posted by:
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Joni Falk
on August 12, 1999
at 7:14PM
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subject:
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Welcome, let's begin
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I want to welcome Ethan Allen, Mack McCary, Gail Paulin, Barbara Sullivan-Watts, Janie West, Scott Hays, Jerry David Valadez, Tom Archer, Linda Gregg,and Kalyani Raghavan . Thank you for signing up early to this forum. You represent 10 different LSCs (Partnerships for Inquiry Based Science, MIPS, DESERT, GERM-NET, ASSET, LASERS, TESS, Partnerships for Elementary Science Education, MASE II, and ASSET Teacher Enhancement Program) and as such your combined voices will contribute greatly to understanding the state of play in regard to middle school science curriculum. Feel free to ask your science curriculum coordinators to join this forum and to post their views as well.
Within the next few days we expect other projects will join the conversation and I will introduce them as they do, but for now let's begin!
You may want to start by addressing curriculum that you are either using of considering for middle school science. If your project is currently implementing curriculum how has it been going? What are the strengths and weaknesses of the curriculum from your perspective or from the perspective of your teachers? If your project had difficulty selecting a middle school science curriculum, tell us why. What was lacking in your opinion?
Since this is a very short forum feel free to also address any of the following in your reply.
- What do you think teachers and administrators want/need in instructional materials to provide high-quality science education to their students?
- Should new curriculum materials for middle school be in earth, life, and physical science, or multidisciplinary, or interdisciplinary? Should they be all modular or year long? Should they be integrated across subject domains? Should they have texts that go along with the activities, as the high school programs have? Would you recommend a social/societal context, a historical context, or a traditional one?
- What are the primary barriers to implementing such a curriculum (teacher certification/training, facilities, materials)?
Again, thanks for your participation. --Joni
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