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WCER Today

March 2009

IN THIS ISSUE

Feature Story: How Science Teachers Enact the Curriculum

Research Notes:

• Enhancing Students' Discussion Skills
• A Case Study of Interim Assessments
• Studies Discuss Managing Human Capital
• Collaboration Seeks to Guide Education Initiative

Feature Story

How Science Teachers Enact the Curriculum

NScientific knowledge seems to grow at an exponential rate. The sheer amount of data and knowledge and understanding of the world and of the universe keeps growing. That’s obvious. But less obvious is the fact that approaches to science education also change over time.

Of course science education still involves teaching students about the current scientific knowledge base. But another part of science education receiving attention is teacher-facilitated inquiry—that is, helping students learn how to ask a scientific question, how to pursue that question through a series of activities, and how to make activities and data sources cohere.

When science teachers adopt innovative curricula, it’s important that they structure students’ activities as a unit, rather than as a set of linear, discrete events. That’s because students learn with deeper understanding when the teacher has woven the concepts and activities into a coherent whole. Recent research by UW-Madison education professor Sadhana Puntambekar has helped to pinpoint how that’s done, and how science teachers effectively facilitate classroom discussion.

Coherent presentation of activities in a science unit is especially critical when students use a variety of information resources—for example, books, CD-ROMs, and hypertext systems—along with their hands-on activities. Students need teacher help, or scaffolding, as they work to make sense of all the available information.

When given an information source for a task or set of tasks, students often think they are merely to find the “right” answer instead of thinking about how the information will help them in their projects. Effective science teachers know how to structure classroom activities and interactions so that they help students take this additional step.

Puntambekar studies the ways middle school science teachers enact the curriculum. In a recent study, she compared two teachers’ approaches to enacting an inquiry curriculum. Both teachers taught a unit on simple machines using an approach to science education called CoMPASS. CoMPASS consists of a computer hypertext system and accompanying science curriculum modules based on the pedagogical principles of learning by design. Learning by design emphasizes the value of learning through creating, programming, or participating in other forms of design. The approach values both the process of learning and its outcomes or products.

Read the full article here.

Research Notes

Enhancing Students' Discussion Skills

Education reform aims to promote learner-centered classrooms and students’ construction of knowledge. A respectful classroom environment enables students to help lead discussions and to evaluate and set the direction of classroom discourse. Mitchell Nathan and colleagues compared the structure of discussions in a middle school math classroom before and after the teacher participated in professional development activities aimed at enhancing students’ participation and the co-construction of mathematical ideas. The study found changes in the role of teacher and students, and increases in student-directed discussions. Read the Working Paper here.

A Case Study of Interim Assessments

Interim assessments, also called benchmark assessments, are standardized tests administered to students on a scale larger than the classroom, usually district wide. They provide a measurement of student achievement and gaps in student knowledge prior to a final assessment at the end of the school year. They test a slice of the curriculum that is narrower than the state assessment, but broader than a classroom assessment. They may serve any of three purposes:  instructional, evaluative, or predictive. Interim assessments have become prevalent in large urban school districts including Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, and Philadelphia. Read about the effectiveness and limitations of one school district that implemented a well crafted system of quarterly assessments 2004-07. Read the Working Paper here.

Studies Discuss Managing Human Capital

Researchers in WCER’s Strategic Management of Human Capital project published 17 papers last year. Topics include new teacher pay structures, the New Teacher Project, and Teach For America, along with detailed studies of human capital management in Boston, New York, Chicago, Long Beach, and Fairfax County. All are available in the Resources section of the SMHC Web site.

Collaboration Seeks to Guide Education Initiative

For the past 3 years WCER staff have been evaluating the scope, reach, and impact of the Chicago Community Trust’s Education Initiative. The Chicago Community Trust works to improve educational outcomes primarily in the City of Chicago and Cook County, Ill. Its Education Initiative works to:

• Develop high performing elementary schools in all neighborhoods by strengthening curriculum and instruction in key content areas: literacy, math/science, arts, multilingual learning, and social studies;
• Strengthen and develop leadership in education; and
• Sustain and strengthen innovation.

The WCER evaluation team is working with CCT program officers to develop a long-range evaluation plan based on new logic models and performance indicators. The plan will help guide the program, assess impacts of grant funding, and synthesize results across program areas.

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Part of the School of Education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the 44-year-old Wisconsin Center for Education Research receives funding from the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Education, and private foundations. http://www.wcer.wisc.edu

Contact the editor: pbaker@wisc.edu