Strategies for ScienceThe Executive Directorof the National ScienceTeachers Associationsuggests ways tomake large-scaleimprovements toscience education.

Gerald F Wheeler

an economic and techno-logical leader in a globalmarketplace relies onhow well that nation

educates its students in science, tech-nology, engineering, and math. In theUnited States, the National ScienceEducation Standards (National ResearchCouncil, 1996) and BenchmarksforScience Literacy (American Associationfor the Advancement of Science, 1993)describe the knowledge and skillsstudents need in a society dependenton science and technology. States anddistricts have modeled their own stan-dards on these national documents,and stakeholders at every level arestruggling to evaluate, modify, anddevelop assessments, curriculums, andinstructional materials to reflect thisvision of science literacy Moving thatvision into the classroom, however,depends on the competence of scienceteachers.

Several studies reveal a positivecorrelation between student achieve-ment and teachers' content knowledge(Chaney, 1995; Darling-Hammond,

2000; Druva & Anderson, 1983).Unfortunately, teacher preparationprograms do not appear to beadequately providing content knowl-edge to science teachers (Allen, 2003).Significant numbers of science teacherslack degrees or even college course-work in the science they are assigned toteach, especially at the elementarylevel (National Center for Education

Statistics, 2002; Weiss, Banilower,McMahon, & Smith, 2001).

If the United States is to make signif-icant advancements in science educa-tion reform, it will need new strategiesto address the needs of its nearly twomillion science teachers. Three crucialchallenges include raising the sciencecontent knowledge of all scienceteachers, effectively addressing science

30 EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP/DECEMBER 2006/JANUARY 2007

Education Reform

standards, and, perhaps most impor-tant, developing solutions on a largeenough scale to bring about significantchange.

Raising Teacher ContentKnowledgeTeachers need to know the science theyteach. Whether because they are insuf-ficiently prepared or simply assigned to

teach in an unfamiliar subject area, fartoo many science teachers need adeeper understanding of their school'sscience curriculum. Although anunderstanding of teaching and leamingis crucial, teachers can't teach what theydon't know

Inservice professional developmentprograms for science teachers havelargely failed to give teachers thespecific content knowledge they need.Many programs offer activities for theclassroom but provide little under-standing of the underlying science.College courses for teachers that focuson science content-including anincreasing number of online courses-are offered infrequently and are short-lived. Even successful face-to-faceprograms usually present only generalintroductory material. A middle schoolscience teacher with a background inthe life sciences who has been assignedto teach physical science will needmore specific information than anintroductory course in physics orchemistry is likely to provide.

Two programs that have focused onproviding content for science teachersare the National Teacher EnhancementNetwork (NTEN) at Montana StateUniversity (www.scienceteacher.org)and the JASON Foundation(www.jason.org). Both of theseprograms offer content online, enablinglarge numbers of teachers to studysmall chunks of content.

Addressing Science StandardsWith the emerging focus on scienceassessments, schools are going to bereexamining what they want theirstudents to know and be able to do inscience. Many educators agree that the

national science standards contain fartoo many elements. One group ofresearchers has estimated that it wouldtake as many as 22 years of schoolingto adequately cover all of the content inthe standards for the core subject areas(Marzano & Kendall, 1998). And moststate standards developed in the wakeof the national standards added evenmore content. This has left science

A nation's ability toremain a leader relieson how well thatnation educates itsstudents in scienceand technology.

teachers, professional developmentproviders, and assessment writers withfar too many concepts to address.

At the same time, the quality ofscience education standards across stateboundaries is uneven. When studentsmove from state to state, they aresubjected to gaps and disconnects intheir education. General wisdomsuggests that states will continue to dotheir own thing when it comes toeducation. Yet 71 percent of respon-dents in a 2006 survey conducted bythe National Science Teachers Associa-tion (NSTA) agree that a uniform set ofnational science content standards thatevery state would be required to use isa good idea.

One strategy that would preserve theU.S. tradition of state and local control

ASSOCIATION FOR SUPERVISION AND CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT 31

of curriculum while ensuring qualityand coherence is to identify 100concept topics for each grade band(K-2, 3-5, 6-8, 9-12) that all statestandards share. Those "ScienceAnchors" could be mapped onto thenational science standards.

Identifying these common elementswould give all stakeholders-assess-ment writers, curriculum producers,and professional developmentproviders-a common target to buildtoward. National-level groups would beable to develop materials and assess-

ment items for a national market,rather than struggling to meet thediverse needs of an enormous numberof local markets.

Developing Large-ScaleSolutionsOver the past 50 years, strategies forimproving science teaching havefocused on holding events for smallgroups of science teachers. NSTA,for example, has offered summerprograms that bring together one ortwo dozen science teachers. Althoughthese programs have helped those whocould participate, any face-to-faceprogram, no matter how successful,can reach only a limited number ofteachers. We shouldn't abandon thesesmaller efforts, but we must realizethat they will not lead to significantchange on a national level and thatthey rarely reach those teachers whoneed the help most.

To sustain a world-class science andengineering workforce, the UnitedStates needs more programs that havean effect nationwide. Very few initia-tives that bring about pockets of excel-lence ever reach a scale that willproduce a substantial widespreadincrease in student achievement.

Enhancing the science contentknowledge of teachers is one exampleof a large-scale challenge that cannotbe solved at the local level alone. Atany single school site, a small numberof teachers must teach a wide range ofcontent. At a regional level, enoughteachers may need knowledge of, forexample, genetics, to make it worth-while to provide regionwide profes-sional development on the topic. Yetmany regions lack the critical mass ofteachers needed to justify suchtraining. To provide for the specificneeds of all teachers, programs must benational in scope.

32 EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP/DECEMBER 2006/JANUARY 2007

As one example of a national-scalestrategy, NSTA has created onlinelearning experiences for K-12 scienceteachers called "Science Objects," avail-able free to all educators at the NSTAWeb site (http:/Aearningcenter.nsta.org). Science Objects are one- totwo-hour stand-alone units of instruc-tion that cover small portions ofscience content, enabling teachers tofocus only on the content they want tolearn. The objects will help teachersbecome literate in topics covered in thenational standards, making them rele-vant to the classroom and useful toteachers across all grades and scientificdisciplines. The 29 objects launched inDecember 2006 cover nine themes:Energy; Force and Motion; Gravity and

Meeting the crucial need to improvescience education in a large-scale wayrequires innovative ideas andcommitment from all stakeholders.

Orbits; the Universe; the Solar System;the Earth, Sun, and Moon; PlateTectonics; Rocks; and the Corals as anEcosystem. Each theme is divided intomultiple objects. The Energy theme,for example, includes four objects: (1)Different Kinds of Energy; (2) EnergyTransformations; (3) Thermal Energy,Heat, and Temperature; and (4) Usefuland Not So Useful Energy.

Educators can use Science Objectswithin other ongoing professionaldevelopment programs, enabling thoseprograms to incorporate rigorousscience content. These online resourcescan be especially beneficial to teacherswho are forced to teach outside theirfield, elementary teachers who lackdegrees in science, or teachers whoneed to increase their knowledge of a

ASSOCIATION FOR SUPERVISION AND CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT 33

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particular science contentarea.

Science Objects-and ahost of other resources-areavailable on the online NSTALearning Center. Through theLearning Center, teachers cansearch for professional devel-opment opportunities andresources aligned to specificstandards and grade bands.Educators can also manageand document their profes-sional development growth.

Meeting the crucial need to

improve science education ina large-scale way requiresinnovative ideas and commit-ment from all stakeholders.Science Anchors, ScienceObjects, and the LearningCenter are a few examples ofhow we can increase teachers' S evscience content knowledge,establish a common set of bet1standards, and develop large-scale solutions. The science tea(education community mustbegin thinking strategicallyabout more ways to create new projectsand programs at the local, state, andnational levels that work in a coherentway toward the common goal of excel-lent science education for all. M

ReferencesAllen, M. B. (2003). Eight questions on

teacher preparation: What does theresearch say? Denver, CO: EducationCommission of the States.

American Association for the Advancementof Science, Project 2061. (1993). Bench-marks for science literacy. New York:Oxford University Press.

Chaney, B. (1995). Student outcomes and theprofessional preparation of 8th gradeteachers in science and mathematics.Unpublished Manuscript. Prepared forNSF grant RED 9255255. Rockville,MD: Westat.

eral studies reveal a positive correlation

ween student achievement and

:hers' content knowledge.

Darling-Hammond, L. (2000). Teacherquality and student achievement: Areview of state policy evidence. Educa-tion Policy Analysis Archives, 8(1). Avail-able: http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v8n1

Druva, C. A., & Anderson, R. D. (1983).Science teacher characteristics by teacherbehavior and by student outcome: Ameta-analysis of research. Journal ofResearch in Science Teaching, 20(5),467-479.

Marzano, R. J., & Kendall, J. S. (1998).Awash in a sea of standards. Aurora, CO:Mid-continent Research for Educationand Learning.

National Center for Education Statistics.(2002). Qualifications of the public schoolteacher workforce: Prevalence of out-of-fieldteaching 1987-88 to 1999-2000: Statisticalanalysis report. Washington, DC: U.S.Department of Education. Available: http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2002/2002603.pdf

National Research Council. (1996).

National science education standards.Washington, DC: National AcademiesPress.

National Science Teachers Association.(2006, January 16). NSTA Express pollindicates widespread support fornational science standards, curriculum,and assessments. NSTA Express.Available: http://science.nsta.org/nstaexpress/nstaexpress 2006 01_17.htm

Weiss, I. R., Banilower, E. R., McMahon, K.C., & Smith, P. S. (2001). Report of the2000 national survey of science and mathe-matics education. Chapel Hill, NC:Horizon Research. Available: http://2000survey.horizon-research.com/reports/status.php

Gerald F. Wheeler is ExecutiveDirector of the National ScienceTeachers Association, Arlington,Virginia; gwheeler@nsta.org.

34 EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP/DECEMBER 2006/JANUARY 2007

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