Strategic Approaches: Argument Summary
Ed Smith
This is a summary of the argument for a paper I have revised for this conference.
This full paper presents an example "strategic approach" and explains how
the Project 2061 Curriculum Analysis Procedures contributed to my thinking
about the spproach.
Well formulated standards can serve to focus a broad range of activities and
resources on the achievement of common goals. Often, most attention gets paid
to the assessment and accountability aspects of standards. However, the setting
of standards and assessment of the extent to which they are achieved is not
sufficient to bring about improvement in that achievement. Teachers need knowledge
and resources for teaching of the standards for which they are responsible.
That is, they need to know how to teach those things. An important contribution
of standards is to lay out a research and development agenda for the development
of a professional knowledge and resource base to support teachers.
An important set of issues has to do with the adequacy of the standards. Do
they capture what is worth knowing? Is the total set of standards feasible
to achieve? While these are critical issues, I will not address them in this
paper. I simply argue that the current national science education standards
(NSES and Benchmarks for Science Literacy) are sufficient to
move the enterprise forward in substantial ways, and that improvements in
the standards themselves will come from taking them seriously into account
in research and development work. Given this assumption, what can be said
about the knowledge base needed to support effective teaching of the standards?
My primary purpose in this paper is to introduce the idea of a strategic approach
to teaching a related set of learning goals and to illustrate this idea with
an example. By a teaching approach, I refer to a generally sequential pattern
of activities in which students become engaged over a period of time. A strategic
approach is more than a collection of activities, all of which are related
to the topic, interesting and doable. It is more than a logical order of presentation
of information and more than a logical sequence of activities. An approach
becomes strategic when each activity is selected and sequenced to serve particular
purposes in moving students from where they are toward the intended learning.
Of course, a strategic approach doesn't necessarily work.
My basic thesis is that specific approaches can be developed for teaching particular
sets of specific learning goals and that these approaches can be improved
until they work reliably for a significant range of teachers and students.
Such approaches are not mechanical or rigidly linear, and there is no such
thing as a teacher-proof approach. Any successful approach requires a knowledgeable
teacher who understands and implements it intentionally and wisely. Providing
the systems to support teachers in acquiring this knowledge is an other major
challenge. However, if teachers do not know effective approaches for achieving
the goals for which they are responsible, it is unlikely those goals will
be achieved. I maintain that curriculum materials in which effective strategic
approaches are embedded can be a critical, if not essential, resource in improving
the achievement of learning goals on a large scale.
Assuming that effective strategic approaches are feasible and desirable, what
makes one effective? I would argue that the Project 2061 Curriculum Analysis
Procedures (CAP) capture many important features of effective strategic approaches.
They can serve as design criteria or as a way to evaluate an approach that
has already been devised. However, another important function of this framework
is to provide a common way of describing an approach. The CAP criteria and
the constructs in terms of which they are described define a set of categories
of knowledge. These categories can be viewed as fleshing out Shulman's "pedagogical
content knowledge." (Shulman, 1987; Wilson, Shulman and Richert, 1987) The
instances of these categories-representations, phenomena, naïve conceptions,
etc.-constitute a repertoire from which a particular approach can be crafted.
A shared knowledge base is essential for a professional community. CAP is
based on theoretical perspectives with broad support in the science education
research community. They perform an important function in providing a common
language and conceptual categories.
The adequacy of CAP in defining necessary and sufficient features of curriculum
materials and the teaching approaches embedded in them is something to be
determined. Research-based arguments might be made for additional or alternative
criteria. Ultimately, empirical evidence that use of highly rated materials
tends to result in higher levels of achievement would be important evidence.
Of course, adequate professional development and ongoing support are essential,
and research will need to sort out the role of teacher implementation and
other factors in explaining the results. However, I maintain that having effective
strategic approaches as a fundamental component for a professional knowledge
base and building those approaches into curriculum materials is a powerful,
if not essential component of standards-based science education reform.
