IBSE Final

Chapter 1 The Teaching of Science: Contemporary Challenges

tHE tEACHING OF SCIENCE: 21 st-CENTURY PERSPECTIVES 19

Figure 1.3 Understandings About Scientific Inquiry • Scientists usually inquire about how physical, living, or designed systems function. • Conceptual principles and knowledge guide scientific inquires. • Scientists conduct investigations for a wide variety of reasons. • Scientists rely on technology to enhance the gathering and manipulation of data. • Mathematics is essential in scientific inquiry. • Scientific explanations must adhere to criteria such as the following: A proposed explanation must be logically consistent, abide by the rules of evidence, be open to questions and possible modification, and be based on historical and current scientific knowledge. • Results of scientific inquiry—new knowledge and methods—emerge from different types of investigations and public communication among scientists. In communicating and defending the results of scientific inquiry, arguments must be logical and demonstrate connections between natural phenomena, investigations, and the historical body of scientific knowledge. In addition, the methods and procedures that scientists used to obtain evidence must be closely reported to enhance opportunities for further investigation.

Inquiry and Assessment

Right behind the common standards movement is a related increase in state-

wide testing. Federal and state agencies began to ask for evidence that students

were meeting the standards that they had set; they began to ask for evidence

of learning. Consequently, curriculum materials must provide students with

opportunities for learning that could translate into higher achievement, such

as test scores. Although materials could not and will not cover all the specific

concepts and content included on every state test in science, curriculum devel-

oped in line with the standards will provide a solid foundation of knowledge that

should serve students well on any well-conceived and well-developed assess-

ment. Instructional materials that focus on content as articulated in the stan-

dards, present that content in a coherent framework, promote critical-thinking

skills, give students exposure to the major concepts in science, and provide them

with strategies for organizing and monitoring their own learning should help

students perform better on local, state, national, and international assessments.

Also of importance is the awareness that such testing in science covers all the

disciplines of science, not just the life sciences, which in the recent past has been

the discipline of science to which most high schools students have exposure

(Blank and Langesen 2001).

A valuable resource for leaders is Inquiry and the National Science Education

Standards (NRC 2000). This guide for teaching and learning contains discus-

sions of inquiry as it is described in the standards and applied in classrooms. It