Big questions in the classroom
Reflecting on the 50th anniversary conference of the Science and Religion Forum
In a series of articles see also:
The Beginning Teacher in the Science-Religion Encounter.
Research Publications,
Teacher Toolkit Resources and
Open Data
At the 50th anniversary conference of the Science and Religion Forum I had the pleasure of joining a panel with Michael Reiss, Professor of Science Education at UCL, and Dr Liam Guilfoyle from Oxford University. We were all speaking our respective research projects in a round table onBig Questions in Science-and-Religion Education.
Michael spoke about his work with Tamjid Mujtaba on two TWCF grants which focussed on the intersection of science, religion and education. He reflected on one key finding that found that students who report that science and religion are compatible were more likely to have positive attitudes towards the value of science for society, more likely to understand environmental issues, more likely to have a positive perception of science lessons and more like to show interest in science. In other words, as he put it, they were more likely to show the traits of a good science student.
Liam spoke about the OARs project focussed on argumentation and science and RE teachers. The project had gathered 30 teachers from 15 schools and worked with them over a handful of workshops to encourage and support dialogue, starting from their own experience and context. I think the theoretical work that project has done has really helpfully identify and apply a helpful concept of argumentation, beyond the rather combatative idea of argument, bit rather embracing a sophisticated model of an argument as something with a claim, upheld by some kind of data, with good reason or warrant. They explored how the teachers were encouraged to dialogue in relation tot heir context and explore opportunities to develop argumentation in Science and RE lessons.
For my own part I spoke about the Science Religion Encounters Project, which I have written more on this substack, focussing on how common it is for teachers to experience science in their RE lessons, and religion and ethics in science lessons. I also spoke about how teachers saw the relationship between science and RE departments as one of independence, rather than conflict or collaboration. It also explored the impact that pedagogy has on the capacity for lessons to include or discourage wonder and wider thinking, particular with regards to intended learning outcomes, that Professor Lynn Revell has written about. I mentioned our new project looking into Cultivating Deeper Interdisciplinary Dialogue which hopes to find out more about substantive teacher-teacher dialogue.
One thought expressed in the discussion was that there was an underlying resistance towards more integrative and interdisciplinary learning at secondary schools, making some of us skeptical about the ability to get any decent collaboration at secondary schools.
Countering this, a Headteacher present spoke to me about her school’s KS3 curriculum which developed epistemology among the students and which she thought showed what was really possible. Perhaps it is more about helping headteachers realise the opportunity of the insights from field to really transform and achieve desirable outcomes. I really hope to be able to visit her school and see the curriculum in action, but it raises the case that perhaps what we now need is research focussed on schools that have fond ways of challenging the siloisation of the curriculum. Perhaps we can discover several examples of these and present them as case studies of how sector leaders have found ways of successfully addressing the concerns.
It was amazing coming to the forum, my first experience of it, and bumping into the distinguished scholar John Brooke was a great experience. He spoke to me about research he was involved with 25 years ago that focussed on developing curricula linking science and religion and trialled those curricula.