Chinese Journal of Science Education

Abstract

There is a current wave of educational reform in Taiwan to change our goals of science education towards Science-Technology-Society literacy. STS programs develop in students higher cognitive abilities which integrate and interact human technological development and social needs. Since teachers have long played the key role in inducing any change in school science curriculum and practices, this paper focuses on teachers. Although it has been suggested that developing STS module could foster students' critical thinking, problemsolving and the ability to take social actions, empirical investigations need to be done to test this claim.

This study was conducted to examine if designing activities for STS modules could be used as an effective instructional strategy in pre-service teacher education. This paper is divided into three parts. The first section focuses on the development of STS prototype modules of nuclear chemistry in the curriculum of General Chemistry for use in national teachers colleges. The second section focuses on the application of to various instructional strategies and learning modes in the learning activities of pre-service teachers. The third section focuses on the utilization of the developed modules in enhancing the STS professional competence of both the lecturers and pre-service primary teachers in the national teachers colleges.

The students designed the STS units and utilized them in micro-teaching experiences. Based upon the results from observing classroom activities and students' journals throughout the learning processes, students were found to be highly motivated, more able to relate their subject knowledge to the real-life situations, and better prepared to broaden their societal and world views. It appears that the STS module developing activity can be an effective strategy in the teacher education by which students foster their open-ended thinking and problem-solving ability.

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