IBSE Final

2 NaTIoNal SCIENCE TEaChERS aSSoCIaTIoN

Chapter 1 The Teaching of Science: Contemporary Challenges

By “the core of educational practice,” I mean how teachers understand the

nature of knowledge and their students’ role in learning, and how these ideas

about knowledge and learning are manifest in teaching and class work. The

“core” also includes structural arrangements of schools, such as the physical

layouts of classrooms, student grouping practices, teachers’ responsibilities for

groups of students, and relations among teachers in their work with students,

as well as processes for assessing student learning and communicating it

to students, teachers, parents, administrators, and other interested parties.

(Elmore 2004, p. 8)

Several features of this quotation are critical for science teachers. First,

Elmore cites the importance of teachers’ understanding the nature of scientific

knowledge and their students’ roles in learning science. This feature centers on

the science teacher and has direct implications for professional development.

Second, he underscores how ideas about scientific knowledge and students’

learning of science are realized in the classroom. I translate this to the traditional

categories of curriculum and instruction. Third, he recognizes broader program-

matic and systemic factors such as classroom student grouping, teachers’

responsibilities and collegiality, and finally the process of assessment of student

learning. Certainly assessment will be on the teachers’ agenda for the foresee-

able future. The basic categories of the education core can be identified using the

traditional terms of curriculum, instruction, and assessment, with the underlying

foundations of student learning and the continuous professional development

of science teachers.

In 2009, Elmore again addressed this challenge in “Improving the Instruc-

tional Core” (2009). Although Elmore uses the word instructional (instead of

educational), this clear statement makes a fundamental point for this discussion.

There are only three ways to improve student learning at scale: You can raise the

level of content that students are taught. You can increase the skill and knowledge

that teachers bring to the teaching of that content. And you can increase the level

of students’ active learning of the content. (Elmore 2009, p. 249)

You can see that focusing on the instructional core recognizes the complex

and difficult work of science teaching and student learning. Put simply, the role

of science teaching is too important to avoid and too critical to misrepresent.

Figure 1.1 presents the instructional core.