JOURNAL OF CURRICULUM STUDIES (J.C.S.)
Year:2013 | Volume:7 | Issue:28|Papers Count:7

In this paper I present a model for understanding and implementing science curriculum design. Numerous factors influence what we wish to teach and how we teach. A number of these factors are in conflict, some are contested across interest groups, and some of our goals are constrained by resources. We may struggle to find a vision that is inspiring, acceptable and feasible within our contexts and constraints. I suggest in this paper, which draws on science curriculum research, values in education, and worldview, a way of reflecting on the complexity of issues that need to be considered in science curriculum design. Traditionally we have been concerned with improving students’ ability to learn, to produce results, and to demonstrate knowledge and skill. Have we paid enough attention to the human context and the consideration of science for purposes of harmony and openness? Is there an opportunity now to focus on the values inherent in science education? Could this be a central starting point worthy of both contested debate and deep caring for the significance of our learning?

The variations in institutional features of Pre-Service Programs are broad. A large scale USA project spanning 40 months and involving ten different Science/Mathematics Teacher Preparation Programs called Salish I, II, and III operated with major federal support and operated in one state for a fifteen year investigation. A final report by National Science Foundation (NSF) concluded that many new graduates from the over 1,250 institution in the USA that prepares science/math teachers are ill-prepared for teaching in the real classrooms (Salish 1, 1997). This paper focused on results from the most effective program in Salish as indicated by the new institutions who sought to expand their own teacher education program. The exemplary program consistently implements strategies as envisioned under the National Science Education Standards with regards to roles of teachers and students for effective teaching and learning. The major finding of the study is that the new teachers from the exemplary program are successful in preparing effective new science teachers who are generally resilient early constructivist teachers. This report touches on some of the institutional features of the exemplary Pre-Service program and the patterns of change regarding the Constructivist beliefs and practices of teachers, from student teaching through the first three years of teaching. It shares the instruments used, discusses implications of findings and provides suggestions for continued research.

This paper presents an overview of the philosophical assumptions supporting socially responsible education for sustainability and its links to ethical dilemma story pedagogy by exploring the underlying philosophy and presenting its practical applications in our research. Socially responsible education for sustainability aims at bringing together education for sustainability and education that promotes social responsibility by marrying traditional subject specific, content-based education with ethical considerations drawing on strategies from values education. Ethical dilemma stories have been successfully applied in values education for over forty years and have been shown by our research to be particularly suitable to address values and ethics in the context of science- and sustainability education. The integral philosophical framework employed in our research combines three types of ethics including: an ethic of fairness or justice, an ethic of care and an ethic of consequences. This integral approach seems to be particularly suitable for supporting pedagogies that use ethical dilemma stories to engage students deeply in reflection on their values and in collaborative exploration of ethical dilemmas. All three types of ethics are required if this type of values education is to be balanced. To illustrate further the applicability of this integral framework I provide a review of our research on this topic conducted over the past few years.

How can educational research enable future educational leaders to transform the educational policies and practices of their institutions in culturally inclusive ways? In addressing this question I draw on 20 years of experience mentoring postgraduate researchers in science and mathematics education from countries in Africa, Asia and the Pacific islands. A major challenge is to provide appropriate methods for intercultural research which address the key question of how to design culturally inclusive science education systems for preparing young people in ‘non-Western’ societies to enter the modern (globalising) world and, at the same time, respect, celebrate and grow their own local cultural capital. Exciting developments in contemporary qualitative research enable postgraduate researchers to use their own life-world experiences as a primary source of data for examining critically and creatively key philosophical and political assumptions underpinning teaching, curriculum and research practices in their own countries.

Constructive realism (CR) is an attempt to overcome the difficulties associated with naïve realism and radical constructivism. There are different versions for CR. In this paper, I defend a particular version of CR. Complexity of reality, on the one hand, and the impact of human mind, language, and culture, on the other, leads to the inevitable contribution of constructs in knowledge development. According to the CR, even if mental, linguistic and cultural side of constructs could not be avoided in principle, a certain proportion of reality-contact can be considered and defended for the constructs. In this sense, human mind and culture has a constitutive role to play in knowledge acquiring instead of being an innocent means in the process of acquiring knowledge. On the other hand, the role played by the reality in this process cannot be ignored because, according to the CR, knowledge consists after all of knowing 'something' in the real world. On the whole, taking into account both the constitutive role of mind and culture, on the one hand, and the inevitable role of the reality, on the other, shows the difference between the CR and pure realism, pure constructivism, and those versions of CR that do not take the constitutive role of mind into account.There are requirements for the CR in science education. First of all, there must be a constant caution for making sure that our scientific theories have caught the proportion of reality-contact. This point shows the difference between the CR and pure constructivism. This caution should be present in our science teaching as well. Secondly, we should encourage our students to develop imaginative alternative constructs when they are learning sciences. This shows the difference between the CR with naïve realists who ignore the importance of students' imaginations in suggesting alternative constructs. Notwithstanding, while we encourage the students to develop their imaginative constructs, there should be considered a limitation for their over-justification about their constructs. In this way, we as teachers should urge them to take counter-evidence most seriously into account. This is a point in which constructive realists are distinguished from pragmatists too. Pragmatists do not give up their theories in confrontation with counter-evidence but rather look for almost limitless changes in their constructs in order for making the counter-evidence compatible with their theories, whereas constructive realists will be ready to take counter-evidence more serious and correct their constructs accordingly.

This article focuses on the trends in eighth graders' science achievement as well as several students’ indicators and science teachers’ indicators among Muslim countries (and Armenia) which are located in the Middle East and North Africa and participated in TIMSS 1999, 2003 and 2007. In the present study, the mean of plausible values represents students' science achievement and Jackknife Repeated Replication method was used for the estimation of sampling error. There was a significant correlation between the average science performance of eighth graders in 12 countries and science self-concept, attitudes towards science, school connectedness, and school climate. In many of the countries under study, the correlation between science self-concept and science achievement for girls was higher than that of their male counterparts. Considering the trends across the countries which participated in two or three of TIMSS studies, the students' average science performance showed a trend towards improvement. The extent of improvement observed in Iranian students' achievement from 1999 to 2007 was less than that of four countries. Improvement in girls’ and boys' average performance indicates that improvement in girls' achievement was higher than that of boys. Trends in students' indicators showed that science self-concept has decreased, attitude towards science has increased and the two indexes of school connectedness and school climate have remained unchanged. Trends in teachers' indicators showed a trend toward improvement. If the trend in Iran's performance is compared with that of some more successful countries in the region, it becomes evident that improvement in Iranian students' achievement is less than that of their counterparts in several more successful countries in the region.

Science education has a special place in the school curriculum. This is more and less true in education systems throughout the world, including developed or developing countries, with the Islamic countries belonging almost invariably to the second category. All countries behave similarly with respect to technology education as well, only by neglecting this critical subject from their explicit curriculum. Such neglect, however, is more consequential in Islamic countries than developed countries since it will fuel the perpetuation of under developed status. The neglect, though, appears to be more intense in developed countries as well.The purpose of this article is to de-nullify technology education from the school curriculum, especially in the education system of Islamic countries. This is argued to be the most reassuring way to initiate gradual exit from the existing calamity such counties face. Technology education is recognized as catering to the competency of technological mentality or solving technological problems. To take this directive seriously, however, requires that fundamental differences between science and technology education be understood and that technology education be taken out of the shadow of science education in the school curriculum. The differences thus mentioned have been introduced in this article in eleven aspects, substantiating the claim that technology education deserves a sovereign space in the curriculum. The author, then, takes a step further by discussing some rather significant strategies that would have to be enacted if the end of technology education is to be met with success.