Parents,pl read this carefully.
Before u think big in teaching climate change etc,pl give a
strong foundations
of sciences to students.Pl read carefully who say this
warning.
Curriculum 'beyond teachers' skills'
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Justine Ferrari, Education writer | March 17,
2009
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''THE proposed national science curriculum
risks sending science education backwards, with the nation's deans
warning the course is beyond the skills of most teachers and fails
to provide a grounding in "real science".
In a submission to the National Curriculum Board, the
Australian Council of Deans of Science, representing almost all the
nation's universities, says the curriculum needs to have the
traditional disciplines of physics, chemistry, biology and
mathematics at its centre.
The national curriculum proposes teaching science through to
Year 10 by focusing on big issues, such as climate change, in order
to teach scientific thinking and processes and reveal the
underlying disciplines. Separate subjects in physics, chemistry and
biology would not appear until Years 11 and 12.
The council says the approach "requires far greater
discipline expertise" than the current model, and "runs a very high
risk of failure" given the shortage of science and maths teachers
and the drafting of other teachers into these subjects.
The deans instead propose organising the science curriculum
around the key phenomena in the universe. ACDS executive director
John Rice said science was the exploration of a range of phenomena
that occurred in our world.
"Within the myriad phenomena that you see ... there are a
few that give you insight in how to understand all the rest,"
Professor Rice said.
"It might be good to get students to look at what are the
basic phenomena of all science and how they work. That would be a
good underlying, organising principle for the curriculum."
The ACDS submission says exploring issues such as climate
change are important for engaging students but not sufficient in
giving them a grounding in the traditional disciplines.
"(They) may provide greater motivation towards science," it
says. "However, the measure of a science education still remains
the scope and depth of physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics,
etc, that students have learned and are able to apply.
"The science disciplines represent the distillation of human
thought about particular natural phenomena and how best to
understand them."
The national curriculum also proposes a significant shift in
the way science is taught, away from the traditional "transmission"
method where a teacher imparts knowledge. The new curriculum is
centred on students, involving them in choosing the scientific
concept or topic to be studied.
The teacher then provides activities to explore the ideas,
and, using that experience as a basis, introduces the scientific
terms and concepts that students can then apply to new
situations.
The ACDS says this model for teaching "requires far greater
discipline expertise than the transmission model".
"In theory, such an approach to curriculum should deliver
superior educational outcomes," it says.
"In practice, in an education system not prepared for it, it
may well deliver poorer outcomes, with real science, as embodied in
physics, chemistry, mathematics and biology, downgraded."
Professor Rice said the deans supported the concept of
taking a broader approach to the teaching of science, moving it
away from learning formulas.
"We don't want a return to the transmission model where you
have a catechism that people can memorise and transmit to the
student," he said. "But if that's all you have, at least that can
be done. What this new curriculum is asking for is a genuine
understanding of some scientific phenomena that requires a much
more sophisticated understanding than a lot of teachers
have."
He said teachers with such understanding were in the
minority, particularly given so many science teachers had been
drafted from other areas.
"It's like saying we want people who can fly the latest
FA-18 and then saying we'll put in people who can fly Tiger Moths.
There's bound to be a lot of crashes," he said.''
Editorial -- Page 11
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