In Episode 22 of the Let’s Talk Education Research podcast hosted by Dr Peter Tiernan, CASTeL member Dr Natalie O’Neil speaks about her recent publication “From recipe to enquiry – a curriculum tool for science teachers to align policy with practice in practical lessons”.

‘This podcast discusses a recent IES article I wrote about the widespread misunderstandings of what enquiry-based science teaching looks like and the dearth of a clear definition of enquiry around which teachers can build practical lessons. My research indicates that practical skills are not taught as a part of practical work, even though they are written into the policy for practical work in biology.  I designed and developed a tool, called the Structured Enquiry Observation Schedule (SEOS), that can be used by teachers to identify specific enquiry skills and to determine the extent to which their students use and include enquiry skills in practical lessons. These Nature of Science skills are the basis for a more complex epistemological understanding of enquiry and including them in practical lessons begins the process of bridging the gap between the written and enacted forms of enquiry-based teaching and learning. The tool can be used by science educators in many ways, for example, to interrogate their own practice, as part of a community of reflective practitioners practice or as a form of feedback from their students. Using the tool can help teachers to take the first step towards building enquiry-based lessons.’

You can listen to the podcast here on Spotify or on the IoE website.