High-School Biology Today and Tomorrow (1989) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
Part IV: Instructional Procedures and Materials
Part IV: Instructional Procedures and Materials
Pages 149-194
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 149... ...
PART IV instructional Procedures ant! Materials
|
From page 151... ...
Mary Budd Rowe is professor of education at the University of Florida, a former president of the National Science leachers Association, and author of numerous papers on high-school biology education.
|
From page 152... ...
Consider first some of the major questions in the minds of adolescents. What can a biology program contribute to their search for solutions?
|
From page 153... ...
FIGURE 1 Guide for examining curriculum: fundamental elements in a program (Rowe, 1983~. Of the biological perspective that we want to cultivate in students, who will be spending the larger part of their lives in the next century.
|
From page 154... ...
1983. Science education: A framework for decision makers.
|
From page 155... ...
has estimated that 75% of the classroom time and 90% of homework time involve textbook use. The examination of biology textbooks provides a good starting point for the evaluation of the impact of illustrations on biology learning.
|
From page 156... ...
Frequently, biology teachers identify textbooks by the illustration on the cover: '`the red-blood-cell book," Heath Biology (McLaren and Rotundo, 1989~; "the owl book," Holt's Modern Biology Ale, 1989~; or "the parrot book," Mader's Biology (1987~. Although the pictures are purely decorative, publishers willingly spend upwards of $10,000 for the perfect textbook cover picture.
|
From page 157... ...
In contrast with today's textbooks, no color was used in the college biology books of the 1950s. The changes reported for college biology textbooks are mirrored in the high-school texts.
|
From page 158... ...
60) , and BSCS Biological Science: A Molecular Approach (1985, p.
|
From page 159... ...
These students viewed muscle contraction in terms of exactly one sarcomere- just as the illustration presented sarcomere structure. Students who learned with sarcomere textbook illustrations like the right side of Figure 2 more frequently recognized that many sarcomeres operate together during contraction.
|
From page 160... ...
Many images in today's biology textbooks are constructed in such a way as to make them comparable with commercial messages. Holt's Modern Biology (ldwle, 1989, p.
|
From page 161... ...
IMPORTANCE OF VISUAL LITERACY If illustrations are so influential in learning, what degree of complexity should they have? One would argue that generally the more accurate a diagram, the more complex it will be.
|
From page 162... ...
The student can be challenged as to why the model was manipulated in the way that it was. Model-building with complex textbook illustrations is an excellent way to pace a student's learning.
|
From page 163... ...
1988. The future direction of college biology textbooks.
|
From page 164... ...
1989. Heath Biology.
|
From page 165... ...
And for many of those students, biology is the last science course they will take. It is absolutely essential to consider the demographics of education as we look for a reform of biology education.
|
From page 166... ...
In the 1960s and 1970s, Jean Piaget's theory was popular, and it influenced curriculum development. Piaget's work concentrated on cognitive development.
|
From page 167... ...
Curriculum developers can design materials and teachers can use strategies so that students encounter objects or events that focus on the concepts, attitudes, or skills that are the intended learning outcomes. Then they can have students encounter problematic situations that are slightly beyond their current level of understanding or skill.
|
From page 168... ...
This attention has influenced the growing public concern for ecology and public debate about policies that extend the concern to human ecology. In biology education, there has been an essential tension between the need to teach "real biology" the science of life and the need to achieve educational goals related to personal development and societal aspirations the science of living.
|
From page 169... ...
Why are the teachers satisfied? The textbooks are meeting teachers' needs and their conceptions of good biology and appropriate biology education.
|
From page 170... ...
Gould did an informal review of biology textbooks and had this to say (1988, p. 19~: In book after book, the evolution section is virtually cloned.
|
From page 171... ...
As hardware and software evolve, there is reason to believe that they will become integral components of biology education (R. Tinker, unpublished manuscript)
|
From page 172... ...
. MBL offers extensions of many current laboratories in biology education.
|
From page 173... ...
Human Ecology and the Biology Laboratory Human ecology is the conceptual orientation that I recommend for the biology laboratory (Bybee, 1984, 1987~. Human ecology as a specific approach to the laboratory is described in Bybee et al.
|
From page 174... ...
Integrative Study Biology education has held as important goals the development of and
|
From page 175... ...
The justifications for laboratory experience far outweigh the excuses for lecture and discussion (Costenson and Lawson, 1987; Mullis and Jenkins, 1988~. An Instructional Model One of the major problems in biology education is the need for instruction that integrates textbooks, technology, and laboratory experiences.
|
From page 176... ...
Exploration This phase of the model provides students with a common base of experience within which they identify and develop current concepts, processes, and skills. During this phase, students actively explore their environment or manipulate materials.
|
From page 177... ...
1984. Human ecology: A perspective for biology education.
|
From page 178... ...
in science education, and a Ph.D. in administration.
|
From page 179... ...
First, the Fernbank Museum is oriented around a central theme exhibit entitled "A Walk Through Time in Georgia." A story line of the 30,000square-foot exhibit encompasses nothing less than the natural history of the Earth from the "Big Bang" to the present and even into the future. Because Georgia happens to enjoy such an unusually varied array of environments-mountains, plateaus, coastal plains, swamps, marshes, and off-shore islands it is feasible to consider the natural history of the Earth by focusing on Georgia as a microcosm of the Earth.
|
From page 180... ...
The visitor is asked to consider what has been learned in the museum about the development of humankind in the context of natural history and to focus that new knowledge on how it may help us in making more intelligent decisions and choices for the future. This major section of the theme exhibit, entitled "The City and the Future," assumes that humankind represents a pinnacle of natural history and that the archetypal human habitat, the city, is a reasonable setting in which to celebrate human achievement.
|
From page 181... ...
Apart from the central theme exhibit of the Fernbank Museum, there are further components of the museum that serve exciting roles in informal education. For very young children, there is a Discovery Room, a large area shaped like Georgia.
|
From page 182... ...
The Fernbank Museum of Natural History expects to achieve considerable leverage in its educational goals by offering specialized courses, again already designed, for both elementary-school and high-school teachers throughout Georgia. These courses, now being approved by the state school system, will afford the teachers graduate credit toward certification
|
From page 183... ...
It is further hoped that the same teachers will be inspired to serve as statewide "evangelists" of the museum's story and of its informal educational opportunities. In all aspects of the exhibit program of the new museum, every effort has been made to present the story of natural history using state-of-the-art exhibition techniques.
|
From page 184... ...
The purpose of this paper is to encourage a consideration of the possibilities of instructional materials that allow students to explore science through projects, rather than texts. While this approach to biology education may differ dramatically from the current practice, I believe that it moves students closer to the experience of science and potentially may offer a deeper understanding of the topics of study.
|
From page 185... ...
If correct, how might this supposition affect the work of a science classroom? Osborne and Gilbert (1980)
|
From page 186... ...
A NEW lYPE OF SCIENCE CURRICULUM While the importance of inquiry in the science classroom is certainly not a new idea, my colleagues and I at Technical Education Research
|
From page 187... ...
Because its operating premise about what is possible in a science classroom is unusual, I offer it as an example of an unconventional approach to instructional materials worth noting. The basic premise of this curriculum, the National Geographic Kids Network, is that students can and should be scientists, that they can and should converse with real scientists about their work and that computers can enhance this enterprise.
|
From page 188... ...
WHAT MIGHT THIS CURRICULUM DESIGN SUGGEST? The Kids Network has generated an enthusiastic response on the part of both teachers and students.
|
From page 189... ...
Many teachers reported that students were motivated and eager to participate in the curriculum activities, even, or perhaps especially, students who rarely participated in science class. One teacher told the story of a "low-ability" student who gained enormous credibility in class when he proposed his idea about the wide discrepancy between the over 120 pets owned by his Auburn, Maine, class and the fewer than 25 pets owned by a cluster class in New Orleans.
|
From page 190... ...
The most extreme examples came frown two teachers who reported that their classes, both filled with "average" and "below-average" students, protested on learning that their teacher was planning to present the Kids Network curriculum at professional conferences. The students argued that it was their work and that they should be the ones presenting.
|
From page 191... ...
Scientists are interested in student measurements, particularly when the data cover a wide geographic area. CONCLUSION The first reports about the effectiveness of the Kids Network indicate that it generates considerable enthusiasm in both students and teachers and enlivens the science classroom.
|
From page 192... ...
Science teachers and curriculum developers may be surprised to discover the number of groups that would welcome this sort of low-cost data collection and would help with the necessary logistics. Finally, I would like to note that, while the technology of this curriculum suggests an exciting new resource for the classroom, the Kids Network suggests a very simple change for classrooms.
|
From page 193... ...
1988. Telecommunication and Science Education.
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.