Curriculum change in science teaching: the need to listen to teachers

Asia-Pacific Forum on Science Learning and Teaching, Volume 2, Issue 1, Article 1 (Jun., 2001)
Amanda Berry and John Loughran
Curriculum change in science teaching: the need to listen to teachers

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Introduction
For at least the last 20 years, Secondary Schools in Victoria, Australia, have been involved in genuine school-based curriculum development. It has been a long held approach to curriculum planning and development that the teachers within a school generally organised the curriculum in ways that they considered appropriate for the needs of their students. Therefore, in most cases, the science curriculum at a given school would be organised according to the teachers' (within the science department) understanding of content development and progression, and appropriate pedagogy. This planning occurred within a loose framework whereby some reference to the central bureaucracy (Department of Education) influenced the curriculum but it was more in terms of the philosophy underpinning science teaching rather than the actual content at particular year levels.
In 1987 a Science Frameworks document was developed which was based on a Children's Science approach (Driver, 1983; Driver, Guesne and Tiberghien, 1985; Gunstone, 1990; Osborne and Freyberg, 1985) to the teaching and learning of science. In this document, science teachers were encouraged to consider the development of schools' science curricula from four interrelated perspectives. These perspectives were: Science Knowledge and Skills, Science Technology, Science and Society, Science as Personal Development. These four areas of the curriculum were meant to inform science teachers about the perspectives necessary to influence the formulation of the teaching and learning of science in their schools. The intention was that the Frameworks offered a science platform comprising:

1. The Kind of Science: Science for All

All students should study science, and gain value from their studies. The goals, methods and content of science education should provide for the needs and progress of all students.

Science education should be concerned with environmental management and the survival quality of life for all.

2. Goals: Science, Technology, Society and Personal Development

Scientific knowledge, the solution of practical problems, the cultural and human context of science, and opportunities for personal development are four aspects of science. They should be given similar emphasis at all levels of schooling, and should be integrated in their presentation.

3. Learning and Teaching: Children's Science - Beginning from Children's Perceptions

Children (and adults!), by nature, are theorists and problem-solvers, keen to explain and interpret their experiences, to resolve issues they see as important, and to design and build. They bring their perceptions and beliefs to the learning situation.

Children, as experienced problem-solvers, have their own strategies for learning and solving problems.

Science teaching should identify, begin from, and build on the strategies, interests, beliefs and explanations that children bring to the classroom.

4. The Role of Teachers: Teacher Development and Curriculum Development

The development of both curriculum and teachers' skills in course design and implementation should occur together. Each must be allowed for in planning science education and curriculum revision.

5. Curriculum Content: Sampling Scientific Knowledge

Any school can only teach a sample of all the knowledge, skills and experiences related to science. The sample should vary from one school to another, depending on local resources, interests and needs. It should include learning selected from the broad range of scientific disciplines.

Students should truly engage a limited number of ideas rather than seek universal coverage with superficial understanding and application.

Students must have opportunities to feel that they are succeeding, to explore and reflect on their understanding and skills, and use them in a variety of contexts. This takes time, and limits the number of topics that can be covered. (Science Frameworks, 1987, p.9)

...Behind the Platform is a view of education as a process of personal growth, of progress towards particular learning goals. According to this view, all students are educable, and educational success depends on the extent of progress - what the learner knows and can do now compared to before the learning. Teaching is successful if the increments of learning are large, unsuccessful if zero, miseducative if they are negative. (Science Frameworks, 1987, p. 24 - 25)

It was envisaged then that science teachers would develop their Units of work, and their individual lessons, in a manner consistent with the Frameworks document. However, like many of the curriculum documents which preceded the Frameworks, the fact that teachers were not necessarily 'obligated' to incorporate this approach into their teaching inevitably meant that there was a diverse response to the way in which the Frameworks impacted on practice across schools. This range could be described as a continuum from no/little impact (where in some cases, teachers reported that the Frameworks document was never sighted in a school) through to full incorporation whereby the philosophy and foundation principles dramatically influenced the science curricula in the manner initially intended by the Frameworks developers. However, there appeared to be no discernible pattern or relationship between the degree of incorporation and the type of school.
The introduction of the Curriculum and Standards Framework (CSF) in 1995 dramatically changed this approach to science curricula, teaching and learning.