Curriculum Implementation in Science Education
Rudduck and Kelly (1976) defined implementation as the process of moving from theory to practice – using ideas and materials in practice.
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15. CURRICULUM IMPLEMENTATION IN SCIENCE EDUCATION
Rudduck and Kelly (1976) defined implementation as the process of moving from theory to practice – using ideas and materials in practice. Science educators and researchers suggest that in order to implement science curricula in upper secondary schools, several factors must be considered, e.g., the students’ cognitive and affective aspects, the science content, cultural aspects, teachers’ beliefs, school administration, preparation and professional development of science teachers and/ or guidance of teachers in schools, and the assessment of students’ achievements. However, teachers are the key components in implementing any curriculum, and therefore, extensive, dynamic, and long-term professional development of science teachers should take place. This is thought to be one of the best ways of overcoming the teachers’ anxiety regarding implementing a new curriculum. This chapter will deal with the problems and issues related to the implementation of science curricula in high schools by providing a theoretical framework that will involve the following: resource materials, models of teachers’ professional development, students’ needs, and assessment issues. RESOURCE MATERIALS
Science educators hold different opinions regarding the variety of students’ ideas elicited during teaching. Some educators regard them as barriers to the process of learning and therefore, design strategies to eliminate them, whereas others regard them as repertoires and as an essential and useful resource enabling students to build on their experience and intuitions. Therefore, the curricular goals, the teaching strategies, and the assessment tools differ in these approaches (Eylon & Hofstein, 2015). During the 1960s and 70s, many reforms took place in pre-university science education worldwide. At the beginning of the reform in science education, more than sixty-five years ago, Jerome Bruner (1959) emphasized an idea that had begun to be used during that time by members of the science education community – the importance of effective implementation. He argued that teaching has to be carried out in such a way that it would represent “the structure of the discipline” integrated with an introduction to the discipline’s concepts and its specific facts. “The structure of the discipline” was defined as a system of meta-principles around which the K. S. Taber & B. Akpan (Eds.), Science Education, 199–210. © 2017 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved.
R. MAMLOK-NAAMAN
knowledge is organized. Bruner pointed out that some of these principles relate to disciplinary content knowledge and some relate to research methods. He explained that emphasizing the “structure of the discipline” in one’s teaching is necessary for two reasons: (1) it enhances students’ understanding of the conceptual essence (the nature) of the discipline and (2) it has pedagogical advantages, e.g., making information more understandable and more suitable for students’ long-term memory. In addition, the goals of the reform were str
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