Chapter 5: Social Relevance and the Organized Disciplines

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Chapter 5 Social Relevance and the Organized
Disciplines

• Todd Ashwell Andrea Thomas

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Progressive Era

• 1917-1957
• Continuation of previous reform movements
• Reaffirmation and confirmation of
• Student-centered learning
• Real-world applications
• Social importance
• Enjoyable and meaningful

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Progressivism-cont

• Argued against traditional methods of
  memorization and meaningless tasks
• Numbers of students in science classes were
  decreasing because of science rigor being geared
  to college bound students
• Major accomplishment-Established a curricular
  sequence that included
• a General Science class for all students
• Biology, Physics, and Chemistry classes for those
  intending to go to college

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General Science

• Students needed a science course to provide them
  with an overview of science because many students
  were in school for a short period
• Make science class more appealing
• increase enrollment
• increase interest to other sciences
• provide vocational opportunities
• Appropriate for Junior High students

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Biology

• Transitional class between general science and
  the physical sciences
• Combined zoology, botany, physiology
• Dealt with practical issues-human anatomy and
  physiology, health and hygiene, and sex education
• Initial focus emphasized observation, morphology
  and fact memorization

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Biology-cont

• Content became more student centered, focusing on
  social applications and principals of biology
• Developed scientific thinking
• Biology fundamentals, scientific thinking, and
  social relevance were themes taught
• A need developed to have a balance of history and
  facts that were socially relevant (disease
  control)

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Physics

• Decreasing enrollment due to lack of interest,
  difficulty of class, not geared to learner, and
  students not encouraged to take classes because
  labs more expensive
• Calls for eliminating the math not related to
  students everyday life
• Balance the learner and the content

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Physics-cont

• Organized content around two themes to create
  cohesion within the course
• Selected based on application to everyday
  lifeand fundamental properties of science
  (page 102)
• Make math more related to the principles of
  physics as they impact students lives (hammering
  a nail, speed of a automobile)

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Chemistry

• Stabilized in content and percent of students
  choosing to take course
• Course geared for students going to college
• Pressure to become more relevant and to use
  interests of students to foster learning
• Looked for balance between social relevance and
  real world applications

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Chemistry-cont

• Need for adding a descriptive chemistry class
  focused on topics such as
• results of chemical change
• conservation of matter
• Emphasis on applying chemistry to the real world
• Once students had an understanding of the
  concepts they could then interpret chemistry
  principles

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Conclusion

• What are the goals of science education? (the
  purpose of curriculum)
• Keep students involved (and enrolled)
• Student needs versus content
• Facts vs. student learning about the natural
  world
• Cookbook Labs
• Standardized tests