Curriculum integration in arts education: connecting multiple art forms through the idea of ‘space’

Arts integration research has focused on documenting how the teaching of specific art forms can be integrated with ‘core’ academic subject matters (e.g. science, mathematics and literacy). However, the question of how the teaching of multiple art forms themselves can be integrated in schools remains to be explored by educational researchers. This paper draws on data collected at a secondary school in Singapore. The case study analyses how three art teachers, using the idea of ‘space’ as organizing theme, implemented a module of instruction that connected concepts and processes from a variety of art forms (including dance, music, drama and visual arts). We present evidence from curriculum materials, lesson plans, student–teacher classroom interactions and students’ productions. Students were able to reflect upon the importance of space within the arts, analyse the points of convergence and divergence among several art forms, experiment with space and create their own interdisciplinary performances. Our ultimate aim is to provide insights that might inspire art teachers in designing instructional units focused on ‘big ideas’. We suggest that allowing more curricular freedom and providing teachers with adequate structures for interdisciplinary collaboration are key to achieving meaningful levels of integration.     

The constraints of relevance on prevocational curriculum

This paper reflects on how relevance has been invoked as a curricular principle, both by students and teachers, in curriculum documents and in curriculum theory, to explore its variously conceived parameters and conditions. By posing the questions ‘relevant to whom?’, ‘relevant to what?’, ‘relevant how?’ and ‘relevant when?’ this paper exposes relevance as both a curricular virtue and a curricular constraint. It draws on an empirical project undertaken in the prevocational curriculum offered in Australia’s recently extended compulsory schooling for students in non-academic pathways. Data vignettes offer windows into two settings to exemplify the different ways relevance can be interpreted, stretched or contested. Using Bernstein’s distinction between vertical and horizontal discourses and knowledge structures, the analysis identifies what is gained and what is lost when relevance, variously defined, serves as a principle for curricular selection.     

Elementary school teachers’ uses of mathematics curricular resources

With the adoption of new content standards, teachers are often left without adequate curriculum resources. This study examined how educators used their curricular resources to teach new mathematics standards in the USA. Analyses of open-ended survey responses from 257 teachers and teacher–leaders in Grades 3 through Grade 5 indicated that every educator reported supplementing their districts’ or schools’ primary curricular resources with other materials. These supplements primarily included resources found for free on websites and resources that claimed to be aligned to the new standards, but varied in terms of alignment to national standards for effective mathematics curriculum. Implications for this study include further research on how teachers make decisions regarding curriculum resources as well as increasing teachers’ access to quality curriculum materials that can support students’ mathematical learning.     

Elementary teachers’ use of content knowledge to evaluate students’ thinking in the life sciences

Science learning environments should provide opportunities for students to make sense of and enhance their understanding of disciplinary concepts. Teachers can support students’ sense-making by engaging and responding to their ideas through high-leverage instructional practices such as formative assessment (FA). However, past research has shown that teachers may not understand FA, how to implement it, or have sufficient content knowledge to use it effectively. Few studies have investigated how teachers gather information to evaluate students’ ideas or how content knowledge factors into those decisions, particularly within the life science discipline. We designed a study embedded in a multi-year professional development program that supported elementary teachers’ development of disciplinary knowledge and FA practices within science instruction. Study findings illustrate how elementary teachers’ life science content knowledge influences their evaluation of students’ ideas. Teachers with higher levels of life science content knowledge more effectively evaluated students’ ideas than teachers with lower levels of content knowledge. Teachers with higher content exam scores discussed both content and student understanding to a greater extent, and their analyses of students’ ideas were more scientifically accurate compared to teachers with lower scores. These findings contribute to theory and practice around science teacher education, professional development, and curriculum development.     

Teachers’ reflection on PISA items and why they are so hard for students in Serbia

The study explores how teachers perceive and go about students’ thinking in connection to particular mathematical content and how they frame the notion of applied mathematics in their own classrooms. Teachers’ narratives are built around two released PISA 2012 mathematics items, the ‘Drip rate’ and ‘Climbing Mount Fuji’ (will be referred to as the Fuji item). Teachers show concordance as to the reasons that could make either of the items difficult for students and are able to provide more examples justifying their reasoning for the ‘Fuji’ item. Suggestions linked to making the items more familiar to the students mostly relate to de-contextualization of the items’ content towards a more formal mathematical record. The teachers agree that students need only basic mathematical knowledge, at a level learned during elementary school, in order to solve these problems. Yet, at the same time, many teachers have difficulty clearly verbalising which procedures students are expected to follow to be able to solve the tasks. Disagreement among the teachers is noticeable when labelling the most difficult part(s) of each of the selected items. Mathematics teachers show openness for learning on how to create math problems we examined in this study, but question the purpose and meaning in incorporating more such problems in their own teaching.     

Prospective Elementary Teachers’ Analysis of Children’s Science Talk in an Undergraduate Physics Course

We investigated how prospective teachers used physics content knowledge when analyzing the talk of elementary children during special activities in an undergraduate physics content course designed for prospective teachers. We found that prospective teachers used content knowledge to reflect on their own learning and to identify students’ science ideas and restate these ideas in scientific terms. Based on this research, we inferred that analyzing children’s ideas through videos provides a meaningful context for applying conceptual physics knowledge in physics courses. Activities that are embedded within a disciplinary curriculum, such as those studied here, may help prospective teachers learn to use disciplinary knowledge in exactly the type of activity in which their content knowledge will be most useful: listening to and interpreting children’s science ideas.     

Making curriculum relevant to the lives of second level students: Teachers’ classroom practice

Abstract

This paper examines the professional practices of exemplary, post‐primary teachers in Ireland, England and the USA and identifies the ways in which these teachers make classroom experiences relevant to the lives of their students. In making the curriculum relevant, the teachers plan rich experiences and overtly discuss career requirements while focusing on the development of students’ personal and societal values together with their intellectual development and academic attainment. The main strategies used by these teachers to convey the relevance of the curriculum comprised self‐disclosure, the purposeful selection of curriculum content and instructional strategies, and the use of unanticipated opportunities which arise in the course of instruction.     

浅谈高等数学的教与学

数学是一门比较抽象的学科,是一切自然科学的基础。在当今的社会,科技的进步和发展越来越要求人们更好地掌握和利用数学,数学成为了人们不可或缺的必需品。本文阐述了学习高等数学的意义,其对象和特点,以及教师如何教学生如何学的问题。     

体验式学习在初中数学教学中的应用探析

我国新课改明确指出,当前面向初中生的教育应以提高他们的综合素质为主,在教学中教师除了应重视知识教学内容,还要不断创新教学方法,提高学生的自主学习能力,培养学生对学科内容的兴趣,做到学以致用。所以,全面提高初中学生的素养已经成为我国教学的未来发展方向,我国的初中教育工作者应利用科学的手段完善教学方式。在初中阶段数学教学中应用体验式教学法,能有效培养学生学习能力,符合初中阶段学生的心理特点以及我国新课改的相关要求。     

Curriculum-Dependent and Curriculum-Independent Factors in Preservice Elementary Teachers’ Adaptation of Science Curriculum Materials for Inquiry-Based Science

In this nested mixed methods study I investigate factors influencing preservice elementary teachers’ adaptation of science curriculum materials to better support students’ engagement in science as inquiry. Analyses focus on two ‘reflective teaching assignments’ completed by 46 preservice elementary teachers in an undergraduate elementary science methods course in which they were asked to adapt existing science curriculum materials to plan and enact inquiry-based science lessons in elementary classrooms. Data analysis involved regression modeling of artifacts associated with these lessons, as well as in-depth, semester-long case studies of six of these preservice teachers. Results suggest that features of the existing science curriculum materials, including measures of how inquiry-based they were, have a relatively small influence on the preservice teachers’ curricular adaptations, while teacher-specific variables account for a much greater percentage of the variance. Evidence from the case studies illustrates the critical impact of the preservice teachers’ field placement contexts as an explanatory, teacher-specific factor in their curricular adaptations. These findings have important implications for science teacher educators and science curriculum developers, in terms of not only better understanding how preservice teachers engage with curriculum materials, but also how programmatic features of teacher education programs influence their ability to do so.     

Teachers and science curriculum materials: where we are and where we need to go

Curriculum materials serve as a key conceptual tool for science teachers, and better understanding how science teachers use these tools could help to improve both curriculum design and theory related to teacher learning and decision-making. The authors review the literature on teachers and science curriculum materials. The review is organised around three main questions: What do teachers do when using science curriculum materials?, What happens when teachers use science curriculum materials? and Why do teachers make the decisions they do? For each question, the authors first summarise the findings of two key reviews from the mathematics education literature, then situate the findings from science education in juxtaposition with those findings. The review uncovers that relatively little is understood about the mechanism underlying how teachers interact with curriculum materials. To try to address this gap, complementing and extending the field’s existing understandings of the teacher–curriculum relationship, the authors make four propositions, grounded in the literature on self-regulation. The propositions reflect a mechanism for teacher curricular decision-making. The self-regulation perspective also helps to develop more targeted support for science teachers aimed at the uptake, adaptation and enactment of curriculum materials in ways that are intended, and that teachers themselves experience as an improvement in their teaching. The authors conclude with a call for research that further explores the ways in which individual science teachers’ decision-making is situated within the wider sociocultural context.     

EXPLORING TEACHERS’ KNOWLEDGE AND PERCEPTIONS ACROSS MATHEMATICS AND SCIENCE THROUGH CONTENT-RICH LEARNING EXPERIENCES IN A PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT SETTING

This paper examines upper elementary and middle school teachers’ learning of mathematics and science content, how their perceptions of their disciplines and learning of that discipline developed through content-rich learning experiences, and the differences and commonalities of the teachers’ learning experiences relative to content domain. This work was situated within a larger professional development (PD) program that had multiple, long-term components. Participants’ growth occurred in 4 primary areas: knowledge of content, perceptions of the discipline, perceptions about the learning of the discipline, and perceptions regarding how students learn content. Findings suggest that when embedded within an effective professional development context, content can be a critical vehicle through which change can be made in teachers’ understandings and perceptions of mathematics and science. When participants in our study were able to move beyond their internal conflicts and misunderstandings, they could expand their knowledge and perceptions of content and finally bridge to re-conceptualize how to teach that content. These findings further indicate that although teachers involved in both mathematics and science can benefit from similar overall PD structures, there are some unique challenges that need to be addressed for each particular discipline group. This study contributes to what we understand about teacher learning and change, as well as commonalities and differences between teachers’ learning of mathematics and science.     

The Role of Intuitive Rules in Science and Mathematics Education

During the last two decades many researchers in mathematics and science education have studied students’ conceptions and ways of reasoning in mathematics and science. Most of this research is content‐specific. It was found that students hold alternative ideas that are not always compatible with those accepted in science. It was suggested that in the process of learning science or mathematics, students should restructure their specific conceptions to make them conform to currently accepted scientific ideas. In our work in mathematics and science education it became apparent that some of the alternative conceptions in science and mathematics are based on the same intuitive rules. We have so far identified two such rules: “More of A, more of B”, and “Subdivision processes can always be repeated”. The first rule is reflected in subjects’ responses to many tasks, including all classical Piagetian conservation tasks (conservation of number, area, weight, volume, matter, etc.) in all tasks related to intensive quantities (density, temperature, concentration, etc.) and in all tasks related to infinite quantities. The second rule is observed in students’, preservice and inservice teachers’ responses to tasks related to successive division of material and geometrical objects and in seriation tasks. In this paper, we describe and discuss these rules and their relevance to science and mathematics education.     

《织造学》课程教学方法的探讨

《织造学》是纺织工程专业的一门核心专业课程,内容抽象,综合性和工程应用性强,要求学生能运用专业理论知识解决工程问题。教师在教学活动中应不断完善自己,及时更新和调整教学内容,在加强理论教学的同时,也要加强实践教学;通过引入多媒体等辅助手段,增强实验教学的可操作性;注意培养学生的专业能力和工程意识,引导学生增强专业兴趣。     

Student Preschool Teachers’ Experiences of Science and Its Role in Preschool

This article reports on student preschool teachers’ views of science and its role in preschool. Three cohorts of students have been given a written questionnaire with open-ended questions before and after a one-semester course including science (specifically Chemistry and Physics) in a 3.5-year preschool teacher programme in Sweden. The science content in the course is integrated with other subjects and lecturers with different subject backgrounds work together in forming an integrated and meaningful context. A phenomenographic qualitative analysis of responses to the questionnaires before and after the course is presented. The analysis indicated that many students equate science with biology (nature studies), and several did not adjust this view even though chemistry and physics were explicitly taught. Surprisingly few students were negative towards science, none after the course. However, several remain hesitantly positive. Most students described ‘what’ and ‘how’ perspectives of science, but few developed a synthesised view of science activities. However, there was a shift towards a more integrated perspective after the course. Also the quality and eloquence of the students’ responses were noticeably improved in responses given after the course. Prior expectations and implications of the results for preschool teacher education are discussed.     

Translating Current Science into Materials for High School via a Scientist–Teacher Partnership

Scientist-teacher partnerships are a unique form of professional development that can assist teachers in translating current science into classroom instruction by involving them in meaningful collaborations with university researchers. However, few reported models aim to directly alter science teachers’ practices by supporting them in the development of curriculum materials. This article reports on a multiple case study of seven high school science teachers who attended an ongoing scientist–teacher partnership professional development program at a major Southeastern research university. Our interest was to understand the capacity of this professional development program for supporting teachers in the transfer of personal learning experiences with advanced science content and skills into curriculum materials for high school students. Findings indicate that, regardless of their ultimate success constructing curriculum materials, all cases considered the research grounded professional development supports beneficial to their professional growth with the exception of collective participation. Additionally, the cases also described how supports such as professional recognition and transferability served as affordances to the process of constructing these materials. However, teachers identified multiple constraints, including personal learning barriers, their classroom context, and the cost associated with implementing some of their curriculum ideas. Results have direct implications for future research and the purposeful design of professional development experiences through scientist-teacher partnerships.     

Teaching science in primary schools: What knowledge do teachers need?

Several reviews on science education have lamented the lack of content knowledge of primary teachers and implied that improvements in this area would lead to better teaching and learning. Subject knowledge, however is a complex issue. What knowledge is required and how much? There is knowledge of the ‘content’ and the ‘processes’ of science. An elusive but essential third component has been described as syntactic (Grossman, Wilson &; Shulman, 1989), experiential (Burnard, 1986) or personal knowledge. This paper argues that it is unrealistic to consider the implementation of pre-service primary science courses that will provide potential teachers with all the ‘knowledge’ that they will require to be an effective teacher of science. Science educators, can however, provide effective frameworks from which pre-service students can identify and develop their existing knowledge. If teachers of science have their knowledge of science set within a personal view of science the potential exists for their school science programs to be more comprehensive, dynamic, relevant and contemporary. One perspective that could provide this framework is that offered by ‘Science, Technology and Society’ (S-T-S).     

STEMulate Engineering Academy: Engaging Students and Teachers in Engineering Practices

Informal science opportunities provide authentic experiences to stimulate students’ interests in science and engineering and foster their curiosity through problem-based investigations. STEMulate Engineering Academy was designed to provide children (Grades 3–5) engineering opportunities and offer teachers a unique professional development experience. The program serves as a practicum experience for teachers seeking a gifted and talented add-on license and the camp also offers free professional development to area teachers. Using a co-teaching approach, students gained firsthand experiences from an engineer in the field, and teachers collaborated with engineers to make the content more relevant. Despite a limited number of contact hours, students and teachers demonstrated growth on pre and post engineering assessments. Informal learning opportunities provided by programs such as STEMulate Engineering Academy could possibly spark student interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM)––leading them to a promising career in a STEM field.     

Narrative Pedagogies in Science, Mathematics and Technology

Despite years of research, there remains serious concern regarding the engagement of students in science, mathematics and technology education. In this paper, the authors explore how narrative pedagogies are used in science, mathematics and technology in order to make the subjects meaningful. The paper focuses specifically on the role and aesthetic nature of narrative as a pedagogical approach in these school subjects and between school sectors. Case study methodology was used to compare the findings of two independent studies investigating the role of narrative-based pedagogies in mathematics and science (first author) and technology (second author). Based on this comparison, this paper proposes two perspectives on narrative-based pedagogies that deal with the connection of students with the subject: inward-looking that situated the learner within the story generated around artefact creation, and outward-looking that situated the stories of the content into students’ lifeworlds. The use of this comparative lens enabled a higher level of analysis that could not have been achieved by each research programme, generating a broader narrative that provided deeper insight into the teaching and learning experience.