Philosophy of Science Education

Welcome to my Science Education Blog.  My name is Ian Doktor, I'm a Science and Math educator currently teaching in Vancouver.  Using this blog I hope to create a forum for discussing issues relating to Science Education as well as new and old trends in education and how they affect my (and others) teaching practices.


I think the starting point for any teacher should be a philosophy of education.  Although this doesn't isn't usually presented to students as an overt statement every teacher, whether consciously or unconsciously lives out their educational philosophy as they teach.  Becoming aware of my own philosophy and seeing how it has evolved over the past decade has allowed me to define what I value in Science Education.


My philosophy of Science Education can be summed in one statement:

The goal of Science Education is to provide all students access to Science.

All students have the potential to be involved in the scientific process, even if they do not become professional scientists.  The majority of students in science classes today will in fact not become professional scientists but an understanding of and familiarity with science will provide them with tools that will help them in all avenues of life.  The ability to formulate and test a hypothesis for example.  Or the ability to evaluate evidence.  Critical thinking and logical.  Developing these skills is one of the most important aspects of Science Education.  By extension this means that students should be taught less about facts, figures and information and more about process and procedure.  Learning how to use Google or other internet resources to access information is a more valuable skill than memorizing the number of atoms in a mole.  While the latter is essential to completing a senior chemistry course, students should learn how to access and use that information rather than simply memorizing it.  By focusing on the application of knowledge rather than knowledge itself my goal is to give students the tools to solve their own problems. 


Science is not magic.  It is not cloaked in mystery that only a few special people have access to.  Science should be a universally accessible and understandable subject.  Science teachers have a huge responsibility.  The internet has replaced the easier aspect of our job.  There is far more information on Wikipedia than I could ever learn let alone transmit to students.  The information is there.  And students know its there.  The difficult part of Science Education is no longer to know a fact or some arcane piece of information.  Now the challenge is how to get students interested in a subject and more importantly how to develop the problem solving, critical thinking skills essential to engaging in the Scientific Process.