IBSE Final

28 NaTIoNal SCIENCE TEaChERS aSSoCIaTIoN

Chapter 1 The Teaching of Science: Contemporary Challenges

medium expectations. The OECD average for high occupational expectations

was 47%. As with degree expectations, U.S. students with high job expecta-

tions scored higher on the mathematics literacy scale than their U.S. peers

with lower expectations. However, they scored lower than the OECD average

in mathematics literacy for students with high job expectations.

These data showing comparably low scores on reading, mathematics, and

problem solving contrasted with high educational and occupational expectations

should be cause for concern, if not alarm. We have to not only increase perfor-

mance in reading, mathematics, problem solving, and (I would add) science but

also establish accurate and reasonable expectations for education and careers.

Perhaps the most educationally significant insight to be gained from PISA

emerges from the difference between TIMSS and PISA. The difference I refer

to is the orientation or emphasis of respective assessment. TIMSS is grounded

in the curriculum and provides feedback for how students are attaining what

is intended and enacted vis-à-vis a country’s curriculum. Although it does not

ignore school curriculum, PISA asks how well students can apply their knowl-

edge in real-world situations. Lower scores on PISA suggest that our students

do not do as well as the majority of our economic competitors when they have

to demonstrate basic skills in solving contextual problems. This should be a

concern for policy makers and educators alike.

The evidence indicates that our students perform reasonably well on

curriculum-based assessments. (Some would question even this.) But our

students do not perform very well on context-based assessments, especially

those involving content knowledge and basic skills associated with economic

productivity.

PISA provides a beneficial perspective, one that complements that of NAEP

and TIMSS and that U.S. educators should take seriously when developing

reviews and reforms of school curricula and instruction.

Concluding Discussion

In this chapter, I introduced the instructional core as the central focus of discus-

sion in the book. Improving student learning at the instructional core involves

raising the level of content that students are taught, increasing the skills and

knowledge of teachers, and increasing the level of students’ actual learning.

I also described five themes—achieving scientific literacy, reforming science

programs, teaching science as inquiry, improving teachers’ knowledge and

skills through professional development, and attaining higher levels of student

achievement—that all relate directly to both the instructional core and the unity

of the topics presented in the following chapters.