Curriculum Change in Science: Riding the Waves of Reform

Wallace, John W.; Louden, William

doi:10.1007/978-94-011-4940-2_27

Cited by 19 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…It was this governmental function that administered and forced the mandated changes in the interviewees' stories that took place in the 1980s and 1990s. Unsurprisingly, they occurred as part of global reforms of science education in US and Western Europe, emphasising the notion that individual students are constructors of their own scientific knowledge, and shifting the focus from science as relevant knowledge to science as imperfect knowledge (Dresler & Levinger-Dresler, 1997;Wallace & Louden, 1998).…”

Section: Contextmentioning

confidence: 98%

Imposed school change and women teachers’ self-renewal: a new insight on successful implementation of changes in schools

Oplatka¹

2005

School Leadership & Management

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Section: Contextmentioning

confidence: 98%

Imposed school change and women teachers’ self-renewal: a new insight on successful implementation of changes in schools

Oplatka¹

2005

School Leadership & Management

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“…student understanding of important science concepts. However, in spite of efforts to support teachers in making instructional changes, these methods remain challenging for teachers to learn and enact (Borko & Putnam, 1996;Wallace & Louden, 1998). In addition, current reforms are being attempted at state and district levels.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Enacting reform‐based science materials: The range of teacher enactments in reform classrooms

2005

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To promote large-scale science education reform, developers must create innovations that teachers can use to learn and enact new practices. As part of an urban systemic reform effort, science materials were designed to reflect desired reforms and to support teacher thinking by addressing necessary content, pedagogy, and pedagogical content knowledge for teachers. The goal of this research was to describe teachers' enactments in comparison to reform as instantiated in the materials. Four middle school teachers' initial enactment of an inquiry-based science unit on force and motion were analyzed. Findings indicate two teachers' enactments were consistent with intentions and two teachers' enactments were not. However, enactment ratings for the first two were less reflective of curriculum intent when challenges were greatest, such as when teachers attempted to present challenging science ideas, respond to students' ideas, structure investigations, guide small-group discussions, or make adaptations. Overall, findings suggest that purposefully using materials with detailed lesson descriptions and specific, consistent supports for teacher thinking can help teachers with enactment. However, materials alone are not sufficient; reform efforts must include professional development and efforts to create systemic change in context and policy to support teacher learning and classroom enactment. ß 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 42: 2005 To promote goals established for student learning, reform efforts in science education have focused attention on classrooms and how teachers can improve their instructional practices. Reformers encourage teachers to use inquiry supported by use of technology tools to promote Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. More information about this work, including the curriculum materials ''Why do I need to wear a bike helmet?'' used in this study, can be obtained from our project's website

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“…In the case of Western Australian physics education, however, the reforms have been more recent. This paper represents part of an ongoing study of physics education in Western Australia, which began in the mid-1990s (Wallace and Louden 1998, Wildy and Wallace 1994, 1995. At that time, the Western Australian Secondary Education Authority (since subsumed by the Western Australian Curriculum Council) had initiated significant changes in the Western Australian physics syllabus, which sought to make it more relevant to student needs and aspirations, and included a strong emphasis on teaching physics in context.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Teaching for understanding and/or teaching for the examination in high school physics

Geelan

Wildy

Louden

et al. 2004

International Journal of Science Education

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Literature on the related notions of 'teaching for understanding' and 'exemplary teaching' tends to be interpreted as prescribing certain classroom approaches. These are usually the strategies often identified with constructivist teaching, which involve a redefinition of the teacher's role: rather than being seen as a source of knowledge and control, the teacher is described as the facilitator of a largely student-directed search for understanding. More 'transmissive', teacher-centred approaches are held to lead to poor student understanding, low cognitive engagement and rote learning. This paper reports a case study of physics teaching in a government high school in Perth, Western Australia. This case study is part of a larger project spanning 5 years and eight case investigations in Perth schools. While the pedagogical style of the teacher studied could be labelled as 'transmissive', we tentatively assert that his practice exemplified high-quality physics teaching and led to high-quality understanding on the part of the students. The study suggests that prescriptions for quality teaching must be sensitive to issues of context and content, and that further study in a variety of school contexts is required to expand our understanding of what constitutes good teaching and learning in physics.

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Curriculum Change in Science: Riding the Waves of Reform

Cited by 19 publications

References 30 publications

Imposed school change and women teachers’ self-renewal: a new insight on successful implementation of changes in schools

Imposed school change and women teachers’ self-renewal: a new insight on successful implementation of changes in schools

Enacting reform‐based science materials: The range of teacher enactments in reform classrooms

Teaching for understanding and/or teaching for the examination in high school physics

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