I teach Science Education from undergraduate to doctoral levels. I also have a broad international experience of teaching in universities in Spain, Denmark and Hong Kong. I have a particular interest for the internationalization in higher education. During the last years, I have initiated in collaboration with university teachers in Hong Kong, online teaching activities that promote virtual exchange between student and teachers and, as added value, the development of cross-cultural perspectives on teaching in our courses.   

My research focuses on Science teaching and learning in informal learning settings as museums, science center, botanical gardens and aquariums. Particularly, I have been interested in the study of learning process in socially shared practices in museum programs and activities designed for the school. An example of my research is the project Youths’ encounter with The Human Journey where I have studied students learning in the interaction with classmates and museum educators when they explore an exhibition on human evolution in the Swedish Museum of Natural History.

My second area of research focus on informal educators’ professional growth. In particular I have been interested in how research results and theoretical frameworks from Science Education can be incorporated in informal settings (project Tools for museum educators) and the dynamics between researchers and museum practitioners in collaborative projects.

A selection from Stockholm University publication database

• Ethnicity and Gender in Museum Representations of Human Evolution

  2022. Jesús Piqueras (et al.). Science & Education

  Article

  Scientific representations of human evolution often embrace stereotypes of ethnicity and gender that are more aligned with socio-cultural discourses and norms than empirical facts. The present study has two connected aims: to understand how ethnicity and gender are represented in an exhibition about human evolution, and to understand how that representation influences learners’ meaning making. First, we analysed an exhibition with realistic reconstructions of early hominids in a museum of natural history, to identify dualisms related to the representation of gender and ethnicity that have been recognised in research. Then, we studied the processes of meaning making in the exhibition during an out-of-school educational activity, in which groups of teenaged students explore and discuss the hominid reconstructions. Our results show that the exhibition displays human evolution in the form of a linear sequence from a primitive African prehistory to a more advanced European present. Behind this depiction of human evolution lies stereotypic notions of ethnicity and gender: notions that were incorporated into the students’ meaning making during the educational activity. When students noticed aspects of ethnicity, their meaning making did not dispute the messages represented in the exhibition; these were accepted as scientific facts. Conversely, when the students noticed aspects related to gender, they often adopted a more critical stance and challenged the representations from different perspectives. We discuss the implications of our findings for exhibit design and evolution education more generally. In doing so, we offer our perspectives on the design of learning environments to salvage inherently sexist, racist, imperial science.

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• “Should we be afraid of Ebola?” A study of students’ learning progressions in context-based science teaching

  2021. Malin Lavett Lagerström, Jesús Piqueras, Ola Palm. NorDiNa 17 (1), 64-78

  Article

  In this study, we explored how learning progressions were established in a context-based science teaching unit. A science class in secondary school was followed during a teaching unit in Biology, in which the Ebola disease was used as context. Teaching was planned using the didactical model organizing purposes. Learning progressions were studied as continuity between teaching purposes, the science content and the context in four sequential lessons. The analysis of teaching evidenced a considerable variation in how learning progressions were constituted within lessons and showed how learning progressions could develop between lessons through the combination of different teaching activities. By consistently mentioning and referring to Ebola, the teacher had a pivotal role in establishing relations between teaching purposes, the content and the context. Furthermore, our results evidence the important role of the context in supporting students’ learning of science content. Finally, we discuss concrete actions in the planning of the unit to improve lessons that evidenced a weaker connection to the context.

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• Falando sobre Evolução com dioramas de história natural

  2020. Jesús Piqueras, Marianne Achiam. “Janelas para a natureza”: explorando o potencial educativo dos dioramas, 63-70

  Chapter

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• Science museum educators' professional growth

  2019. Jesús Piqueras, Marianne Achiam. Science Education 103 (2), 389-417

  Article

  Educators' work is a key element in museums' learning experience, yet knowledge about their professional development is still limited. In this study, we followed three science museum educators' professional growth during collaboration with researchers, with special focus on the introduction of research‐based frameworks in their practice. To analyse the dynamics of educators' changes in knowledge, practices, and beliefs, we used the interconnected model of professional growth (Clarke & Hollingsworth, 2002. Teach Teacher Edu, 18, 947‐967). During the collaboration, key educators' changes were evidenced in a progressive acquisition of the concepts and ideas and their transformation in functional tools for museum practice. However, the anticipation of potential benefits of the use of the theoretical frameworks, as well as the close collaboration in dialogue between researchers and educators, were pivotal for the development of these changes. Furthermore, our results show the significance of the contextualization of the frameworks in familiar practices, exhibits, and specific science content to use the theory in new contexts. Overall, our results suggest that introducing research‐based frameworks in the work of museum educators was a successful approach in the collaboration but, at least to some extent, challenge the use of learning theories as solely ground for professional development in informal settings.

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• Learning Science Through Encounters with Museum Dioramas Themes and Patterns in Students’ Conversations

  2019. Jesús Piqueras, Karim M. Hamza, Susanna Edvall. Natural History Dioramas – Traditional Exhibits for Current Educational Themes, 185-204

  Chapter

  The use of dioramas in educational activities at the museum provides exceptional opportunities for students’ learning. In this study, we present a detailed analysis of student teachers’ moment-by-moment learning during a teaching activity in a museum of natural history. Specifically, we focused on the content and the direction learning takes in response to what students notice in a diorama. Data comes from the videotaped conversations of ten student teacher groups of encounters with a diorama representing a natural scene of animal behaviour. Using analysis of practical epistemologies, the students’ talk was segmented and examined for different themes emerging during the activity. The ten students’ conversations elicited during the activity were, on average 12 min long, with 15 different themes evolving in the conversations. Surprisingly, the most common theme engaged in by the students was not the most related to the curatorial intention of the diorama. Even though each conversation developed differently, it was possible to identify certain temporal patterns in the order that themes appeared. When examining the relationship between the different themes in the conversation, our results showed that the relationship established to certain details of the diorama helped the students significantly to go further with the conversation and the process of meaning-making. Furthermore, teacher’s intervention was important when details of the diorama were not noticed spontaneously by the students.

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• Planning for learning progressions with the didactical model organizing purposes

  2018. Malin Lavett Lagerström, Jesús Piqueras, Ola Palm. NorDiNa 14 (3), 317-330

  Article

  During the last years the didactical model organizing purposes has provided important insights about how teachers work with moment-to-moment learning progressions in science teaching. In the present study, organizing purposes were used to plan a lesson within a context-based unit in Biology, in which the Ebola disease was the overarching context. The lesson was planned in two parts. In the first part, the students worked with a model that simulated the spread of Ebola; in the second part, the model was discussed and compared with the real disease. The analysis of the enacted lesson shows that the students’ experiences from the model were effectively used by the teacher to establish a learning progression towards the learning goals. This was done by eliciting questions, comparisons between the model and real diseases, and recalling specific situations that allowed students to use everyday experiences and scientific concepts. Moreover, by maintaining focus in the context of the unit, the teacher through these actions, constantly directed the lesson towards the learning goals.

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• Hybridization of practices in teacher-researcher collaboration

  2018. Karim Hamza (et al.). European Educational Research Journal (online) 17 (1), 170-186

  Article

  In this paper we present experiences from a joint collaborative research project which may be described as an encounter between a school science teaching practice and a university science didactics research practice. We provide narratives which demonstrate how the encounter between these two communities of practice interacted to produce hybridization between the two in terms of mutual influences, resulting in the conceptual and practical development of both communities of practice. We argue that what happened in the project suggests one way of reducing the gap between educational research and teaching through the emergence of practices where the roles of teachers and researchers become blurred.

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• Who Owns the Content and Who Runs the Risk? Dynamics of Teacher Change in Teacher-Researcher Collaboration

  2018. Karim Hamza (et al.). Research in science education 48 (5), 963-987

  Article

  We present analyses of teacher professional growth during collaboration between science teachers and science education researchers, with special focus on how the differential assumption of responsibility between teachers and researchers affected the growth processes. The collaboration centered on a new conceptual framework introduced by the researchers, which aimed at empowering teachers to plan teaching in accordance with perceived purposes. Seven joint planning meetings between teachers and researchers were analyzed, both quantitatively concerning the extent to which the introduced framework became part of the discussions and qualitatively through the interconnected model of teacher professional growth. The collaboration went through three distinct phases characterized by how and the extent to which the teachers made use of the new framework. The change sequences identified in relation to each phase show that teacher recognition of salient outcomes from the framework was important for professional growth to occur. Moreover, our data suggest that this recognition may have been facilitated because the researchers, in initial phases of the collaboration, took increased responsibility for the implementation of the new framework. We conclude that although this differential assumption of responsibility may result in unequal distribution of power between teachers and researchers, it may at the same time mean more equal distribution of concrete work required as well as the inevitable risks associated with pedagogical innovation and introduction of research-based knowledge into science teachers' practice.

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Show all publications by Jesus Piqueras Blasco at Stockholm University