Being “research informed” is considered essential for anyone working in education but a huge swathe of the research literature is inaccessible to anyone who does not work in a university setting.
During the four years that I worked for the University of York Science Education Group as the chemistry lead on the Best Evidence Science Teaching project I searched out chemistry education research papers that identified misconceptions of students aged 11-16.
More recently I have been working for the Centre for Industry Education Collaboration trawling the science education literature relating to the misconceptions of primary children (aged 5-11).
Many of these papers related to small studies and individually do not draw conclusions that are significant enough to have a direct impact on changing practice in the classroom. However, some of the papers made me stop and think about the curriculum and how science is taught. These are the papers that I am planning to feature in the SciEd Distillery.
This blog uses the metaphor of a distillery to encapsulate the process by which I shall be distilling these thought-provoking ideas from more lengthy research papers.These ideas will not tell you what the research advises you to do but my intention is that they will support you to reflect on your own practice.
Having had the time and opportunity to explore the research literature I am now looking forward to sharing more widely the essence of some fascinating research relating to science education.
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