Improving Indicators of the Quality of Science and Mathematics Education in Grades K-12 (1988) / Chapter Skim
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7 Indicators of Curriculum
7 Indicators of Curriculum
Pages 119-142
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From page 119... ...
By providing incentives that stimulate effective teaching and learning, or by creating constraints on study and understanding, the curriculum affects the choices of students and teachers in every cIassroom. A curriculum may or may not provide incentives for teachers to master specific teaching techniques, such as laboratory experiments or the use of current events in creating applied mathematics problems.
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From page 120... ...
As important as curriculum is to the quality of science and mathematics education, no indicators exist to assess curriculum quality (Raizen and Jones, 19853. Science texts are reviewed from time to time by professional bodies, for example, by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1985a, 1986a, 1986b)
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From page 121... ...
In a few states, for example, New York, state guidelines have always been an important determinant of the intended curriculum. As states become more active in school reform and assessment, state guidelines can be expected to play an important role in an increasing number of states.
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From page 122... ...
When the term intended curriculum is used alone in this chapter, it refers to any or all of these three levels of the formalized expression of curriculum, unless specific reference is made to a particular form, such as state guidelines. In parallel with assessing the intended curriculum, it is necessary to assess the implemented curriculum, the curriculum that the student actually experiences.
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From page 123... ...
It is another thing to design a way of capturing the quality of the science curriculum in a state for a state legislator with little science background. The committee concluded that the ultimate audience for its work should be federal, state, and local policy makers responsible for thinking about the overall quality of the educational program under their jurisdictions, even though specific judgments on the quality of the science or mathematics being taught will be made by scientists and mathematicians.
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From page 124... ...
The extent of variability among curricula in content coverage, even given presumed variability in student ability, may well foreclose the possibility of attaining desirable levels of student achievement for some student populations (McKnight et al., 1987~. A description of the content coverage of a curriculum is only a beginning; in addition, descriptors of curriculum quality are needed.
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From page 125... ...
This suggests that an assessment of curricular quality needs to address the mathematical or scientific accuracy and the pedagogical quality of a curriculum, in addition to its depth. To summarize, the committee suggests the development of two types of measures to capture and assess the content of mathematics and science curricula: measures of the extent of content covered in the curriculum and measures of quality including the depth of coverage of the content in the curriculum, the scientific or mathematical accuracy of the content of the curriculum, and the pedagogical quality of the curriculum.
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From page 126... ...
Sometimes the nature of this information can be shocking: the most recently available survey of the time elementary school teachers (K-3) spend teaching science revealed that the average time per week was 17 minutes (Weiss, 1978~.
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From page 127... ...
DEVELOPING INDICATORS OF CONTENT COVERAGE This section describes the approach that we recommend for developing indicators of content coverage. Succeeding sections consider indicators of curriculum quality including content depth, scientific accuracy, and pedagogical quality.
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From page 128... ...
Or, if a particular textbook series with limited content coverage were widely used in a certain state, the measure of content coverage might help explain to a state legislator why the children of the state scored badly on mathematics achievement tests compared with children in other states, although such an inference might or might not be correct. Once measures of the content coverage of textbooks are developed for the major textbooks, for example, they could be weighted by the number of students using the textbooks to develop aggregate measures of content coverage for a state or local district, or even for the nation.
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From page 129... ...
Perhaps more important than measures of the content coverage of the intended curriculum would be measures of the coverage of the content of the actual curriculum taught to students. If such measures were also available, the state legislator could compare the degree of match between the content of the textbook curriculum, the test, and the actual curriculum.
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From page 130... ...
The frameworks should meet some general criteria: they should array, in a two-dimensional or more complex formal, major processes, emphases, or principles in the curriculum against content topics, rather than simply list detailed topics; they should represent the best thinking of a combination of disciplinary specialists and specialists in the design of curricula and in teaching the subject; they should be conceived to "lead" practice, rather than representing a least common denominator of current practice; and they should be flexible, presenting a commonly agreed-on core and allowing for major options or alternatives in the content presented in states, localities, schools, and classrooms. The core should represent a detailed explication of the standards for scientific and mathematical literacy set out in Chapter 2, adjusted for the appropriate grade levels.
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From page 131... ...
symbolic-procedure processes for example, the common algorithms learned in elementary school; and . validation processes- carried out through empirical or logical deductive determinations.
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From page 132... ...
to examine what science and technology is most worth learning.) Obtaining Measures of Content Coverage Once the exemplary frameworks are established, the next task is to map the content of the various exemplifications of curriculum onto the framework to derive measures of content coverage.
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From page 133... ...
It would also be useful to map the national guidelines of countries such as Japan, West Germany, and France, and the guidelines of the provinces of Canada for later purposes of comparison. Textbook Series The task of mapping the content of textbook series and their related materials (laboratory exercises, computer software, films, workbooks)
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From page 134... ...
Frequency of Mapping The mapping of state guidelines, textbook series, and test areas would require periodic updating as the content is changed or new materials are developed. The sampling of the actual content of instruction should be carried out nationally at least every four years on a cycle that is synchronized with the cycles for student assessment, so that the resulting indicators could be used together.
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From page 135... ...
135 The frameworks must represent the structures of the subject matter and desirable learning goals, or alternatives among desirable goals. Key Indicator: Once the frameworks are constructed, the committee recommends that three elements of the intended curriculum should be matched and rated against them for content coverage: state guidelines, textbooks and such associated materials as computer software and laboratory exercises, and tests.
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From page 136... ...
Then, once a framework is in hand and the tasks of mapping of content coverage are complete, sets of judgments on the depth of coverage of text and other materials (or of reported or observed classroom practices) can be made depending on the weights assigned by the judges to the importance of various topics, concepts, and processes.
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From page 137... ...
As with the analysis of extent of content coverage, the latter will require special surveys of teachers and students supported by classroom observation. Scientific Accuracy and Pedagogic Quality The assessment of scientific accuracy of the content of the intended curriculum (state and local guidelines, textbooks and associated computer software and laboratory materials, and tests)
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From page 138... ...
As to the intended curriculum and its components, panels of relevant experts could judge their pedagogic strengths and weaknesses: the appropriateness of the instructional strategies, given the subject matter and the grade level; the design and sequencing of topics to be taught; consonance with what is known about learning various scientific or mathematical constructs, processes, and skills; specific approaches to learners with different backgrounds and interests; and the like. Indicators of the pedagogic quality of actual classroom practice, however, would be difficult and expensive to obtain.
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From page 139... ...
High-quality programs encompassing the curriculum blocks suggested above should be selected, profiled, and analyzed to provide models of excellence in depth of content coverage, scientific accuracy, and pedagogic soundness of science and mathematics curricula.
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From page 140... ...
The assessment of the scientific accuracy of the intended curriculum should be carried out by scientists in the relevant disciplines. The scientific content of the frameworks should be used to construct the tests of teacher competency of subject matter recommended in Chapter 6 and such tests used as a minimum measure of the scientific accuracy of the actual curriculum experienced by students.
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From page 141... ...
The concept of a commonly agreed-on curriculum core allowing flexibility for alternatives reflects the commonality that really exists among schools, but preserves the cherished local and state freedom from federal curriculum control. The distinction between a "national" curriculum framework and a "federal" one is critical to states and localities that is, the distinction between a set of guidelines developed by one or more nationally recognized groups and a prescribed course of studies mandated by a central authority.
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From page 142... ...
At that point, the test results could serve as a basis for evaluating not only curriculum implementation but also whether the testing is sensitive enough to assess accurately the elements of the framework. State and school district policies affect to some degree each ciassroom teacher's decisions on the implementation of a mathematics or science curriculum.
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