Improving chemistry and geology teaching : the development and implementation of a science teacher education model based on the history and philosophy of science

Actual perspectives of the History and Philosophy of Science (HPS) abandon positivists views and bring into relief a more humanized idea of science which is socially and culturally involved. The main difficulty when transposing the post-positivist ideas from the scope of HPS to science education centers on the lack of a proper education of the teachers (Matthews, 1994). The hypothesis of this study was that it is possible to design a teacher education program (TEP) based on HPS in order to improve the teaching of scientific topics. A TEP was developed following three interrelated phases: a naturalistic study was conducted throughout the teaching of a selected scientific topic by each of the participating teachers (two Geology teachers and two Chemistry teachers with the topics Continental Drift and Mass Conservation); a structured TEP based on each of the scientific topics which were considered to be epistemologically relevant and, in the third phase, teaching practices were implemented-and-evaluated which resulted from the education in HPS, acquired by the teachers as they carried out the necessary didactics transpositions on the selected topic. The instrument of teaching practices analysis considered the following categories: Scientific Methodology, Dynamics of Scientific Knowledge Construction, Human and Social Face of Science. Globally, the results suggests that the proposed model of teacher education is more in line with science education goals. After the TEP the images transmitted by the teachers can be considered closer to the framework of HPS