Empowering Muslim Youth Through Developing Argumentation Skills

The progress of nations lies in the hands of educated youth. Presently, our Muslims youth are facing numerous challenges. This include western propaganda against Islam as a threat to peace, moral degradation, lacking spirit of inquiry, internet addiction, blind following of western norms and cultures and various kinds of social problems such as violence, gambling and pornography. Our Muslim youth is wandering in identity crises and have forgotten the true spirit of Islam and the achievements of our forefathers. Majority of youth are copying and adopting the western style of life and cultural involvement. One reason for this may be the education system that we have inherited from the colonial masters. This is also replicated by electronic media and the Western propaganda against Islam that we don’t take pride to be staunch Muslims otherwise; we will be blamed as extremists. Our education system has also failed in instilling the spirit of inquiry, critical thinking and moral judgment in our youth. In order to develop the potential of our youth to reform our society and not to be led by baseless beliefs, the role of teaching is very important. With this goal in mind, the students should be empowered through argumentation skills. This requires teaching students through argumentation method by involving/guiding students to make a claim then write justification for their claim and finally counter argument to support their claim. The essence of argumentation is not new as the Holy Qur’ān repeatedly stressed the believers to use their intellect, to critically observe their surroundings and avoid baseless information. Practice with argumentation will help in developing critical skills in our youth and in making informed decisions. They would not blindly follow western norms and would be able to answer western propaganda through solid arguments and valid justifications.

Secondary School Science Teachers’ Conceptions About the Nature of Science

The nature of science (NOS) is an important area in teaching and learning science. Teachers’ conceptions of the NOS have a direct influence on their classroom teaching and thus influencing the students’ conceptions. Therefore, “exploring teachers’ conceptions about the NOS” is considered as one of the important areas of research in science teaching and learning process. This study aims to investigate secondary science teachers’ conceptions about four selected aspects of NOS, which are, empirical nature of science, tentativeness, scientific theories and laws and scientific method. It was a qualitative exploratory study and conducted in a private school in Karachi on a sample of three science teachers. Data was collected using a questionnaire, interviews and classroom observations. Two types of research tools, Views of Nature Of Science (VoNOS) and Nature Of Science Research Protocol (NOSRP) were employed to collect data. For data analysis each participant was considered as a separate case and data obtained through questionnaires, interviews and classroom observations were used to develop three separate cases. These cases are cross cased to compare and contrast the three participants’ views about four selected aspects of NOS. The findings revealed that teachers possessed mixed views about the empirical NOS and tentative NOS. Similarly, these teachers possessed inadequate conceptions about scientific theories and laws and scientific method. Furthermore, it also became evident that teachers did not translate their NOS conceptions in their classroom teaching in an explicit way. Their teaching, however, sometimes reflected NOS teaching in an embedded form. These findings have implications as they may provide practical and contextual information about teachers’ conceptions and their classroom practices related to NOS. The findings may help teacher educators and professional organizations in designing science teacher programs that may address the component of NOS.