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Teaching Science in Out-of-School Settings pp 151–173Cite as

Discussion, Reflections and Implications

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Abstract

The aim of this study has been to investigate the pedagogical practices of BGEs through a consideration of their guiding school visits aimed at engaging and supporting children’s learning of ecological science. As explained in Chap. 1, the rationale for conducting this research is that there is a gap in the literature regarding the nature of informal educator-guided school visits to botanic gardens. The practical outcomes of this study have allowed for an in-depth examination of the structure of guided visits and BGEs’ teaching practices, which addresses the aforementioned gap in the literature regarding school trips to botanic gardens and pedagogy in these informal contexts. Moreover, this contribution is important because it offers a close examination of the teaching and learning processes in an out-of-school setting that can assist schoolteachers’ preparations for conducting botanic garden visits. Further, the identification of the BGEs’ pedagogical behaviours has led to the development of a framework, which can aid or assist researchers in describing informal science educators’ practices as well as in carrying out further investigation in the field. Moreover, through carrying out this extensive in-depth fieldwork, it has been demonstrated that combined data collection methods can not only be employed in school classrooms (Stigler, Gonzales, Kawanka, Knoll, & Serrano, 1999) and/or museum sites (Allen, 2002; DeWitt & Osborne, 2007) but can also contribute to gathering rich data in complicated outdoor settings such as botanic gardens. The outcomes of this study enrich the understanding of the sociocultural theory of teaching and learning with respect to informal contexts, particularly by highlighting the importance of the interactions between the BGEs and students. More specifically, the study of the discourse that occurred during the guided visits enabled me to examine the detailed processes, wherein the BGEs supported and facilitated the children’s meaning making of ecological science. In this final chapter, the key findings are discussed in order to address the research questions (Sect. 7.1), and the practical and the theoretical implications of this study are also presented (Sect. 7.2). The limitations of the research are described and some directions for future research undertakings are identified (Sect. 7.3).

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Notes

  1. 1.

    My visit to the Singapore Botanic Gardens in November 2009 strengthened my perceptions of the games and role play for children’s environmental learning. The guided tour that I observed in Singapore was designed for 6–12-year-old children focusing on developing the general identification skills of tropical plants. In contrast to the visits observed in England, this tour integrated role play and games into a storyline—Sarah’s birthday. All the children were asked to act as Sarah’s friends who were looking for sources in the garden to make a ‘birthday gift’ for Sarah. During the tour, the BGE presented different plants to the children and encouraged them to collect some samples for a piece of art work. Then, the children were given some time to make the ‘birthday gift’ with the material they had collected during the tour. In the end, the children played a game (guessing the name of plants according to the ‘birthday gift’ they had made) to celebrate Sarah’s birthday. During my observation, I noted that the children were highly engaged and posed a lot of questions to the BGE.

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  1. College of Education, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China

    Junqing Zhai

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Zhai, J. (2015). Discussion, Reflections and Implications. In: Teaching Science in Out-of-School Settings. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-591-4_7

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