IBSE Final

52 NaTIoNal SCIENCE TEaChERS aSSoCIaTIoN

Chapter 3 The Science Curriculum and Classroom Instruction

them. Instead, the broader concept of interaction does apply as an explanatory

concept for all these areas, and this concept therefore plays the central role in the

SCIS program. (Karplus 1971)

In this quotation, Karplus identifies a point that I believe is essential to

curriculum and instruction. Students should have deep experiences with funda-

mental, explanatory concepts. What many students often get in school science

is even worse—they have shallow experiences with insignificant topics. This

quote from Karplus demonstrates deep educational thinking about scientific

understanding, which is different from scientific thinking about educational

understanding.

In the second guideline, Karplus argued for using different theories of

learning (such as conditioning, discovery, and equilibration) in the construc-

tion of curricula. Here, Karplus made explicit the role of learning theories and

their appropriate use in curriculum and instruction. One could argue that this

guideline expresses common sense more than scientific and educational insight.

However, the most cursory review of many school curricula and science instruc-

tion will reveal a failure to recognize the assumptions about learning that

underlie the program.

In the third guideline, Karplus synthesized the insights from his first and

second guidelines, which suggested the need to establish a relationship between

students’ experiences and science concepts and apply theories of learning and

development to instruction. The synthesis became one of the major contri-

butions to science curriculum and instruction—the SCIS learning cycle. The

SCIS curriculum developers designed instructional units based on a learning

cycle. The original learning cycle consisted of three phases: exploration, refer-

ring to self-directed investigations; invention, referring to the introduction of

a new concept; and discovery, referring to the application of the same concept

in a variety of situations. The following is an extended summary of the SCIS

learning cycle.

During exploration, the students gain experience with the environment—they

learn through their own actions and reactions in a new situation. In this phase,

they explore new materials and new ideas with minimal guidance or expectation

of specific accomplishments. The new experience should raise questions or

complexities that they cannot resolve with their accustomed patterns of reasoning.

... As a result, mental disequilibrium will occur and the students will be ready

for self-regulation. ... The second phase, concept introduction, provides social

transmission—it starts with the definition of a new concept or principle that

helps the students apply a new pattern of reasoning to their experiences. ...

The concept may be introduced by the teacher, a textbook, a film, or another