Science education in American Context

As mentioned in the introduction, the Common Core Standards define what the educational system in the United States of America emphasizes in general. The Common Core Standards provide clear and consistent learning goals and demonstrate what students are expected to learn at each grade level so both the teachers and parents can understand and support students learning (Common core – state standards initiative). Because these Common Core Standards give grade-specific goals, they do not define what materials and methods should be used in the teacher or how the standards should be taught. Also, as the Common Core Standards in the United States do not highlight science teaching, neither inquiry-based teaching is highlighted.

In the previous research about teachers’ perceptions about teaching science through inquiry has been noted that a problem with it has been the lack of a commonly accepted understanding what it means to teach science through inquiry. For many teachers and for many students the notion of inquiry has been conflated with the idea that inquiry requires students to handle, investigate and ask questions of the material worlds. Hence any activity that is of a ‘hands-on’ nature can be considered to fulfill the basic requirement of this pedagogic approach. In this form, inquiry is seen not as a means of developing a deeper understanding of the nature of scientific inquiry but rather as a means of serving the pedagogic function of illustrating or verifying the phenomenological account of nature offered by the teacher. (Abd-El-Khalick et al., 2004.) The result is that the goals of engaging in inquiry have been conflated with the goals of laboratory work such that, in the eyes of many teachers, the primary goal of engaging in inquiry is not to develop a deeper understanding of the whole process of inquiry but to provide a means of supporting their rhetorical task of

persuading their students of the validity of the account of nature that they offer. If there is an alternative focus, it tends to be on the performance of the skills required to do inquiry—and then predominantly on the manipulative skills for successful experimentation (knowing how)—rather than the analysis and interpretation of the data or an understanding about inquiry and its role in science (knowing that or knowing why). At its worst, the product is cookbook laboratory exercises where students simply follow a series of instructions to replicate the phenomenon. (Osborne, 2014.)

In the year 2015, the Common Core Standards changed, and the emphasis from science changed into the language arts and mathematics. The new Common Core Standards that have the emphasis on the English language arts/literature and mathematics were adopted by 42 states, the Department of Defence Education Activity, Washington D.C., Guam, the Northern Marina Islands, and the U.S Virgin Islands and started the process of implementing those standards locally (Common core – state standards initiative). That change in those Common Core Standards has affected the ways that teachers teach science and implementing inquiry-based learning in their teaching. It can be noted that the whole concept of science education has changed its from after the Common Core Standards changed. Before those standards were updated, science held an important position in the American educational system, and even inquiry in general and inquiry-based learning have their roots in the United States of America. Both inquiry and inquiry-inquiry-based learning have been implemented in teaching and learning for a long time before the change in the Common Core Standards happened.

Though the Common Core Standards experienced a major change in 2015, the Next Generation Science Standards guide a little how science education in the United States of America should be done. Next Generation Science Standards are K-12 science content standards that set the expectations for what students should know and be able to do in the context of science education.

They were developed by states to improve science education for all students. A goal for developing the NGSS was to create a set of research-based, up-to-date K-12 science standards. These standards give local educators the flexibility to design classroom learning experiences that stimulate students’ interests in science and prepares them for college, careers, and citizenship.

The way that these Next Generation Science Standards improve science education is through three-dimensional learning. In the NGSS, there are three equally important dimensions created to science learning. Each of those dimensions is combined to form each standard (or performance expectation), and each dimension works with the other two to help students build a cohesive understanding of science over time. The vision of the NGSS is that thoughtful and coordinated approaches to implementation will enable educators to inspire future generations of scientifically literate students. The NGSS note that effective implementation of these standards demands a great deal of collaboration and patience among states, districts, schools, teachers, and students (Next Generation Science Standards).

The three dimensions in the NGSS are crosscutting concepts, science and engineering practices, and disciplinary core ideas (see Figure 2). The dimension of crosscutting concepts means that it will help students explore connections across the four domains of science, including Physical Science, Life Science, Earth and Space Science, and Engineering Design. When these concepts are made explicit for students, they can help students develop a coherent and scientifically based view of the world around them. The dimension of the Science and Engineering Practices describes what scientists do to investigate the natural world and what engineers do to design and build systems.

The practices better explain and extend what is meant by ‘inquiry’ in science and the range of cognitive, social, and physical practices that it requires. Students engage in practices to build, deepen, and apply their knowledge of core ideas and crosscutting concepts. The dimension of the disciplinary core ideas is the key ideas in science that have broad importance within or across multiple sciences or engineering disciplines. These core ideas build on each other as students’

progress through grade levels and are grouped into the following four domains: Physical Science, Life Science, Earth and Space Science, and Engineering. (A Framework for K-12 Education:

Practices, Cross-cutting concepts, and Core ideas, 2012.)

Figure 2. Next Generation Science Standards for States by States (by A Framework for K-12 Education: Practices, Cross-cutting concepts, and Core ideas, 2012).