Written by Robert Campbell

Over the last two years St Mary’s University Twickenham has offered collaborative workshops between science, RE and history. Each workshop has taken an epistemically insightful approach and focussed on a big question. In the coming year St Mary’s will expand their suite of epistemic insight themed lectures to the wider ITE cohort. Two years on what are the lessons learnt and is it valuable?

Within education teachers often consider disciplinary knowledge in isolation (Billingsley and Hazeldine, 2020). However, such an approach can provide insufficient answers to real world problems faced by society. The current Covid-19 pandemic is a clear example. Although scientific knowledge has been invaluable in developing a successful vaccine, science offers limited  insight to support the required economic recovery after lockdown.   Students and teachers therefore need to highlight the strengths and limitations of disciplinary knowledge to construct answers to the real-world problems society continues to face.

Indeed, an appreciation of the strengths and limitations of science is a specific expectation of the GCSE science curriculum in England (DfE, 2014). By offering distinct workshops each with a focal big question, trainee teachers at St Mary’s University have explored how epistemic insight can support trainee teachers appreciate the type of questions their discipline can answer in isolation, and where they need to align with distinctive norms of thought.

The workshops introduced thus far were :

• Should science be used to create saviour siblings? ( A collaboration between science and RE)
• Why did the titanic sink? ( A collaboration between science and history)
• Are Robots alive? ( A collaboration between science, applied physics and RE).,

Feedback from the trainees suggests that the session offer valuable insight.

Specific examples include :

• Appreciating the distinctive approaches history and science take to enquiry and how they can be mutually informative.
• An increasing understanding of the types of questions to are solely scientific
• An awareness that scientific development is framed by ethical decisions, however being ethical astute requires reference to knowledge that is not solely scientific.

Pre and post surveys consistently show that the workshops support trainee teachers to value  disciplines beyond their subject discipline. Pleasingly surveys also suggest the trainee teachers plan to use lessons learnt from epistemic insight workshops within their own teaching.  Indeed, some of our trainee teachers have already run collaborative teaching that is epistemically insightful. Some science trainee teachers have led collaborative planning sessions with RE colleagues on topics such as sex education, and contraception, linking an awareness of the mechanics of contraception with an understanding of the “relationship and families “ component of the Religious Education GCSE specification.  Trainee teachers  of religious studies and science both reported taking the opportunity to cover big questions such as responding to the Covid-19 pandemic, responding to the global warming crisis, sustainability and ethics.

Gains were not restricted to trainee teachers. The epistemic insight project has been valuable for PGCE subject lecturers highlight the importance of their subject, it’s distinctiveness and how it can align with other subjects such as science to answer big questions.  The epistemic insight initiative has moved from an additional component to a theme that runs through the PGCE course. In 2021/22 we are expanding the suite of resources which encourage trainee teachers to become epistemically insightful.  Looking ahead I hope sessions that outline the distinctive aspects of individual subject disciplines, but also how they combine to bring solutions to real world problems, will continue to inform teachers practice for years to come.

References

Billingsley, B. and Hazeldine, L (2020).  Shattering Subject Silos, Learning about the Big Questions and Epistemic insight, Impact, Journal of the chartered College of Teaching issue 9. Available at https://impact.chartered.college/article/shattering-the-subject-silos-big-questions-epistemic-insight/ Accessed on 19^th July 2021.

DfE (2014) Science programme of study-key stage 4 National curriculum in England, . London: Crown court. Available at https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/381380/Science_KS4_PoS_7_November_2014.pdf Accessed on 19^th July 2021. 

Robert Campbell is a Lecturer at Primary and Secondary Science at St. Mary’s University, Twickenham.