Confronting Socioscientific Issues

Abstract

It seems almost self-evident that the most effective way of learning to confront SSI is by confronting SSI, provided there are appropriate levels of guidance and support. What I have in mind is a 3-phase approach involving modelling (the teacher demonstrates and explains the desired or appropriate approach), guided practice (students perform specified tasks with help and support from the teacher) and application (students perform independently of the teacher). Teacher modelling (phase 1) is predicated on the assumption that careful observation of someone skilled in the approach will facilitate the learning of successful strategies for addressing SSI. In the second phase (guided practice), students work through a carefully sequenced programme of investigative exercises, during which the teacher’s role is to act as learning resource, facilitator, consultant and critic. The assumption is that students will become more expert in addressing SSI as a consequence of practice and experience, through evaluative feedback provided by the teacher and generated in inter-group criticism and discussion, and through intra-group reflection on the activity, both as it progresses and on completion. This is the stage during which teacher and students are co-investigators, with both parties asking questions, contributing ideas, making criticisms and lending support. This means that teachers are learning, too! To be intellectually independent, however, students must eventually be able to manage without teacher assistance and take responsibility for planning, conducting and reporting their own inquiries (the application stage). In other words, learning as assisted performance must enable students, in time, to use their knowledge to address new issues, build new understanding and make decisions on where they stand in relation to an issue.