Dealing with controversial genomics issues in the classroom. Mapping teachers’ expertise and students’ informal reasoning

Although sound conceptual knowledge improves argumentation skills, this knowledge doesn’t always change our decision. Indications are growing that we make our moral decisions based on intuition. We use our arguments only to defend our position after it is taken intuitively. Our usual rational approach of moral education could be rendered out of date by these new insights. Which pedagogical approach will help us to incorporate intuition into moral education and how can science teachers master that approach? This is the main research question of the project which aims at understanding and improving the development of teacher’s expertise entailed in dealing with controversial issues on genomics. The project started with outlining current moral education in biology classes by reviewing science education literature and interviewing good practice teachers to elicit their practice expertise. In addition, students have been confronted with issues on prenatal diagnosis and genetic testing to probe their reasoning pattern before being taught about genomics. This presentation will report the research findings of the first part of this project and implications for educational practice will be discussed.