We'll start with elementary
science. Although you are going to be a secondary science teacher,
each of the students you teach will have experienced an elementary
school science curriculum, and therefore, its important for you to be
aware of developments and changes at the elementary level as well.
The science curriculum should be perceived as a K-12 integrated and
articulated process, and many schools districts and state departments
of education are moving in this direction. New Designs for
Elementary School Science and Health (New
Designs) is a collaborative report developed between
International Business Machines (IBM)
and the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study
(BSCS).
The New Designs report makes specific recommendations
for K-6 science, technology and health. The report contains
a framework---a foundation and structure---for curriculum
and instruction at the elementary school level. It
represents the most advanced set of recommendations
regarding science, technology and health at the elementary
school level, and therefore is an important document that
will influence elementary science in the years ahead. The
framework adopts an inquiry approach to science, bases its
structure on major concepts, and skills for science,
technology and health, and promulgates an instructional
model based on a constructivist learning theory (see Chapter
2). The BSCS's program,
Science for Life and Living: Integrating Science,
Technology, and Health is a K-6 program whose
fundamental goal is as follows:
Children should learn about science, technology and health as they need to understand and use them in their daily life and as future citizens. Education in the elementary years should sustain children's natural curiosity, allow children to explore their environments, improve the children's explanations of their world, help the children to develop an understanding and use of technology, and contribute to the informed choices children must make in their personal and social lives.
The report outlines the strategies curriculum planners might use for developing curriculum for the 1990s and beyond, basing their plan on the BSCS elementary science program , in conjunction with Kendall/Hunt Publishers .
Through a series of commissioned papers, panel reports, as well as surveys and reviews of the literature, New Designs made recommendations for elementary science in three areas:
- A curriculum framework for elementary science and health.
- An instructional model for contemporary elementary school science.
- The integration of technology and elementary school science and health.
Curriculum Framework.
The developers of this report take the position that science should result in the scientific and technological literacy of citizens. Specifically, they assert that "science education programs should help students to (1) fulfill basic human needs and facilitate personal development, (2) maintain and improve the physical and human environment, (3) conserve natural resources, and (4) develop greater social harmony at the local, regional, national and global levels.
Curricula for elementary science should be based on a set of goals that answer the question "What should education in the proposed science curriculum achieve?" Here are the BSCS proposals:
• Science education should develop fundamental scientific, technological, and health knowledge.• Science education should develop a fundamental understanding of, and ability to use the methods of scientific inquiry.
• Science education should prepare citizens to make responsible decisions concerning social issues that relate to science, technology, and health.
• Science education should contribute to a fulfillment of the students' personal needs.
• Science education should inform students about careers in science, engineering, and health.
• Science education should develop behaviors that promote health and prevent disease.
The relationship among the goals for New Designs curriculum framework is shown in below.
The developers also based their curriculum framework on several characteristics of students:
1. Students have motivation.2. Students have developmental stages and tasks that influence learning.
3. Students have different styles of learning.
4. Students have explanations, attitudes, skills and sensibilities about the world.
Instructional Model.
Basing their work on an earlier proposal of a learning cycle by Karplus (see Chapter 2), the New Designs proposed an instructional model on a constructivist view of learning. As developed in the last chapter, the constructivist view posits that students redefine, reorganize, elaborate and change their initial concepts through interaction between themselves and their environment.
In the New Designs report, a five stage model of learning is outlined that will be used as the learning cycle in elementary science. The essential elements of each stage of the learning cycle are shown in the chart below.
Function
and Nature of Student Activity One:
Engage These activities
mentally engage the student with an event or a question.
Engagement activities help the students make connections
with what they already know and can do. Two:
Explore The students work
with each other, explore ideas together, usually through
hands-on activities. Under the guidance of the teacher, they
clarify their understanding of major concepts and
skills. Three:
Explain The students explain
their understanding of the concepts and processes they are
learning. Teachers clarify their understanding and
introduces and defines new concepts and skills. Four:
Elaborate During these
activities the students apply what they have learned to new
situations, and they build on their understanding of
concepts. They use these new experiences to extend their
knowledge and skills. Five:
Evaluate The students assess
their own knowledge, skills, and abilities. These activities
also focus on outcomes that a teacher can use to evaluate a
students progress.
Integration of Technology and Elementary Science.
New Designs takes the position that educational computing will play a significant role in science education programs, and that teachers will find the use of this technology as easy as using home appliances, providing in-service training and appropriate software are made available. In order for technology to be integrated into the teaching of elementary science, the microcomputer and and Internet connectivity must become an integral part of the instructional process.
One of the key notions suggested by the BSCS project is the creation of a technology-oriented learning environment. It goes without saying that integrating the microcomputer into science teaching will require the reformulation not only of the curriculum, but of the learning environment. The picture below shows the technology-oriented classroom. Note that in addition to MBL Station (Microcomputer Based Laboratory), the classroom would contain computer stations for courseware and word processing, an interactive video station, and stations for listening, writing and manipulative materials, and connections to the Internet. Also note that students would be organized into small cooperative groups.
The Technology Oriented Classroom
The New Designs report suggests that science, health and technology can be integrated to create an elementary science program that fuses some of the best of earlier programs with new advances in cognitive psychology, cooperative learning and microcomputer technology. Elementary science goals of the future will reflect an integrated, interdisciplinary model, one in which students are placed in environments where they not only will learn about the world around them, but they will learn about themselves as well.
We now will turn our attention to two other reports that not only made recommendations about elementary science, but middle and high school as well. Let's look at recommendations made Project Synthesis, and then examine the ideas proposed by Project 2061.