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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Implications
Clearly, the brief outline above using one example from one sub-strand is designed to demonstrate some of the possible tensions, difficulties and misunderstandings likely to exist for teachers through the prescription of science content and learning outcomes in the way described by the CSF - hence the terms innovation and curriculum reform become somewhat problematic.
Science teachers in Victorian schools have long been driven by a need to respond appropriately to the needs of the students and their particular context. Learning Outcomes per se could then be regarded as introducing a new constraint to teaching, limiting what might be possible by prescribing the extent to which learning only needed to be achieved rather than as a starting point to the development of understanding.
The final two years of secondary school already carry substantial limiting factors on teaching and learning as a consequence of their results being used for Tertiary Entrance. Hence, the curriculum in the final two years of schooling (Years 11 & 12) tends to be driven much more by assessment than in the previous year levels and perhaps approaches notions of prescribed learning in ways not quite so apparent in the previous 10 years of schooling. Therefore, as science teachers constantly noted, "We now see a similar curriculum control throughout the school system" as the Learning Outcomes as a measure of learning (assessment) begin to frame what will be done and to what extent.
This external constraint on science teachers' ability to shape the curriculum, teaching, learning and assessment for their students is then something that is obviously constraining for the professional pedagogue. Teaching to a prescription rather than from a framework changes the view and value of pedagogical knowledge. Considering all that we know about the process of change (Fullan, 1995, 1999; Fullan & Hargreaves, 1992; Senge et al., 1999) one could reasonably assume that these changes would have been introduced with all the appropriate support material and relevant teacher advice to ensure that the change would be well managed and that the philosophical underpinnings could be carefully articulated and explained.
The Teacher Course Advice was not ready for release until the end of the second year of implementation of the changes from the Frameworks document (previous less prescriptive curriculum format) to the new CSF. It is little wonder then that teachers question the curriculum intent when the implementation process does not adequately support the changes being sought.
Unfortunately in education it appears as though we do not seem to build on the knowledge we gain through our research and experience in (and of) schooling, but rather break down and rebuild in a cycle that is almost ignorant of previous gains and professional knowledge. At first glance, science teachers (without the support materials promised) questioned why after almost 20 years of developing a knowledge base about teaching for understanding in science and, knowing what we have learnt from research on a Children's Science perspective, a prescribed curriculum reverted to an approach to science teaching and learning that had been demonstrated to be less than helpful in the past.
Through the teacher interviews, these teachers' frustrations and concerns about curriculum change are now considered.