IBSE Final

Chapter 3 The Science Curriculum and Classroom Instruction

tHE tEACHING OF SCIENCE: 21 st-CENTURY PERSPECTIVES 63

• Science teachers can learn strategies that help improve curriculum and

instruction.

I propose that professional development (i.e., communication) might take

the same form as the responses to similar problems for student learning. First, it

may be useful to use an instructional model for the introduction of a new curric-

ulum. Second, we need to provide experiences and opportunities for science

teachers to develop a foundation of knowledge. At this stage, some attention

should be directed to the frameworks for curriculum and instruction and appli-

cations for the classroom.

Finally, a deep and thorough analysis of instructional materials provides

professional development experiences that help science teachers develop insights

about curriculum and instruction and acquire strategies that will improve their

understanding and use of curriculum materials and instructional models (see

Table 3.5, p. 64).

Concluding Discussion

Robert Karplus joined a generation of scientists who provided leadership in

curriculum reform. They changed the future of curriculum and instruction.

Indeed, the ideas of Robert Karplus, perhaps more than anyone else, presented

a fundamental shift in the design of instructional materials for elementary

school science. Other contemporaries, such as Robert Gagne, applied learning

theory to the design of Science: A Process Approach, and David Hawkins did so

in Elementary Science Study. The ideas in SCIS have persisted for more than 40

years and influenced other programs such as elementary, middle, and high

school programs at BSCS.

The shift in curriculum and instruction was fundamental. First, curriculum

development became a specialized work of groups such as Lawrence Hall of

Science (LHS), the Educational Development Center (EDC), and the Biological

Sciences Curriculum Study (BSCS). Science teachers no longer had to assume

the task of both developing curriculum materials and teaching. They could

select the best materials and adapt those materials to their students’ unique

needs. Second, the implementation of curriculum materials became a central

means of educational reform. The educational community realized the central

role of instructional materials as a means of education reform. This, to my way

of thinking, keeps reform close to the instructional core and the needs of science

teachers, and at the heart of the teaching-learning process. Third, learning

theories became the basis for more systematic instruction. These theories were

applied through instructional models that were integral to the curriculum.

Let me characterize this change in our views of curriculum and instruction.

In 1903, Wilbur and Orville Wright made the first powered flight in a plane of