Professor Sibel Erduran and a team of researchers from University of Limerick as well as Turkey and Rwanda, have received funding from NARST: A Worldwide Association for Improving Science Teaching and Learning through Research to conduct a teacher education project entitled "Enhancing Argumentation in Science Education in Rwanda”.
The project will last from May to November 2014. In Rwanda, the national curriculum has undergone revisions in the past decade. Within the science curriculum, engagement of students in scientific inquiry has emerged as a significant educational goal. Related to this goal, the articulation of argumentation in teaching and learning has gained some attention. Argumentation involves the coordination of evidence and theory to support or refute an explanatory conclusion, model or prediction. Despite the policy rhetoric, the implementation of argumentation in everyday classrooms remains far from reality. Part of the reason for this observation is that there isn’t sufficient professional development of science teachers in this area.
The project will draw on evidence from research on professional development on argumentation to suggest some recommendations for effective implementation of the curriculum content in Rwanda.
The objectives of the project are
- (a) to promote argumentation in science lessons in Rwanda,
- (b) to support pre-service teachers in developing lesson resources that enable argumentation to take place in science lessons,
- (c) to build Rwandan researchers and teacher educators’ repertoire for enhancing argumentation in science education;
- (d) to generate research and development outputs based on data collected in Rwanda;
- (e) to form links between researchers and teacher educators in Rwanda, Turkey and Ireland with the aim of longer-term collaborations.
Project Team:
Professor Sibel Erduran,
Dr. Keelin Leahy and Dr. Audrey O'Grady (University of Limerick, Ireland)
Dr. Ebru Kaya (Bogazici University, Turkey)
Dr. Pinar Seda Cetin (Abant Izzet Baysal University, Turkey)
Dr. Alphonse Uworwabayeho and Dr. Vedaste Mutarutinya (University of Rwanda, Rwanda)