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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Process
The research literature has demonstrated that there is considerable debate about what science processes are (for example, Fensham, 1992; Millar and Driver, 1987; Millar, 1991). Nevertheless, it is clear that science teachers value students being able to act upon content knowledge in ways that are commonly described as including such things as: hypothesising, observing, predicting, testing, etc. (viz scientific processes). In all of our interviews, the most common concern of science teachers was the lack of 'process' in the Science CSF document.
This perceived lack of process was of concern to science teachers because it caused them to feel as though the curriculum document itself was lacking in appropriate direction and therefore tended to undermine their confidence in the document which in turn influenced their interpretation of the documents' intention; both in terms of teaching and learning.
The science teachers we interviewed consistently criticized the CSF format because process had not been 'sufficiently highlighted'. They were disappointed with the approach of integration of process into each of the strands, as they perceived this as downgrading of the importance of particular process skills.
Warwick Process Science (1987) was a major curriculum package produced in the United Kingdom that, it could be argued, did the opposite to the CSF. It placed so much emphasis on process that it appeared as though the process itself was almost 'content-free' and therefore the importance of science knowledge was - for some - downgraded. As was the case with the Warwick Process Science package, so the CSF in highlighting some issues more than others has been interpreted by the end users of the curriculum (science teachers) as offering a less than full picture of the science curriculum.
As the curriculum writers reconsidered the value and impact of the CSF they too came to recognise that that the balance between content and process was a major area of concern and addressed it in the second version of the documents, CSF 2000. This recognition and response has been important as it illustrated clearly to science teachers that, finally, finding the appropriate balance between content and process is crucial to a science curriculum document being accepted as valid and useful to science teachers. However, it does cause one to wonder why in the first instance (CSF, 1995), despite the 'consultation process' that such an imbalance could be created. A lesson here is the need to ensure that consultation leads to classroom experts of science teaching and learning (science teachers) being 'heard' and that the reasons for their views be fully explored rather than simply dismissed or ignored. It is little wonder, in this case, that science teachers finally felt vindicated but remained frustrated at a process that chose not to act on the best available information at the time.