Interchange, Vol. 20, No. 2 (Summer, 1989), 95-98

History and Philosophy of Science and Biological Education in Israel Pinchas Tamir Hebrew University, Jerusalem

The Nature of the Inquiry-Oriented Curriculum In 1965 a new biology curriculum was introduced into Israeli high schools. This curriculum was a local adaptation of the American Biological Science Curriculum Study (BSCS), Yellow Version (Tamir, 1976). The rationale, aims, and recommended instructional approach of this program are presented in Biology Teachers'Handbook (Schwab, 1963). One of the major departures of the BSCS curriculum from traditional curricula is its emphasis on the nature of science and on the nature and development of scientific knowledge. It is based on the premise that teaching science merely as authoritative thcts and dogma has had extremely bad effects . . . . Such methods of ieaching science divorce the conclusions of science from the data and the conceptual frames that give conclusions their meaning. (Schwab, 1963, p. 45) The BSCS offered two major ideas to promote meaningful and scientifically valid learning, namely, the teaching of science as inquiry and the use of a historical approach: The essence of teaching of science as enquiry would be to show some of the conclusions of science in the framework of the way they arise and are tested . . . . The teaching of science as enquiry would also include a fair treatment of the doubts and the incompleteness of science and indicate the possibility that through the advance of enquiry scientific knowledge can change. (Schwab, 1963, p. 40) As may be observed, the approach reflects a particular philosophical conception of the nature of science and is built on a historical perspective. "This aspect of the history of conceptions is treated in the narratives of enquiry in the text and in the Invitations to Enquiry" (p. 41). Invitations to Enquiry are teaching units that bring before the student small samples Of the operation of enquiry, samples graded to his competence and knowledge. Each sample is incomplete. There is a blank, an omission which the student is invited to fill . . . . The invitation to enquiry teaches in two ways. First, it poses an example of the process itself. Second it engages the participation of the student in the process. (pp. 46, 47) Many of the invitations to inquiry recapitulate the actual historical course of events which brought about certain scientific discoveries. As observed by Schwab, there is an additional perspective to the historical approach, that which concerns man and events rather than conceptions in themselves. There is a human side to enquiry. Discoveries are made by persons . . . . Scientific research is not invariably a result of formal plan and clear purpose. Chance and intuition play their part . . . . Hence wherever possible.., materials describe research in terms of the persons, the places and the incidents involved. (p. 42)

Interchange 20/2 ©The Ontario Institute for Studies in Education 1988

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Problems Associated with the Historical Inquiry-Oriented Approach In light of our experience of more than 20 years, several problems have emerged in relation to the actual implementation of an inquiry-oriented, historical approach in biology teaching. These include misunderstanding of the rationale, deficient preparation, teachers' opposition, students' opposition, and the need to sacrifice coverage of factual material.

Misunderstanding of the Rationale Misunderstanding takes two forms, namely that of logical reconstruction and of an unnecessary emphasis on chronological facts. Some teachers tend to present the development of scientific knowledge as if it had followed a general sequence of events (often characterized as the scientific method). They convey a positivistic image of science which is naive, unrealistic, and misleading. Other teachers fail to understand that the historical approach aims to capture the development of ideas and the interaction between ideas, observations, and experiments. Instead, the), require students to memorize facts, dates, and events, thereby imposing unnecessary demands and facilitating rote learning which has no bearing on conceptual understanding. Most recently a new potential role has emerged for the historical approach. Research on the naive preconceptions and misconceptions of students has indicated that quite often these are similar to the views held in earlier times and that a historical approach, which follows the historical development of ideas, may facilitate conceptual change.

Deficient Preparation Most teachers have not had an opportunity to learn by a historical approach. They have neither taken courses in the history or the philosophy of science, nor have they been confronted with such issues in their pre-service education. No wonder that the historical approach encounters opposition.

Teachers' Opposition Many teachers "don't like" the historical approach. When the textbook presents historical narratives, they don't see the point and often delete them. For example, Biological Science Curriculum Study Yellow Version (1963) is divided into three parts: Unity, Diversity, and Continuity. The section on unity is especially rich in historical narratives. For example: A case history of a biology investigation: malaria Life from life: the three hundred years of debate on biogenesis The structure of organisms, the discovery of cells, the cell theory Vitalism and mechanism, Van Helmont's experiment, early chemistry Mitosis: Flemming's work Meiosis: Weisman's work Life in the past, evolution

(pp. 10-22) (pp. 23-43)

(pp. 44-64) (pp. 65-91) (p. 141)

(p. 15t) (pp. 157-159)

Since the whole text comprises 178 pages, it may be seen that about one-third of the volume is written in the form of historical narratives. Many teachers argue that devoting so much material to dated and "wrong" ideas is a waste of time and effort. Attention should not be diverted from modern biology.

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Students' Opposition Teachers' opposition is often followed by students who, as often stated, enrolled "in a science not a history course." Dealing with case histories is conceived as irrelevant and contradicts commonly held expectations.

Sacrificing Coverage of Factual Material Teaching by inquiry and using the historical approach are both time consuming. While teaching by inquiry (especially investigative laboratories and "invitations to inquiry") has been accepted as an integral component of teaching biology in Israeli high schools, the historical approach has been rejected by many teachers and by curriculum development teams. For example, alternative texts on "Unity" have been published; these alternatives have removed all historical materials. While some teachers who recognize the importance of the historical approach still use the old BSCS version, most teachers prefer the new "history-free" version. The main argument given is that there is limited time available for biology teaching and the main need is to cover contemporary material;

Causality, Teleology, and Anthropomorphism One of the most important and most common misconceptions associated with the learning of biology is the confusion between ends served by biological processes (e.g., reflexes which have a protective role) and the causes which bring these processes about (e.g., a nervous mechanism). Informal observations as well as empirical research (e.g., Bartov, 1978) indicate that most teachers give practically no attention to this problem and many of them are probably not aware that this problem even exists. Yet, as shown by Bartov, it is relatively simple to demonstrate to students that biological processes are not brought about by their ends but rather by specific causal (mainly neural and hormonal) mechanisms. This is an example of the potential contribution of the philosophy of science to biology education.

Basic Concepts of Scientific Research Although modem philosophy of science rejects the existence of a single scientific method, notions such as problem, hypothesis, and controlled experiment are essential to the understanding of scientific processes and the creation of scientific knowledge. Observations and research have shown that unless special attention is given to the basic concepts of scientific research, even advanced students fail to grasp the essence of these concepts (see Friedler & Tamir, 1987).

The Teaching of Evolution by the Historical Approach Several research studies report substantial difficulties regarding the learning and understanding of the process of evolution (e.g., Agressing, 1978; Brumby, 1979; Lucas, 1971). For example, many students offer Lamarckian views and conceive adaptation as an active process instead of survival of the fittest. Most teachers in Israel postpone the teaching of evolution to the middle of Grade 12. In fact, most often, this is the last topic taught to biology majors before turning to extensive preparation for the matriculation examination. While the idea of evolution can serve as a high-level advanced organizer to the study of biology,

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this rarely happens since teachers consider it too difficult and, as already indicated, leave it for the end of the course. Yacobson (1984) designed a module entitled Evolution by a Historical Approach. This module included original writings by leading figures in the history of evolution such as Aristotle, Spallanzani, Redi, Linnaeus, Cuvier, Lamarck, Darwin, Agasis, Pouchet, Mivart, Mendel, DeVries, and Morgan. The original writings were connected by appropriate narrative and followed by discussion and questions for reflection. A teacher-guide was also developed, providing useful suggestions and emphasizing class discussion as the major instructional strategy. The module was tried in eleven classes comprising 300 students. It was found that the experimental students achieved better than their controls in a test on evolution (Effect size = 0.8 standard deviations). Moreover, the experimental group achieved significantly better than their controls on a test of understanding the nature of science (Effect size = 0.94 standard deviations). More than half of the students declared that they liked the historical approach and all the teachers expressed a highly positive attitude toward the program.

References

Agressing, J. P. A. (1978). Problem solving exercises and evolution teaching. Journal of Biological Education, 12, 16-20. Bartov, H. (1978). Can students be taught to distinguish between teleological and causal explanations? Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 15, 567-572. Biological Science Curriculum Study. (1963). Biological science: An inquiry into life (BSCS Yellow Version). New York: Harcourt, Brace. Brumby, M, (1979). Problems in learning the concept of natural selection. Journal of Biological Education, 13, 119-122. Friedler, Y., & Tamir, P. (1987). Teaching basic concepts of scientific research to high school students. Journal of Biological Education, 20, 263-270. Lucas, A. M. (1971). The teaching of adaptation. Journal of Biological Education, 5, 86-90. Schwab, J. J. (1963). Biology teacher's handbook. New York: Wiley. Tamir, P. (1976). The Israeli high school biology -- A case of curriculum adaptation. Curriculum Theory Network, 5, 305-315. Yacobson, Y. (1984). The educational contributionof teaching evolution by a historical philosophical approach. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Jerusalem, Hebrew University (in Hebrew).