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3. Narrative Techniques <strong>an</strong>d the History of Ideas<br />

In 1998 a new teaching strategy called narrative or the story-telling technique,<br />

was suggested in science education by Millar <strong>an</strong>d Osborne (Hipkins et al., 2002: 191-<br />

192). The narrative technique uses expl<strong>an</strong>ation based on science’s recognisable<br />

context. This has its characters, events <strong>an</strong>d situations, which give logical direction to<br />

the context or the story. LaBoskey (2002: 34) explains that the story “…could be a<br />

retelling of something that actually happened …or it could be fictional”. It, however,<br />

should be presented, i.e. written or spoken, without the bias <strong>an</strong>d judgement of the<br />

teller in order to present the discovery process of the people in the story. Historical<br />

ideas of science are powerful advocated <strong>an</strong>d documented stories which should be<br />

recognized <strong>an</strong>d used to promote student learning about science (Barker, 1997).<br />

“History [of science] c<strong>an</strong> serve to [org<strong>an</strong>ize] the serial development of concepts, to<br />

reconstruct reasoning, to celebrate scientific discovery, or to bring <strong>an</strong>ecdotal humour<br />

into a lecture” (Barker, 1997: 187-188). Telling the historical story of science also<br />

provides a cultural background of science which may lead students to better<br />

underst<strong>an</strong>d the nature of science, especially science as social enterprise. There are<br />

several studies which show the result of using the technique of narrative <strong>an</strong>d/or<br />

historical ideas.<br />

Successful use of the narrative technique has occurred in Australia (Kuhn <strong>an</strong>d<br />

H<strong>an</strong>d, 1995), New Zeal<strong>an</strong>d (Matthews, 1994; Barker, 1995, 1997) <strong>an</strong>d the United<br />

States (Allchin et al., 1999). Kuhn <strong>an</strong>d H<strong>an</strong>d (1995) used everyday life stories to<br />

challenge Australi<strong>an</strong> junior high school students who were learning a new concept<br />

about geology. They were asked to write brochures <strong>an</strong>d create their personal stories<br />

to illustrate their new learning of geological concepts for other people. The results<br />

showed the students’ development in rethinking <strong>an</strong>d learning the concepts.<br />

In Barker’s (1995) study, five historical stories about photosynthesis<br />

combined with a generative teaching model were used to develop 13-year-old New<br />

Zeal<strong>an</strong>d junior high school students while they were learning about photosynthesis.<br />

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