University of Southampton

The University of Southampton is one of the top 15 research universities in the UK. It has over 23,000 students and has achieved consistently high scores for its teaching and learning activities. It has an outstanding record for success in converting its research excellence into business ventures has made it one of the UK’s leading entrepreneurial universities. Southampton Education School trains primary, secondary and post-compulsory teachers, plays a central role in the university’s outreach to schools, and supports a regional Science Learning Centre which delivers professional development for over two thousand STEM teachers each year.

The Mathematics and Science Education Research Centre in the Education School focuses entirely on STEM education, and particularly decision-making and argumentation in relation to socio-scientific issues. Current funded research projects include the science for health literacy programme called LifeLab, (funded to over £1 million) which enables students to learn more about the science underpinning health issues, by carrying out practical activities at a purpose-built hospital-based classroom. Other research projects involve collaboration with colleagues in highly respected universities in Germany, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Sweden and the US.

Teacher Professional Development in SSIBL -Lower Secondary Education (WP3, leader)

SOTON local webpage [en]

SOTON PARRISE brochure [en]

Marcus Grace is senior lecturer with a PhD in science education. He taught science at schools in London and Tokyo. He is a doctoral supervisor and teaches on undergraduate, masters and initial teacher training science programmes. He currently oversees all the Education Masters programmes, and has recently started delivering a university-wide undergraduate course on ‘Education for Health and Wellbeing’. He is a member of the Academic Committee of the European Researchers in Didactics of Biology (ERIDOB). His current research interest is in the science that underpins health literacy and health-related decision-making among teenagers.

Dr Andri Christodoulou is a lecturer with a Ph.D. in science education. Her research focuses on the use of argumentation in primary and secondary science education and the development of epistemic discourse in science classrooms. She has an interest in initial science teacher training and teacher professional development, students’ understanding of the epistemology of science, argumentation and epistemic practices. She is currently involved in a project investigating the effect of collaborative networks between secondary science teachers as a strategy for developing and sustaining the use of dialogic teaching and argumentation in secondary science classrooms.