Teaching+Science+Fewer+Topics+May+Lead+to+deeper+Meaning

Summer 2003 | Volume **12** | Number **4** //Laura Varlas// Improving U.S. science education often seems to take a backseat to more high-profile education reforms, but provisions in No Child Left Behind (NCLB) should ensure that science classes may soon be getting closer scrutiny. “Currently, many states are not including science in their state assessments, or they're assessing it as a ‘low-stakes’ test, with high-stakes tests reserved for literacy and math,” says Mark Kaufman, director of the Eisenhower Regional Alliance for Math and Science Education. NCLB legislation requires that all states test students in science at least once during elementary, middle, and high school by the 2007–08 school year. By then, science teachers will already have had to prove that they're “highly qualified” to teach in the classroom, according to NCLB. Experts say that schools should start paying more attention to studies of U.S. science education that confirm the trends first highlighted by the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) in 1995 and 1999: students' science performance falters by the time they reach middle school and high school. “TIMSS has changed the conversation of science instruction,” says Kaufman. “The question of whether it's changed the way science actually happens in the classroom is a lot harder to answer.” When you take a closer look at U.S. classrooms, the problem is clear, say others. “Look at a middle school science program in, for example, Japan ,” says Joyce Tugel, science specialist at the Eisenhower Regional Alliance for Math and Science Education. “They cover around five major topics, when in the U.S., the average program covers about 15 topics.” Poorly organized science textbooks may be partly to blame for shallow coverage. The American Association for the Advancement of Science's (AAAS) Project 2061 gave science school texts low marks for failing to explain the scientific principles underlying the standards. As a result, some educators are moving away from textbooks and using new kit-based programs to teach science basics, especially at the elementary level. Such programs provide “a lot of guidance, a lot of teacher support, and the materials needed to conduct the kind of engagement with manipulatives and materials that is inherent to good science,” says Gary Appel of the North Central Eisenhower Mathematics and Science Consortium.
 * Science**
 * Teaching Science: Fewer Topics May Lead to Deeper Learning**

Rethinking Science Practices
Science teachers should also be considering new ways to gain professional development that supports inquiry-based, hands-on science that can engage students and improve their understanding of science concepts. Leon Lederman, a Nobel laureate in physics and founder of the Teachers Academy for Mathematics and Science in Chicago, conducts professional development for inner-city science teachers using hands-on curricula such as the TIMSS Teaching Integrated Math and Science program and the Encyclopedia Britannica-based Full Option Science System (FOSS) program. Lederman also places a trainer in the school to evaluate and support the teachers and help determine which topics need more development. There are other forms of support and professional development, too. Teacher collaboration, as used in the “lesson study” model in Japan, is an important factor in student achievement. In lesson study, teachers of the same grade or subject work together to identify a concept that's difficult to teach or hard for students to understand; the teachers then design, create, or redesign a lesson to best teach that concept. An evaluation of the lesson is the crucial final component of lesson study.

Forget the Formulas
“Defining and refining what is important and what is less important in science, so that we can focus on that which is important and teach it to some depth, is so critical,” says Appel. Identifying areas of science that are interesting and engaging for students, so that we don't continue to lose students, is also essential, he suggests. “Forget the formulas,” adds Lederman, referring to memorizing reams of science content. Instead, he says, give kids a sense of how scientists think. That will “do them good for all kinds of things—for employment, for making decisions as citizens in a democratic society. Should we do stem cell research? Are hybrid cars important? We want our high school graduates to be able to live in the 21st century, which is bound to be a century where technology use will explode.”