Abstract

Our Challenge

The challenge we face is three-fold, first, the coordination of science education between different grade levels and different schools represents an organization challenge even in small school districts. In major metropolitan districts like LAUSD, the lack of coordination can result in children entering middle schools and high schools with widely divergent science abilities. In addition, high school students transition rates in LAUSD are quite low, in some LA areas less than a half of the students are the same students who enrolled in the beginning of the semester a situation that illustrates the need for effective strategies in school articulation. Second, little instructional time is devoted to teaching science because elementary teacher science content preparation is woefully inadequate. Third, "inquiry" instruction has no clear definition and therefore has different meanings to different educators. It is often un-structured with no clear outcomes and therefore is at times loosely implemented and therefore not widely accepted.

USC- CSP and the "Standards"

Schmidt (1998) uses TIMSS findings to confirm the crucial role of educational standards in science teacher preparation and professional development. Accordingly, the lack of cohesive vision in the United States has caused students low performance in secondary schools. The TIMSS findings echo the need for standards-based science education reform. Early on in the developmental stage of the cluster initiative, the USC-CSP faculty and teacher-leaders supported the use of the National Science Education Standards as a tool for sequential grade articulation. Along with standards-specific workshops, a structured inquiry approach called Problem-Based Learning (PBL) was introduced to teachers as a model for practicing inquiry-based instruction. Through the PBL format, teachers worked with curators of science museums, scientists in research laboratories, and faculty in higher education to acquire science content knowledge.

The USC-CSP has connected various venues and formed partnerships with local science education centers and informal science education venues in an effort to meet these challenges. Through intense program evaluation (Wang, 1998a), the impact on student science achievement was found to correlate with the following program elements:

Introduction of content and experiences required to develop teacher-leaders who will assist in institutionalizing the science education programs

Providing extended pedagogy experience in inquiry-based science education

Focusing on "Standards" as a foundation for structuring new initiatives for science education

Building the background science content of teachers

Initiating K-12 articulated cluster-wide programs of science education

Establishing partnerships with informal science education centers, school district, and faculty of the university to maximize the resources available to aid students and teachers

Developing programs for student assessment and program evaluation to determine the impact of the initiatives

In 1999, with the adoption of the California State Standards, the USC-CSP built the Orchid and Octopus Summer Institutes around these more focused standards, seeing them a complement to the National Standards and an opportunity to ensure articulation within and between the Venice/Westchester and Jordan/Locke Clusters.

Abstracted from "EFFECTS OF PROBLEM-BASED LEARNING AS APPLIED TO THE PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT FOR SCIENCE TEACHERS", HsingChi Wang, Patricia Thompson, Charles Shuler and LaNelle Harvey,Paper presented at the 1999 AETS Annual International Meeting at Austin, Texas.

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