IBSE Final

Chapter 2 The Teaching of Science Content

tHE tEACHING OF SCIENCE: 21 st-CENTURY PERSPECTIVES 35

and their science departments are encouraged to follow the same sequence,

the collective result will be improved instruction and a curriculum leading to

higher levels of student achievement.

I take the position that the nature of modern science today can only be achieved if

we prepare students in the fundamentals of the science disciplines that are most

efficiently taught in a 6-year specific sequence in traditional, largely discipline-

based courses. (Bardeen and Lederman mention this as an alternative approach.)

Early introduction of the most central concepts is needed, and instruction should

focus on the essential core content of science. After all, the many scientists who

so enthusiastically endorse the approach called for by Bardeen and Lederman

arrived at this “higher” conceptual perspective through traditional, discipline-

based instruction. (Bardeen and Lederman 1998, p. 179)

These different perspectives can be and have been resolved in various ways

over the years. Unfortunately, the conflicts over content have, in some cases,

taken a course that is less than civil (Olson 1998; Bass 1998) and often relates to

documents such as the standards (Metzenberg 1998). I mention the conflicts over

the content of science teaching because they are realities of our age. In the early

21st century, science teachers must be prepared for conflicts by understanding

the role and place of content, such as that proposed in the standards, and recog-

nize the political aspects of curriculum reform.

Coherence and the Science Curriculum

Current discussions of coherence provide a contemporary perspective of

Brandwein’s theme of structure. To be specific, structure refers to a curriculum

framework in which the major conceptual schemes were, for example, restated

in seven levels generally aligned with grade levels in elementary school and

progressed from kindergarten through sixth grade. This suggests that one level

precedes the next so the students develop greater understanding. Brandwein

developed structures for the elementary and junior high school levels and

proposed that these curricular structures would provide a basis for comprehen-

sion of the more sophisticated conceptual schemes in Table 2.1 (pp. 36–37).

In the decades since Brandwein’s discussions of curricular structure, many

science programs have lost sight of the idea of a clear and consistent curricular

structure based on conceptual schemes. Instead, we have curricular conglomer-

ates based on a mix-and-match array of activities that lack conceptual coherence

of clear progressions of learning outcomes. We now hear criticism of the curric-

ulum based on a lack of coherence, and we hear about the results of incoherent

science programs with each international assessment of student achievement

(Schmidt et al. 2001).