Estimated Time: 5 minutes.
Example of Use: Sample 2.5-Day Workshop Agenda.
Sample Presentation
TRANSPARENCY: Project 2061
Tools for Systemic Reform.
Presenter: This transparency introduces a brief overview of Science for All Americans, Benchmarks for Science Literacy, and other Project 2061 tools.
Project 2061 tools are intended to help reformers in their work. On the one hand, the tools should help reformers get started with whatever resources—materials, money, people—they have. At the same time, the tools should provide a vision of the radical reform that ideal circumstances would allow. So, the tools are designed to be both practical for use now and thought-provoking for changes that might be made in the future.
Science for All Americans, published in 1989, outlines what ALL high school graduates should know and be able to do in the natural and social sciences, mathematics, and technology. The knowledge, skills, and habits of mind that are recommended for all high school graduates were selected for their utility in enhancing employment prospects, in increasing appreciation of everyday phenomena that can be observed directly and that are reported in the news, and in helping people make social and personal decisions about matters involving science, mathematics, and technology.
Benchmarks for Science Literacy, released in 1993, describes reasonable expectations of progress toward these adult literacy goals and suggests what students should know and be able to do by the end of grades 2, 5, 8, and 12. Benchmarks for Science Literacy is also available on disk.
TRANSPARENCY: Resources for Science Literacy: Cover.
Presenter: Resources for Science Literacy: Professional Development is available on CD-ROM. It was designed for use in pre-service education, in-service staff development programs, and self-directed professional growth. The disk includes recommended science tradebooks and university course syllabi to improve teachers’ understanding of science, mathematics, and technology and their interconnections; comparisons of Benchmarks to recently created national content standards to help teachers understand how science literacy goals can be used to improve curriculum, instruction, and assessment; and descriptions of research articles and videos that illustrate difficulties students have learning science concepts.
Resources for Science Literacy: Curriculum Materials will help teachers make thoughtful choices about instructional materials. It will include a procedure for analyzing how well curriculum materials address science literacy, descriptions and analysis results of various curriculum materials, and examples of assessments teachers can use to probe their own students’ science literacy.
Designs for Science Literacy will guide school districts and materials developers as they create and assemble new curricula. Blueprints for Reform will consider needed changes in the education system for new curricula to be developed and successfully implemented. Project 2061 is moving toward an integrated electronic system for dissemination and use of these tools.