20190726T160020190726T1800Europe/AmsterdamHistory of Science Education as History of Science: Objectives, Objects, Practices
History of science education remains a marginalized topic, if not a neglected one, or is seen as a separate discipline apart from the history of science. This is despite the fact that science teaching and learning at all levels from primary education to university constitutes a substantial portion of scientific activity. Science education, we argue, must be understood as being integral to scientific practice when we study the development of science and its place in global society. We present a variety of practices in science education across geographical regions in our session. We begin with a paper on the introduction of science education through the Bachelor of Science degree in American Catholic colleges during the nineteenth century. Moving to the University of Edinburgh during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the next presentation focuses on the role of scientific instruments in science education in its Natural Philosophy Department. Instruments and material cultures of science are also central to our third talk, which investigates the transformation and adaptation of research instruments for teaching purposes drawing on a number of historical examples. The final presentation discusses conflicts encountered in the transfer of teaching practices in engineering education from Germany to postcolonial India. Together, our presentations will open for discussion the different meanings of practice in science teaching, from useful education to material practices and skill development across various contexts.
Organized by Dana Freiburger and Roland Wittje
Drift 27, Rm. 032History of Science Society 2019meeting@hssonline.org
History of science education remains a marginalized topic, if not a neglected one, or is seen as a separate discipline apart from the history of science. This is despite the fact that science teaching and learning at all levels from primary education to university constitutes a substantial portion of scientific activity. Science education, we argue, must be understood as being integral to scientific practice when we study the development of science and its place in global society. We present a variety of practices in science education across geographical regions in our session. We begin with a paper on the introduction of science education through the Bachelor of Science degree in American Catholic colleges during the nineteenth century. Moving to the University of Edinburgh during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the next presentation focuses on the role of scientific instruments in science education in its Natural Philosophy Department. Instruments and material cultures of science are also central to our third talk, which investigates the transformation and adaptation of research instruments for teaching purposes drawing on a number of historical examples. The final presentation discusses conflicts encountered in the transfer of teaching practices in engineering education from Germany to postcolonial India. Together, our presentations will open for discussion the different meanings of practice in science teaching, from useful education to material practices and skill development across various contexts.
Organized by Dana Freiburger and Roland Wittje
The B.S. Degree: A New Objective in Nineteenth-Century American Catholic Higher EducationView Abstract Organized SessionSocial Sciences04:00 PM - 04:30 PM (Europe/Amsterdam) 2019/07/26 14:00:00 UTC - 2019/07/26 14:30:00 UTC
My talk surveys issues coincidental to the introduction of the Bachelor of Science (B.S.) degree at nineteenth-century American Catholic institutions of higher education. Starting with Santa Clara College, a Jesuit school in California that conferred a B.S. degree in 1859 and continuing to 1900 (and beyond) with the College of Notre Dame of Maryland that awarded B.S. degrees to women, a total of nineteen Catholic institutions deemed the Bachelor of Science a fitting academic honor alongside the venerable Bachelor of Arts (B.A) degree. Essential to a B.A. was its objective of inculcating mental discipline in a student, an ideal usually achieved through the study of Latin and Greek over several years. In contrast the B.S. dispensed with these dead languages and in their place granted more emphasis to the various sciences along with the modern languages, practical substitutions made in response to the escalating demand for Catholic colleges to offer a more useful education. Based on my ongoing dissertation research, I argue that this new objective to award Bachelor of Science degrees evolved out of an existing Catholic educational commitment to teach science to students. Moreover, it demonstrated how Catholics found a way to package a science education which remained in touch with their long-held classical educational practices, like those found in the Ratio Studiorum, while offering a curriculum that provided a desired knowledge of science.
Access to and Uses of a Natural Philosophy University Collection in the 19th CenturyView Abstract Contributed PaperThematic Approaches to the Study of Science04:30 PM - 05:00 PM (Europe/Amsterdam) 2019/07/26 14:30:00 UTC - 2019/07/26 15:00:00 UTC
The Natural Philosophy Department of the University of Edinburgh in the 19th century is mostly associated with their famous professors, known for their inventions or their method of teaching, in which they used a wide range of instruments. In this talk, I will explore who in addition of the teaching staff had access to the instruments of the Natural Philosophy Class during the 19th and early 20th centuries and what these instruments were used for. During the surveyed time period the professors J.D. Forbes, P.G. Tait, and J.G. MacGregor consecutively held the Chair of Natural Philosophy and guarded the department’s collection. It appears that during Forbes tenure the objects were mainly used for demonstration in lectures, whereas under Tait a new emphasis was put on practical work undertaken by the students themselves, and that under MacGregor collection items were regularly loaned to researchers of other institutions. These three uses, demonstration, practice and research, will be illustrated by following the path of a selection of historic objects. About 350 of those objects in part of the Natural Philosophy Collection of the University of Edinburgh survive and are now held at National Museums Scotland. Alongside the instruments came a treasure trove of documents that provide an insight on who could access and use the instruments belonging to the Class of Natural Philosophy.
Laura Volkmer University Of Edinburgh & National Museums Scotland
Instruments in Research Experiments and Their Educational RepresentativesView Abstract Organized SessionSocial Sciences05:00 PM - 05:30 PM (Europe/Amsterdam) 2019/07/26 15:00:00 UTC - 2019/07/26 15:30:00 UTC
Several experiments from the history of physics were adapted for teaching purposes – most of them originate from the long nineteenth century. These references to historical experiments can be found both in school teaching as well as in university lectures. Most of these experiments were introduced through discussing them and pointing out the relevance of their conceptual outcomes. Others, and these are in the focus of this presentation, were represented by instruments that were (and in some cases still are) demonstrated in the lecture. Obviously, these instruments that were demonstrated were neither the original research instruments, nor exact copies of them. Instead, these devices were educational versions of the instruments used in the historical experiments. Consequently, these didactical devices had communalities, but also discrepancies with the historical research instruments. In my contribution, I will particularly discuss two types of teaching devices: one group consists of teaching devices that address the procedural aspect of the historical experiment; the other group addresses the product (the data or the content) of the historical experiment. From this comparison, a more thorough understanding of what was to be represented and taught with these devices can be derived. In my analysis, I will mainly address teaching demonstrations from the early 20th century, but also take a look at recent demonstrations.
Presenters Peter Heering Europa-Universitaet Flensburg, Germany
Science and Engineering Education at IIT Madras: Indian and German Perspectives and Practices in ConflictView Abstract Organized SessionAspects of Scientific Practice/Organization05:30 PM - 06:00 PM (Europe/Amsterdam) 2019/07/26 15:30:00 UTC - 2019/07/26 16:00:00 UTC
The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras was set up with West German assistance between 1959 and 1974. From its beginning, Indian and German actors differed in what kind of engineering school IIT Madras would be and hence how its engineers should be trained. The Indian planners envisioned IIT Madras to be an MIT-like research university while the German planners insisted that Indian engineers needed largely practical training. Through the 1960s, the nature of the German engagement became more research oriented with competition from the other IIT’s but the critique of German faculty remained: Indian engineering training was too theoretical and lacked practice. In my presentation I want to unpack different understandings of practice and how they relate to a larger discourse on science, technical education, the caste system and colonial legacies in India. The critique of practice deficiency was not an argument between scientists on one side and engineers on the other, as it was shared by all German professors. The physicist Werner Koch, for instance, who had studied with Robert Pohl in Göttingen and had worked in the electrical industry, wanted physics teaching for engineers to be largely practice-oriented. Koch introduced Pohl’s textbooks as well as Pohl’s lecture demonstrations to IIT Madras. Koch’s call for “re-educating” Indians, I argue, was informed by a narrow understanding of educational transfer from Germany to India that ignored social differences and hierarchies on both sides.
Presenters Roland Wittje Indian Institute Of Technology Madras
Dana Freiburger
Peter Heering
Roland Wittje
