Science Education and Epistemology

This course builds on the course from semester 1. It explores in greater depth various didactic and epistemological issues and problems addressed in the previous semester. Students will be asked to analyze and explain certain specific features and commonalities (didactic and epistemological) of these fields of study discovered in the first semester, based on a few examples. They will be asked to refine their knowledge of the characteristics associated with a didactic approach to issues of conceptualization, modeling, and dissemination of scientific knowledge. The aim is to use a few examples to highlight the value, for the didactics of a discipline, of epistemological and historical studies that enable us to review how its concepts were developed within the parent discipline, in interaction with other disciplinary fields and other approaches and issues arising from the didactics of other disciplines. 

• Mathematics education: 
  • Decimal numbers 
  • Modeling 

• Teaching physics and chemistry: 
  • Optics 
  • Chemical elements 

• Science education: 
  • Introduction to the teaching of scientific ecology 
  • The investigative approach 
  • Understanding and solving tasks related to scientific culture 

Certified skills (specific, cross-functional) 

• Develop critical awareness of knowledge in a field and/or at the interface of several fields 
• Conduct a reflective and detached analysis that takes into account the challenges, issues, and complexity of a situation. 
• Identify the processes involved in the production, dissemination, and promotion of knowledge. 
• Develop critical awareness of knowledge in a specific field and/or at the interface of several fields.