SCIENTIST-TEACHER-STUDENTS COLLABORATION IN PROBLEM-PROJECT

BASED LEARNING (STSC-PPbl) : A MEANINGFUL APPROACH FOR AUTHENTIC

SCIENCE LEARNING

Cheong Boon Yaua,b, Dr. Rose Amnah Abd Rauf a, Shalini Markandanc

a
Chong Hwa Independent High School, Kuala Lumpur
b
Department of Mathematics and Science Education, Faculty of Education, Universiti Malaya
c
Bioactivity Programme, Natural Product Division, Forest Research Institute Malaysia

Abstract:
One of the puzzles to be addressed in contemporary science education is to invite real-world
scientist to collaborate with teacher to expose students on how science knowledge is applied in
real-life situations, workplace and research. In other words, students need to be exposed with
‘real’ or ‘authentic’ science to increase the relevancy of science learning, fulfilling the aspiration
of 60:40 Science: Arts policy for sustainable socioeconomic development. STSC-PPbl is one of
the promising and innovative approaches where students turn a “problem” with proposed
solutions that related to real-world situations into a “project”, a plausible and workable outcome
by working closely with both scientist and teacher as a learning community. The basic qualitative
research design was adopted to have in-depth exploration on unstructured tripartite interaction
process analysis coupled with four-dimension analysis (conceptual, social, pedagogical and
epistemological) of role of participants and learning process in collaboration setting, as well as
students’ thinking and learning throughout the STSC-PPbl through reflective journaling practices.
The data collected from participant observation and student’s reflective journals unveiled the role
of scientist and teacher as knowledge authority and in promoting ideas of scientific community in
both neutral (orientation, evaluation and control) and socioemotional tasks (decision, tension
management and integration). The finding suggested the role of teacher as moderator and
facilitator of the learning process. The nature of STSC-PPbl process revealed science as an
approach to investigation and as a process of constructing knowledge, demands perseverance
from its practitioners with frequent elements of subjectivity and skepticism. STSC-PPbl promotes
meaningful science learning with two overarching themes: (1) holistic science learning
encompassed three interconnected cognition, psychomotor and affective domains and (2) lifelong
learning concepts in science learning encompassed perception of science learning, awareness of
learning condition and expectancy and motivation. STSC-PPbl serves as the foundation for
industry-school partnership programme in future.