Cognitive Tools for Critical Thinking in Science
Professional learning for upper primary and lower secondary science teachers (Years 5-10). Register nowDate: Monday 4th August
9am – 4pm
Hybrid delivery
Venue: Deakin Downtown Melbourne,
Tower 2, level 12/727 Collins St, Melbourne
Cost: $200 p/p
About this Program
Teacher Professional Learning aligned with Victorian Curriculum 2.0 and VTLM 2.0
Deakin University has partnered with the University of California, Nobel Prize Outreach and Global Access Partners to offer an exciting and innovative program in scientific thinking.
The toolkit of cognitive strategies equips students to deal with real-world issues, developing critical thinking skills in reasoning and collaboration when using and evaluating information to make evidence-based decisions.
Suitable for upper primary and lower secondary science teachers (Years 5-10).
In this video Saul Perlmutter describes how scientific thinking techniques can empower students to make wiser decisions.
Further Information
The MSET Ed research group has a long and proud history of research that makes a difference. Our research has generally been intensely practice focused while advancing theory relating to pedagogy and learning, teacher practice and change, and representation of social and equity issues in curriculum advocacy. Evidence of our status in the field can be found in the large number of ARC projects we have led, and also the significant government funded projects we have been involved in, such as the recent SMSI research focused on out-of-field teachers.
As part of our strategic research agenda we have identified five major research programs around which our research sits:
• Teachers and teaching: Teacher learning and practice, leading school and system change
• Innovative and contemporary curriculum: Policy, practice and partnerships
• Justice and equity: Decolonising practices, gender and equity
• Learners and learning: Critical and creative reasoning and learning, modelling
• Methodological innovation
Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL) Standards:
• 1.5 Differentiate teaching to meet the specific learning needs of students across the full range of abilities
• 3.3 Use teaching strategies
• 3.6 Evaluate and improve teaching programs
• 6.2 Engage in professional learning and improve practice
Registration
To register for this program, click here
Deakin University staff / students please contact pledhub@deakin.edu.au for a discount rate.
Program staff
Amanda Peters is a recent PhD graduate and science education lecturer at Deakin University. She has a keen interest in teacher professional learning. Over the past five years she has been involved in the Graduate Certificates of Secondary Science, Mathematics and Design & Technologies courses designed to upskill out-of-field teachers to be in-field teachers. Her interests are in STEM education, critical policy analysis and teacher education. Amanda is a secondary science and mathematics teacher with extensive experience in leading and teaching in secondary schools. She is also involved in VCE curriculum and assessment at the state level.
Russell Tytler is Deakin Distinguished Professor and Chair in Science Education at Deakin University, Melbourne. He has a background lecturing and teaching physics. He has researched and written extensively on student learning and reasoning in science. He has been influential on science curricula in Australia and is involved in a range of Department of Education teacher professional learning initiatives. His interest in the role of representation as a multimodal language for reasoning in science extends to pedagogy and teacher learning. He researches and writes on student engagement with science and mathematics, socio scientific issues and reasoning, school-community partnerships, and STEM curriculum policy and practice. He is widely published and has been chief investigator on a range of ARC and other research projects, including current projects investigating interdisciplinary mathematics and science pedagogy, representing contemporary science R&D in schools to support an informed Climate Change Education, and directing an innovative program for the Victorian DET for out-of-field teachers of science and mathematics. He is a member of the Science Expert Group for PISA 2015 and 2025 and represents the OECD on an international STEM skills forum. He was deputy chair of an
influential ‘STEM Country Comparisons’ project for the Australian Academy of Learned Academies. He is a Fellow of the Academy of social Sciences in Australia.
Peta J. White is an Associate Professor in Science and Environmental Education at Deakin University. She is the Co-director of the Centre for Regenerating Futures– a transdisciplinary collective attending to Anthropocene challenges and decolonising practices while also building researcher capacity. She is the Editor-In-Chief of the Australian Journal of Environmental Education (Q1 – Web of Science). She led the OECD PISA 2025 Science Framework Environmental Science contribution ‘Agency in the Anthropocene’ and is active in climate change education research and advocacy. Peta’s research leadership has three narratives: science and biology education; sustainability, environmental, and climate change education; and collaborative/activist embodied methodologies.
Peta educated in classrooms, coordinated programs, led and supported professional associations, and prepared teachers in jurisdictions across Canada and Australia. Her PhD (2013) explored learning to live sustainably as a platform to educate future teachers. Peta continues her commitment to initial teacher education and in-service teacher education through research-informed, evidence-based professional learning programs working towards curriculum reform.
