Learning and Teaching About Philosophy of Chemistry: Teacher Educators’ Reflections

Abstract

The chapter presents a self-reflective account of the authors as teacher educators engaged in learning about philosophy of chemistry for the purpose of selecting themes to incorporate into their teaching of pre-service teachers. The authors are motivated to pursue self-study because (a) the broad content of the book, the interplay between philosophy of chemistry and chemistry education is fairly marginal, and some of their reflections could potentially benefit others as they take on a similar approach in their work; (b) the authors’ reflections can potentially serve as data sources that help interpret the broad project of infusing epistemic aspects of chemistry in chemistry teacher education; and (c) the authors’ reflections may provide them with realisations that help them improve their practices as teacher educators and chemistry education researchers. The reflections include the authors’ journeys into teacher education, background in history and philosophy of science and views on issues related to the incorporation of epistemic aspects of chemistry in teacher education. Through this reflective account, the authors discuss how they came to re-envisage themselves as teacher educators who were trying to make sense of some rather abstract and deep philosophical ideas themselves. The authors had to negotiate their professional identities through differentiated expertise in relation to science education research, philosophy of chemistry and teacher education, thus questioning their own professional knowledge.