America's Lab Report Investigations in High School Science (2006) / Chapter Skim
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2 The Education Context
2 The Education Context
Pages 42-74
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Understanding this context helps to reveal the dynamics that have shaped current high school laboratory experiences and may influence new approaches to high school science laboratories. The first section of this chapter describes current trends in science achievement and the changing student population.
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Here we describe recent trends in public understanding of science and in high school science education, which provides the foundational knowledge for the next generation of scientists and engineers. Public Understanding of Science Major science education reports published in the 1990s advocated broad scientific literacy for all students, including understanding of science concepts and of the processes and nature of science (American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1993; National Research Council, 1996)
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Science Achievement in Secondary School The low level of public understanding of science may be related to the quality of high school science education, including the laboratory experi ences that are a part of that education. Results from three written tests -- the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)
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SOURCE: National Center for Education Statistics, National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) , 1999 Long-Term Trend Assessment.
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Like the framework of the NAEP science achievement test, the TIMSS framework includes both a range of science subject matter and also student abilities related to scientific inquiry and investigations. However, with fewer performance tasks than the NAEP science achievement test, TIMSS may be more limited in its capacity to measure student attainment of the other goals of laboratory experience, besides mastery of subject matter (Owen, 2005)
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High School Science and Undergraduate Science Achievement Policies aimed at improving science education are designed in part to prepare more U.S. high school students to enter higher education in science and engineering degrees, in preparation for careers in these fields.
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had higher undergraduate physics grades than students whose high school physics courses covered more topics in less depth. The authors suggest that high school physics teachers should concentrate on a limited set of topics related to mechanics and include laboratory experiences carefully chosen to reflect those topics.
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. A recent review of the research on science education and student diversity concluded that diverse science students may benefit from special support in learning and using scientific language, in becoming comfortable with the community of school science learners, in understanding scientific concepts and modes of thinking, and in developing trusting relationships with other students and the teacher (Lee and Luykx, in press)
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In compliance with the legal requirement to educate disabled students in the "least restrictive environment," more disabled students are in regular class rooms. Between 1988-1989 and 1999-2000, the percentage of students with disabilities spending at least 80 percent of their time in a regular education classroom increased from 31 to 47 percent (National Center for Education Statistics, 2002)
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POLICIES INFLUENCING HIGH SCHOOL LABORATORY EXPERIENCES Over the past 20 years, the states, the federal government, school districts, and the scientific community have launched an array of efforts to improve science education that may influence high school laboratory experiences. State education policies, including requirements for high school graduation and college admission, science standards, and assessments may affect laboratory instruction.
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; state web sites. State Requirements for Higher Education Admissions College and university entrance requirements influence the high school curriculum in general and may also influence individual students' decisions about enrolling in science courses, including laboratory science courses.
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This lack of definitions is one reflection of the larger issue discussed in Chapter 1: researchers and educators do not agree on how to define high school science laboratories or on their purposes in the high school science curriculum. Science Standards and Assessments State education policies often focus on identifying clear and specific science standards and creating assessments to measure student attainment of those standards in order to guide improvements in science teaching and learning.
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science education, educators and scien tists have debated the relative importance of exposing students to many science subjects versus engaging them in deeper study of fewer subjects or concepts. In recent years, state science standards have embodied the former approach, including a broad range of science topics (Duschl, 2004; Massel, Kirst, and Hoppe, 1997)
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. Specifically state science assessments are not always aligned with those elements of state standards that call for laboratory experiences and for attainment of laboratory learning goals during the high school years.
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. Although performance assessments may be used as a supplement to selected-response items in state science assessments, they present new chal lenges.
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Studies of local implementation of state science standards indicate that these policies primarily affect coverage of science content and have less influence on teaching methods, including decisions about when and how to include laboratory instruction. The extent to which the goals of state science standards, including the goals related to laboratory experiences, are implemented depends on local agents and agencies.
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and a laboratory performance test. However, state science teachers and education officials grew concerned about the validity and reliability of the performance tests and their alignment with the state laboratory sci ence standards.
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: · Hands-on performance tasks, · Constructed-response investigations, · Open-ended questions, and · Enhanced multiple-choice questions. A 1999 content analysis by a group of scientists and teachers identi fied a close alignment between Vermont state science standards and the NSES.
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Only four districts, for example, provided strong or high support for the more complex changes in mathematics and science education advanced by standards, such as the types of changes required to help students attain the full range of the goals of laboratory experiences. These patterns were repeated at the classroom level in the nine school districts; teachers attempting to implement the reform taught in ways that diverged fundamentally from the intent of the designers (Spillane and Zeuli, 1999)
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The research outlined above suggests that current state science standards do not yet successfully support the deeper changes in teaching strategy necessary to help students attain the educational goals of laboratory experiences. The uneven local response to state science standards is in part a problem of uneven support for teachers rather than local resistance to change.
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This degree of coverage was similar to that in other countries. These results suggest that textbooks and the materi als accompanying them give little attention to the learning goals of labora tory experiences, even though they may be identified as a priority in state science standards and curriculum guides.
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. A panel convened by NSF to review its middle school science curricula gave the texts generally high marks (3 or higher on a 5-point scale)
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and the Department of Energy also support programs aimed at improving high school science education. Many scientific societies, including the American Chemical Society, the Ameri can Physiological Society, and the American Institute of Biological Sciences, are also working to improve science education.
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developed a mobile chemistry laboratory to help rural teachers and students respond to Virginia's science standards and assessments, called the Standards of Learning (SOL)
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For example, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute provides funding for high school students and teachers in the Montgomery County, Maryland, public
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Instead, state and local officials and science teachers often see state standards as requiring them to help students master the specific science topics outlined for a grade level or science course. State science standards that are interpreted as encouraging the teaching of extensive lists of science topics in a given grade
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However, assessments in these states rarely include items designed to mea sure student attainment of these goals. Current large-scale assessments are not designed to accurately measure student attainment of all of the goals of laboratory experiences.
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Science Education, 79, 313-333. Council of Chief State School Officers.
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Paper prepared for the Commission on Black Education, American Educational Research Association. Available at: http://www.coribe.org.
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. National science education standards.
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. Systems for state science assessment.
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Presentation to the Committee on High School Science Laboratories: Role and Vision. March 29.
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. Looking inside the classroom: A study of K-12 mathematics and science education in the United States.
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