STEPWISE Collaborative Action Research and Outreach
This page provides brief overviews of collaborative action research that we use to learn more about STEPWISE and ‘outreach‘ (seminars & workshops) to widely share our findings and pedagogical resources.
To help develop and learn more about teaching & learning approaches based on the STEPWISE pedagogy, we often conduct collaborative action research (CAR) with teachers and others – as illustrated at right/below and elaborated here. In addition to gaining new such approaches, teachers and others working with us may collaborate on relevant publications for teachers, academics and others. As elaborated here, we often study effects of changes in possible ’cause’ variables (e.g., teaching about the Mendelian Paradox) on changes in certain ‘result’ variables (e.g., students’ views about relative importance in inquiries of data vs. theoretical conceptions).
Action Research Cycles
Action Research Foci
Given extents and persistence of many apparent harms in relationships among fields of science & technology and societies & environments (STSE), educators likely should prepare students to critically analyze products & services of science & technology (and related actants, like governments) and develop & implement personal &/or sociopolitical actions to help overcome harms of their concern. Educators can work to do so through collaborative action research based on the STEPWISE pedagogical framework. Some sample research questions in that regard are given below/left. Such teaching & learning likely will not be very effective, however, without action research involving myriad stakeholders – as illustrated below/right.
STEPWISE Action Research Outcomes
Since we started research about the STEPWISE schema in 2006, we have developed many relevant teaching & learning resources (e.g., as STSE Education & Skills Education) – some of which have been assembled into the teacher resource booklet, Science Education for Civic Action. And, in field-testing such resources in science classes (and after-school clubs & in teacher education), we have learning much about appropriate pedagogy (e.g., ‘stepwise’ implementation) and possible outcomes (e.g., here & here). For example, in the video at right/below, a teacher describes his ongoing CAR about actor-network theory (elaborated here), a key STEPWISE concept. Often with teachers, we publish many such resources and results.
If you are interested in collaborating with us in action research & publication, write to: larry.bencze@utoronto.ca.
STEPWISE Outreach
Since 2006, we have generated many teaching and learning resources and learned much about STEPWISE uses that we can share – on invitation – in seminars and/or workshops. You can choose among topics linked to the graphic below or request we discuss related ones.
Sample Presentations & Team Members
To invite us to conduct seminars and/or workshops about topics like those above, write to: larry.bencze@utoronto.ca.