The inclusion of the history and philosophy of science in science teaching is widely accepted, but the actual state of implementation in schools is still poor. This article investigates possible reasons for this discrepancy. The demands science teachers associate with HPS-based teaching play an important role, since these determine teachers’ decisions towards implementing its practices and ideas. We therefore investigate the perceptions of 8 HPS-experienced German middle school physics teachers within and beyond an HPS implementation project. Within focused interviews these (...) teachers describe and evaluate the challenges of planning and conducting HPS-based physics lessons using collaboratively developed HPS teaching materials. The teachers highlight a number of obstacles to the implementation of HPS specific to this approach: finding and adapting HPS teaching material, knowing and using instructional design principles for HPS lessons, presenting history in a motivating way, dealing with students’ problematic ideas about the history of science, conducting open-ended historical classroom investigations in the light of known historical outcomes, using historical investigations to teach modern science concepts, designing assessments to target HPS-specific learning outcomes, and justifying the HPS-approach against curriculum and colleagues. Teachers' perceived demands point out critical aspects of pedagogical content knowledge necessary for confident, comfortable and effective teaching of HPS-based science. They also indicate how HPS teacher education and the design of curricular materials can be improved to make implementing HPS into everyday teaching less demanding. (shrink)

This chapter deals with the use of historically based stories in science teaching. Stories can be viewed as pedagogical tools to help improve the learning experience of students and the learning of the content itself. The focus of this chapter is the structure and content of science stories and the effectiveness of properly constructed stories to enhance learning. Studies on the use of stories are identified and categorized, and the related empirical studies utilizing science stories are reviewed in greater depth. (...) The chapter explains the concepts of narrative, story, and science story and addresses the need for their standardization. The model of the story as the reenactment of a type of learning process and the role of the story in generating a romantic understanding of science are expounded as pedagogical reasons supporting the story approach. History of science that is suitably adapted serves as the raw material for the construction of such science stories. The story-driven contextual approach as a framework for using stories in science teaching is presented as the undergirding for the classroom use of science stories. Topics for future studies are addressed in the conclusion. (shrink)