These have been placed in approximately reverse chronological order (i.e., newest first).
Linking Integrated Middle-School Science with Literacy in Australian Teacher Education - my chapter in our forthcoming book Connected Science which talks about some of the things I try to achieve in my science teacher education practice. Includes the 'Curricular Emphases' notion.
Does Teaching Sequence Matter When Teaching High School Chemistry With Scientific Visualizations? - with Ian Fogarty (first author) and Michelle Mukherjee, this paper has been accepted for publication in Teaching Science and will appear soon. It reports some research Ian conducted in his classroom and those of his colleagues.
Effectiveness of Scientific Visualizations in Year 11 Chemistry and Physics Education - (external link) Paper from the ACEC2012 conference summarising some of my recent research work.
Integrating Information Technology and Science Education for the Future: A Theoretical Review on the Educational Use of Interactive Simulations - (external link) Paper on which Xinxin Fan is first author, summarises research findings and ideas around the use of interactive simulations to meet the goals of science education.
The Death of Theory in Educational Research
Proceedings of the 2003 Complexity Science and Educational Research Conference,
October 16-18, Edmonton, Canada, pp. 169-185, http://www.complexityandeducation.ualberta.ca
Me being provocative, I guess. This is an attempt to apply approaches from complexity science to educational research. I tentatively conclude that perhaps 'theory generation' is no longer a useful metaphor for our inquiry into teaching and learning.
Teaching for Understanding and/or Teaching for the Exam in High School Physics
International Journal of Science Education 26(4), 447-462. This one was written with my colleagues Helen Wildy, Bill Louden and John Wallace, and is about our study of physics teaching in Perth.
The Empty Centre: Power/Knowledge, Relationships and the Myth of ‘Student Centred Teaching’ in
Teacher Education
Australian Journal of Teacher Education Drawing on journal entries about my own teaching practice, this paper addresses the whole notion of 'teacher centred' and 'student centred' teaching and learning, and suggests that 'the centre' is a spatial metaphor that is not particularly useful in describing complex educational contexts. The paper also describes a number of alternative ways of thinking about these issues.
Feyerabend Revisited: Epistemological Anarchy and Disciplined Eclecticism in Educational Research
Australian Educational Researcher Uses Paul Feyerabend's ideas, as well as those of Popper, Kuhn and Lakatos, to explore the analogies between philosophy of science and
educational research.
Writing Our Lived Experience: Beyond the (Pale) Hermeneutic? With Peter Taylor.
Electronic Journal of Science Education, 5(4), June 2001. Discusses and illustrates the use of 'impressionistic tales of the field' in educational research, and standards for judging the quality of qualitative research of this kind.
Sketching Some Postmodern Alternatives: Beyond Paradigms and Research Programs as Referents for Science Education
Electronic Journal of Science Education, 5(1), September 2000. This paper discusses the implications of a number of perspectives related to philosophy of science for the learning of science students in schools. I have attempted to sketch some alternative ways of thinking about what happens in science classrooms.
Weaving Narrative Nets to Capture School Science Classrooms
1997 Research in Science Education. Although this paper has the same title as the one below, it's significantly different, having been through a number of iterations and changes (with tough but productive comments from Ken Tobin) in preparation to be published in the journal Research in Science Education (RISE). For one thing, it now includes three 'impressionistic tales'...
Weaving Narrative Nets to Capture School Science Classrooms
Presented at the conference of the (US) National Association for Research in Science Teaching, March 21-24 1997, Oak Brook Illinois. A similar paper was presented at the conference of the American Educational Research Association, March 24-28 1997, Chicago Illinois. Describes the methodology and some of the results of my doctoral research project, which uses impressionistic tales (stories) to represent the world of an innovative middle school in Perth.
Words for the Boys: Gender and Connected Knowing in Web-based Distance Education (with Peter Taylor) - Proceedings of the Australasian Joint Regional Conference of Gender and Science and Technology (GASAT) and the International Organisation for Science and Technology Education (IOSTE), Curtin University of Technology, Perth, Western Australia.
Epistemological Anarchy and The Many Forms of Constructivism
Science & Education, 6(1-2), February 1997. A bit of a philosophic piece which explores the many different epistemological perspectives within the banner of 'constructivism'. I suggest that, rather than becoming a 'fundamentalist convert' to any particular perspective, it's more powerful to heed Paul Feyerabend's liberating maxim 'anything goes'.
For reasons best known to themselves, Kluwer, who publish the journal, won't allow me to post the text of the paper on this web site. You can e-mail me and I'll send it to you, either electronically or by snail mail, or you can find it in the journal.
Teaching as a Moral Activity: Critical Reflections in Teacher Education
Higher Education Research and Development Society of Australasia, National Conference, Perth, July 1996. This paper was co-written with Peter Taylor and Bev Day. It is a multi-voiced account of a 'critical incident' which occurred in a postgraduate course for teachers in which Peter was the teacher, Bev was a student and I acted as a 'critical friend' for Peter. We suggest that Habermas' 'practical interest' in communicative relationships is an important way of thinking about teaching and learning.
The Empty Centre: Does Student-centred Learning Imply Abdication or Role Redefinition for Educators?
Higher Education Research and Development Society of Australasia, National Conference, Perth, July 1996. An exploration of the ideas of 'student-centred' learning, and the way this value perspective played itself out in a Masters level course for teachers which I conducted in 1995. I suggest that the metaphor of 'the centre' might not be the most useful way of thinking about these issues. This paper was revised and developed to form the paper for the Australian Journal of Teacher Education that appears elsewhere on this page.
Learning to Communicate: Developing as a Science Teacher
Australian Science Teachers Journal, March 1996. This paper explores my own growth and professional development as a teacher, in terms of two different 'description systems': the critical theory of Jurgen Habermas and several forms of constructivism.
Matrix Technique: A Constructivist Approach To Curriculum Development in Science
Australian Science Teachers Journal, September 1995. Describes an innovative approch to curriculum development which I used in my MEd research. It attempts to take seriously the implications of constructivist approaches to student learning, and for this reason specifies only the experiences which students will share, not the knowledge to be learned.