Designs for Science Literacy
Many educators are now familiar with Project 2061's publications Science
for All Americans and Benchmarks for Science Literacy. Science for
All Americans describes the knowledge and skills in science, mathematics,
and technology that are central to science literacy. Benchmarks provides
specific learning goals leading toward science literacy for students at specific
grade levels. Both documents have provoked important discussions, nationally
and locally, about what students should learn. But the documents do
not suggest how to reconfigure the entire K-12 curriculum to meet science
literacy goals.
Reforming the curriculum so that students achieve science literacy is a major
undertaking—one worthy of thoughtful design rather than hasty fixes.
To guide educators in these efforts, Project 2061 has developed Designs
for Science Literacy, a new print and CD-ROM tool. Designs deals
explicitly with strategies and techniques for aligning the entire K-12 curriculum
to specific learning goals such as Project 2061's benchmarks, national standards
in science and mathematics, or state and local frameworks. In doing so, it
addresses many of the considerations and constraints that attend curriculum
design.
Designs begins with a discussion of general design principles and how
they might relate to the curriculum. It then suggests ways to apply these
principles to the task of curriculum reform, with a focus on short-term improvements
while working toward broader and more lasting change.
Building National Goals into Local Curriculum
Curriculum change in schools is most often piecemeal, done separately for
different subjects and different grade ranges. How might a school district
go about designing a curriculum—the entire scope and sequence of subjects
and courses across all grades from kindergarten through high school? Designs
is intended to serve the diverse players involved in this task by:
- Offering a conceptual framework—and a computer tool—that
educators can use to apply general design principles to their work on
the curriculum.
- Encouraging school systems to adopt a curriculum design process that
centers on learning goals; engages as many stakeholders as possible; takes
a systematic approach; and evaluates risks, benefits, and tradeoffs.
- Helping curriculum designers to consider the science, mathematics, and
technology components of the curriculum together and within the context
of the K-12 curriculum.
- Envisioning how a curriculum might be assembled from a pool of high-quality
instructional blocks of various sizes from week-long units to year-long
courses.
- Providing teacher educators with a resource for teaching the principles
of curriculum analysis and design as an essential part of pre-service
training.
- Enabling school districts to begin making changes in today's curriculum
that will provide a foundation for the curriculum of tomorrow. For example,
Designs discusses how to build local professional capacity, ways
to reduce the core content of the overstuffed curriculum, and ways to
enhance connections across subjects and grades.
In all cases, Designs encourages a deliberative, goals-based approach
to curriculum reform. While upholding ambitious learning goals nationwide,
Designs aims to encourage diverse curricula suited to the needs of
individual schools, communities, and students.
Designs is available in print form with a complementary CD-ROM. The
CD-ROM allows users to learn more about the concepts in the book, relate them
to their own curriculum, chart alternative K-12 designs, and make changes
to the curriculum design while keeping track of which learning goals it serves.
Based on feedback from educators, Project 2061 also intends to create an integrated
print/disk version of Designs. This will include a substantial database
of curriculum blocks that educators can assemble into a variety of curricula
that serve science literacy goals.
Excerpts from Chapter 7: Unburdening the Curriculum
Among the many recommendations for improving the coherence and effectiveness
of the K-12 curriculum, Designs for Science Literacy provides some
strategies for "reallocating time—time to focus on understanding
important facts, principles, and applications in science, mathematics, and
technology."
Order on-line through Oxford
University Press.
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