Nature of Science

Ulfa Rahmi

Respond on Students’ and Teachers Conception of the nature of science: A review of the research

Nature of science has become a main objective to be introduced at school in order to make student understanding the science which later could make them scientifically literate. In the reading, Lederman (1992) stated that most students understanding of the scientific enterprise is inadequate. He found that most students and surprisingly teachers have a misconception about the nature of science of scientific knowledge as “myth of absolute truth” which shows that they believe science is not tentative or fixed.

I believe and agree with Lederman, that, to improve student understanding on science, teacher need to improve their knowledge and beliefs about the philosophy of science. On the other investigation, it also mentioned that the pre-service teachers who not understanding enough the science as a way of knowing, need more exposure to the nature of science, and also they need experience in learning how to teach NOS. Of course there are some other factors that need to be considered such as curriculum constrain, administrative policies, level of student, etc. As the learning environment always change by time, a continuous investigation on student understanding on science need to be remain conducted. Thus the model of teachers’ knowledge which is included pedagogical content knowledge could be improved in order to develop students understanding on science.

From this week session with Coral, I learn that it is a necessity for students to learn nature of science. Undoubtedly, when students understand the nature of science they could explain and make sense the phenomena in the world around them. It also could improve their selves as a logically thinker, problem solver, and decision maker. This –NOS-, is something that I never learn before in my secondary student period, especially learning about observation and inference.

I also found that in order to engage students more into science, it should be more meaningful for them that suit the contemporary issues. I also believe that if learning provides more hands-on and more context-driven, it could interest student to science.

Coral as a lecturer has introduced me that learning NOS is important. In delivering the lesson, I hope there would be more activities that will be useful to use in my hometown, even though I know it’s impossible since there’s a limitation of time. And I hope there is more discussion in the session.