marked by climate disruption, species extinction, and profound challenges to human and animal welfare, what and how we teach our children has never been of greater importance. In this passionate, incisive, and diverse collection of thirteen interconnected essays, educators at every level of education and from four continents call for a re-imagined pedagogy that embeds respect for the other-than-human world, encourages imagination and resilience, and fosters open inquiry based on principles of justice, fairness, and equity. By turns polemical, visionary, and practical, Teaching Liberation is an essential book for critical animal studies scholars, humane educators, and all those who practice pedagogy, whether in the classroom or outside it.