Abstract:
When primary school science teaching is critiqued, much attention is paid to teachers’ perceived deficiencies in their specific knowledge and beliefs about science, and about science pedagogical content knowledge. Scant credit is given to teachers’ rich contributions derived from their knowledge and beliefs in three more generic domains – namely, their beliefs about students, about the broader purposes of science education, and about the purposes of education itself. However, some research now suggests that teacher capability in these three more generic domains can strongly influence primary science teaching. This paper argues that acknowledging and working with teacher knowledge and beliefs in all five domains jointly, may benefit science education. The entry point is facilitating discussion amongst teachers in small groups, in which their beliefs (both in action and espoused) in all five domains are surfaced and negotiated, a process epitomised by Parker Palmer’s (2007) luminous phrase “good talk about good teaching”. We describe the construction and use of a new instrument to facilitate this, which has been derived from a protocol in a parallel tertiary project. Finally, we signal how this novel instrument is being developed to further promote individual and group professional development in science education.