In the last post I noted that there is a tendency to fall back and retreat when students’ test scores are not up to par according to state, national or international trends. Indeed, over the past 20 years, US students have not compared very well to counterparts in other countries. When this happens, there appears to be a call to return to the basics in mathematics and science, to make sure that they will do well in the next test. It doesn’t seem to be happening. Since the late eighties the momentum developed (starting with national reports) to develop national standards in each of the content areas of the curriculum (science, mathematics, English, social studies, etc.), and then in turn for each state to develop standards along similar lines. All of this to hold the local school districts accountable to national and statewide standards. The standards, for examples in science, tended to create a science program that was too broad, and lacked attention to a few core ideas that students could learn. Indeed, a new report, Taking Science to School criticizes the National Science Education Standards, and in this regards makes these recommendations:

Recommendation 1: Developers of Standards, curriculum, and assessment should revise their frameworks to reflect new models of children’s thinking and take better advantage of children’s capabilities—in particular the report claims that developers do not reflect in teaching materials what is now known about children’s thinking, especially younger children.

Recommendation 2: The next generation of standards and curricula at both the national and state levels should be structured to identify a few core ideas in a discipline and elaborate how those ideas can be cumulatively developed over grades K-8. They claim that using core ideas eliminates content that is not central to the core ideas. Textbook based curricula (most is based on texts) have tended to “add” new content to the book over time. Take a look at the current edition of Modern Biology, the leading book in the teaching of high school biology.

We have a challenge here. To develop curriculum in which less is more, and in which knowledge about student learning is front and center in the development of curriculum materials. And the good news is that there are and have been projects that have emerged in the past 15 years that are based on these principles. Here links to other center or specific projects. You will find several centers listed here that have had a history of developing innovative teaching materials that have made their way into K-12 schools. You will also find links to specific projects that are characterized by small teams of teachers working together with university professors to develop teaching materials for small groups of schools and classrooms. These links will bring you to examples of curriculum projects that went beyond the basics, and in some cases developed unique/original materials.

Science Curriculum Support Project— Centered at Princeton University’s K-12 Outreach, teams of scientists and elementary/middle-school teachers develop supporting hands-on, inquiry-centered science curricula.

Science Netlinks–K-12 science resources (based on the current set of standards)

Concord Consortium–a research and development group developing math and science K-12 materials.

Global Thinking Project–An inquiry based and environmental science project developed by teachers from several nations (primarily the U.S., Russia, Spain and Australia). The website is an archive documenting the project.

Eco-Connections–a middle school science project in which the teaching materials were developed jointly developed by American and Russian teachers. The project was based on the Global Thinking Project.

The Lawrence Hall of Science— A leader in the development of science and mathematics teaching materials for K-12 schools.