Junior high school science transformed: analysing a science curriculum policy change

In response to a governmental initiative associated with expanding the technological infrastructure of its economy, the Canadian province of Alberta undertook extensive revision of its secondary school science programme, starting in 1986. This paper is about the junior high school programme (Grades 7‐9, ages about 12‐15). The subject matter configuration was changed from a ‘layer‐cake’ design to a ‘coordinated’ design. The objectives were broadened to include three mandated curriculum emphases, distributed evenly across the 18 units of the three‐year programme. The paper examines these and other features of the development and implementation of this reasonably successful curriculum policy.     

Concept maps as a heuristic for science curriculum development: Toward improvement in process and product

This article outlines the use of concept maps as a tool for science curriculum development and discusses the changes that occur in the teacher's view of the curriculum with successive revisions of the maps. Although we have used concept mapping in curriculum development with teachers from grades 4–8, we describe in detail the maps created by sixth-grade teachers. We analyzed the maps using three criteria: hierarchical structure, progressive differentiation, and integrative reconciliation. Changes made to the maps during the revision process, including additions and deletions, show increased clarification of both the concepts to be learned and the connections between them. Consecutive map revisions show the development of a cohesive conceptual grade-six science curriculum. The use of concept maps can help science teachers develop science curriculum that is hierarchically arranged, integrated, and conceptually driven.     

The curriculum change process: Participants,strategies, and tactics

This investigation focuses on the participants, strategies, and tactics involved in the curriculum change process in higher education. Using the exploratory case study approach in three accredited graduate schools of business, the study identifies and describes the roles of two groups of participants: internals, (faculty, administration, students), and externals (trustees, alumni, community leaders, unions). Two basic strategies, the empirical rational and the power coercive, are found to be important approaches to curriculum change. A typology of factors is used to describe the specific methods used to implement (or resist) curriculum change. It was expected that the participants, strategies, and tactics involved in the curriculum change process in graduate schools of business would be unique. The findings suggest that strategies and tactics employed in higher education are quite similar to those employed in other organizations with respect to the process of change.     

Social control as a factor in science curriculum change

The contemporary school science curriculum may be regarded as the end‐product of a smooth evolutionary process or as the outcome of a series of decisions made by powerful individuals. The latter view is taken here and an attempt is made to interpret those decisions in terms of the vested interests of the decision makers. Attention is drawn to the need to scrutinize all proposals for science curriculum reform for underlying socio‐political motivation.     

基于工作过程的《室内环境检测》课程开发中的项目设计

本文分析了基于工作过程的《室内环境检测》课程开发中的项目设计。从项目设计体现工作逻辑主线,反映典型工作任务,基于完整的工作过程和项目编排模式多样化等四个方面进行了探讨。     

A process for curriculum change in engineering education

This paper identifies a process, developed in recent research, to provide curriculum leaders and policy-makers with a practical and flexible approach for designing and implementing curriculum. It is a changed way for bringing about change. Founded on sound principles of curriculum theorizing, it refines existing curriculum theory in higher education contexts and contributes to the ever-growing body of understanding on curriculum decision-making. A thorough investigation of the engineering education context, including the analysis of an engineering case study, was carried out to identify issues that impinge on curriculum decision-making, including the consideration of professional engineering needs, the social and economic pressures, institutional parameters and student factors. As no such systematic process currently existed for this context, the investigation also considered the curriculum and pedagogical theories that underpin the strategic and operational nature of bringing about curriculum change. The process represents a significant breakthrough in higher education faculties. It directs policy-makers to consider parameters in addition to those traditionally addressed. It recommends a holistic view of curriculum and suggests that there are explicit ramifications for the policies in faculties that govern how curriculum change takes place.     

The development of science process skills in authentic contexts

Instructional strategies and curriculum sequences aimed at teaching process skills have received considerable attention in science education. On the other hand, the teaching of domain-independent, context-free skills has been subject to criticism on the ground that important aspects of cognitive activities are functions of meaningful contexts. The intent of this study was to examine the development of integrated process skills in the context of open-inquiry laboratory sessions. The data-collection approach was qualitative and included videotapes of laboratory sessions, laboratory reports of students, and the reflective journals kept by the two teachers involved in the study. Forty-eight students from the Grade 11 introductory physics course, 29 students from the Grade 12 physics course, and 60 students from the Grade 8 general science course from an all-boys private school participated in the study. An interpretive research methodology was adopted for construction of meaning from the data. Students worked in collaborative groups during all of the open-inquiry laboratory sessions. Findings from the study indicate that students develop higher-order process skills through nontraditional laboratory experiences that provided the students with freedom to perform experiments of personal relevance in authentic contexts. Students learned to (a) identify and define pertinent variables, (b) interpret, transform, and analyze data, (c) plan and design an experiment, and (d) formulate hypotheses. Findings of this study suggest that process skills need not be taught separately. Integrated process skills develop gradually and reach a high level of sophistication when experiments are performed in meaningful context.     

The politics are personal: The Australian vs the Australian curriculum in history

This article reviews the relationship between the conservative newspaper The Australian and the development of a national history curriculum in Australia. The lead author surveyed the major Australian press in the five-year period between 2007 and 2012 and found clear patterns of difference between The Australian and other press outlets in relation to education in general and history curriculum in particular. Using Jonathan Haidt's five-point model of moral values, the article analyses the behaviour of the press in Australia in relation to history education as a feature of moral preferences. Extending from this analysis, it then highlights a number of cases of press campaigns in The Australian targeted against individuals including one academic involved in the development of a national curriculum. The article demonstrates that a culture of aggressive conservatism exercised in this Murdoch press outlet reaches beyond the field of conventional political debate to constitute a serious and concerning influence in the dynamics of curriculum policy development.     

Changing practice by changing practice: Toward more authentic science and science curriculum development

Recent policy documents from the Ontario Ministry of Education called for teachers to present a more authentic view of the nature of scientific practice at all levels of education. Sadly, this call for substantial curriculum change coincided with severe cuts in the education budget. The authors describe how two teachers collaborated with a university‐based researcher/teacher educator to design and implement more authentic science in a Grade 7 classroom. The ways in which the teachers changed their views about science and science teaching, the anxieties they experienced, and the institutional constraints that impacted on their practice are discussed, and some more general features of the action research experience are described. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 36: 521–539, 1999     

Bringing action research to the curriculum development process

As new communication technologies enter the classroom, teachers must attend to how digital platforms impact the interpersonal practices of teaching and learning. In this article, I study email exchanges with three of my students – Jorge, Adriana, and Jason – over the course of one year in an 11th-grade English class at River High School, a struggling American school subject to intervention for failing to meet the federal No Child Left Behind requirements. I ask several questions: what role does email play in my relationships with students; what does email reveal about the ideological content of my communication with students; and how could I use email transformatively? When I studied these email exchanges, I found that while email has the potential to transform literacy instruction, it can also perpetuate a poor student/teacher relationship and reproduce neoliberal narratives that narrowly imagine students as test-takers, workers, and consumers.     

The development and validation of a primary science curriculum delivery evaluation questionnaire

This study describes the processes involved in the development and statistical validation of a primary science curriculum delivery evaluation instrument, the Science Curriculum Implementation Questionnaire (SCIQ), used to identify factors influencing science programme delivery at the classroom and school level. The study begins by exploring the themes generated from several qualitative studies in the New Zealand context pertaining to the phenomenon of primary science delivery. Building on the findings from the qualitative studies, quantitative procedures used to develop and validate both a five‐scale, 35‐item SCIQ and a seven‐scale, 49‐item SCIQ are presented. Finally, current applications of the seven‐scale, 49‐item SCIQ as a foundation for data collection, staff discussion and collaborative decision‐making for the purpose of primary science delivery are briefly discussed.     

Social science, social relevance and the politics of educational development

This article raises some broad questions about the relevance of the current content and teaching methods in undergraduate social science generally. First, it examines critically the general teaching patterns which often stress the teaching of concepts, theory, history and techniques in isolation from current or historical problems. It next argues that our major methods of teaching—notably the lecture—contribute little to achieving the widely advertised pedagogic objectives of independent, critical thinking by students. Thirdly, it argues that we need to inject more relevance into the content of social science courses by shifting the emphasis towards a greater use of contemporary or historical problems or incidents as the starting point for the appreciation of theory and methods. It suggests that the teaching methods best suited to this are the various versions of the ‘case’ or ‘enquiry’ or ‘problem’ approach, which involve a more active participation by students in the process of learning, rather than their current passive role as consumers of teaching. Some illustrations of how this can be done are given. The article concludes by indicating some of the problems which are likely to be encountered in educational development of this kind. These problems are considered to be ‘political’ ones in that they involve a changed use and distribution of resources (of staff, students, times and buildings), which are likely to run counter to current systems of academic and institutional power, social organization, culture and ideology.     

Narrative in the science curriculum

Internationally, science curricula make specific demands on students for the achievement of some level of scientific literacy. The details of what this means, and how it is to be achieved, have often been left for the teacher to elaborate. This paper argues thatnarrative, as a valued component of scientific literacy, offers a structure that allows scientific concepts to be (1) more easily integrated into other conceptual understandings, (2) more easily recalled, (3) more easily ordered and structured in the mind, and (4) an important component of the what it means to be a Self. The paper ends with practical suggestions for the use of narratives in the science classroom. Specializations: language and science, science for nurses, narrative and science education.