The Development of a Curriculum Toolkit with American Indian and Alaska Native Communities

This article explains the creation of the Growing and Learning with Young Native Children curriculum toolkit. The curriculum toolkit was designed to give American Indian and Alaska Native early childhood educators who work in a variety of settings the framework for developing a research-based, developmentally appropriate, tribally specific curriculum to use with Native children aged 0–3. The curriculum toolkit should assist Native people in preserving and maintaining their unique culture and language. Challenges specific to the implementation of an early childhood program in Indian Country have been explained. A brief historical overview of Indian education has been included. The contents of this article were developed under Grant #P116Z05-0056 from the US Department of Education. However, the contents do not necessarily represent the policy of the US Department of Education and the reader should not assume endorsement by the Federal Government.     

Effects of active‐learning experiences on achievement,attitudes, and behaviors in high school biology

Active‐learning labs for two topics in high school biology were developed through the collaboration of high school teachers and university faculty and staff and were administered to 408 high school students in six classrooms. The content of instruction and testing was guided by State of Texas science objectives. Detailed teacher records describing daily classroom activities were used to operationalize two types of instruction: active learning, which used the labs; and traditional, which used the teaching resources ordinarily available to the teacher. Teacher records indicated that they used less independent work and fewer worksheets, and more collaborative and lab‐based activities, with active‐learning labs compared to traditional instruction. In‐class test data show that students gained significantly more content knowledge and knowledge of process skills using the labs compared to traditional instruction. Questionnaire data revealed that students perceived greater learning gains after completing the labs compared to covering the same content through traditional methods. An independent questionnaire administered to a larger sample of teachers who used the lab‐based curriculum indicated that they perceived changing their behaviors as intended by the student‐centered principles of the labs. The major implication of this study is that active‐learning–based laboratory units designed and developed collaboratively by high school teachers and university faculty, and then used by high school teachers in their classrooms, can lead to increased use of student‐centered instructional practices as well as enhanced content knowledge and process learning for students. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 44: 960–979, 2007