Page 250 - Cultural Studies of Science Education

224 J.D. Adams et al.

But your comment opens my understanding and makes me realize that in order to
make PBE accessible to educators we do need to address how it is implemented in
practice. This may mean developing some habits of mind to support educators and
offer guidance in facilitating PBE in their classrooms. Maybe we need some activities
(that are a little structured) in order to allow educators to develop tools to study places
and maybe this would impart some consciousness to place that would affect their
personal teaching philosophies. So, how do we create this balance without defeating
the purpose of PBE? I like the notion of having place-conscious facilitators. What
would their role be? How do researchers support them? How would place-conscious
facilitators create experiences for their students in the face of standardized curriculum?
Would we assume that place-conscious facilitators are concerned with the methods of
applying PBE in a classroom and that their role is to facilitate that method? How can
the science educator be both a place-conscious facilitator and a teacher who draws on
experience and evokes the ontological realm?
At least one understanding has come out of this metalogue for me – that is, that
PBE as methodology may be equally important as PBE as pedagogy. I no longer
think that one will defeat the purpose of PBE or the other, but if balanced appropri-
ately it might offer science educators the necessary support to apply PBE in their
classrooms.

Principles of Place-Based Science Education

Miyoun: I agree with Jen’s points on teacher education in PBE. The discussion
made me think about how it responds to Sheliza’s question on methodology and
pedagogy and proposes a valuable direction for PBE. If we think about where PBE
is going or needs to be heading, I personally believe this focus on teacher education
offers a great potential for PBE to overcome the current challenges it faces. I think
what Jen has proposed (for example, sense-making of individuals’ own ontological
realm through the process of self-reflection) is a great way to foster healthy,
dynamic interactions and development of pedagogy and methodology in PBE.
This reminded me of a study that asked a group of preservice science teachers
to write about their memories of place and its implications for their teaching
(Howes 2009). The reflective writing seems to have pushed the teachers to make
sense of their own relationships with and in a place, and furthermore, to integrate
their awareness and consciousness into their teaching (such as sense of connection,
peace, and care). This study showed the potential of reflective writing as a teacher
education tool to guide teachers into pedagogical sense-making of PBE. I think
when educators give explicit attention to the ontological realm of their own being-
in-place and make sense of it within their pedagogy, they will be ready to bring
pedagogy and available tools together into their practices of PBE.
Jen: Writing provides a powerful, reflective tool for getting educators to think
about their own relationships with place. When I was an experiential educator, we
did an ice-breaker called, “describe the home where you grew up” (a talking activity