I like the way how his speech boiled down to and targeted the root cause of ineffective science teaching which are outdated types of assessment such as standardized tests which mainly are tests for knowledge.  Unfortunately, the goal for most students in learning science is to pass these kinds of tests which gears them away from the main goal which is to become scientifically literate.  No matter how a teacher exerts effort in making more active, hands-on and meaningful lessons, in the end students would think they didn’t get enough education to prepare them for standardized tests they have to take, and most often than not, teachers would not promote a more progressive science lesson and would resort to long lectures because of these tests.  

“Any change in science teaching needs to start with a change in science assessment,” is a brave and powerful recommendation that is what principle # 1 is all about: creating a purposeful means to an important end which is learning. And how can you assess this learning with validity if the tool is not appropriate?  Once this root problem is solved, teachers will be inspired, if not forced to preparing a more effective science lesson that promotes critical and scientific thinking which is what scientific understanding is all about.  I agree with what he says that as science teachers, we need to correct the two mistakes which actually violate the principles that we’ve learned in resource 1.  One is that we focus on the wrong thing instead of exercising critical thinking. Principle # 2 states that we need to concentrate on core scientific ideas that have the greatest importance which the speaker emphasized by saying that understanding scientific ideas and practices takes time, effort and careful instruction.  How are we going to provide time and effort if our curriculum is congested?  Here, principle # 2 is very applicable.  The second mistake is assuming that science is some sort of collection of knowledge which again contradicts another principle (#3) that teaching science should mirror the nature and characteristic of the subject.  Needless to say, if teachers are bearing these mistakes then science education would have no importance.  As responsible science teachers, we should emulate the speaker’s methods and techniques in teaching which follows principle # 4, designing lessons which are challenging yet not overwhelming where he starts with an experiment to introduce the concept before going to more difficult tasks; principle # 5,  helping learners become active thinkers, allowing students to create models which they test and apply in real world tasks (principle # 6); together with principle # 7, setting high expectations for learning where students are given ownership of their own learning.  

After watching the video and writing my reaction made me realize that these principles are not so hard to remember and, thus, apply.  If you are rooted on the right goal which is producing scientifically literate learners, then applying these principles only become the practical thing to do.  

According to the document Current Challenges in Basic Sicence Education (2011), science is a powerful tool to improve the quality of life of people.  Tracing its history, science paved way to advancing technologies which helped upgrade the quality of life from generations to the next.  The basic essentials of life such as access to water, food and shelter, all have a strong science component.  Good scientific understanding leads to good decision-making.  One’s decision affects other individuals as well as the whole community.  If children are taught effectively the basic principles of science, not only will they gain a powerful tool to help in decision-making, it will lift them from ignorance and help improve the quality of their lives.  This promotes equity and equality because each one will share his or her useful contribution to the betterment of the community and the society. Taking a career in science opens to a wide range of options in the world of work as well, providing wider possibilities for future children and reducing inequalities.  

However, even though UNESCO has recognized the right to universal access to quality science education, it remains to have a lot of challenges to achieve this right.  One is that although science plays an important part in basic education, it still not included in the primary education in many parts of the world.  In third-world countries, majority of the population unfortunately only get to access primary education so they are already deprived of a science education. Without access for all and the ability to make use of opportunities that school offers, then there can be no quality science education at all.

In this fast-paced world ruled by technology, globalization has influenced greatly the field of education, more so science education. Globalization had paved the way for science to have the most rapid, wide-ranging and widespread influence on human society.  Knowledge is at everyone’s fingertips for the exchange of and access to information is now easily available to all.  It is a great advantage to the growth and advancement of science.  Nevertheless, it also offers a great challenge to educators to change the way science is taught in schools, from a mode of transmission to a more active process akin to how scientists do science.  Because of globalization, development of new competencies are at necessary and schools have  to innovate to accommodate such priorities. 

If the rest of the world works towards making science curriculum more competitive and innovative, the Philippines still continues to address challenges that hinders quality science education such as shortage of qualified science teachers, lack of quality textbooks, inadequate equipment, large classes and lack of support from administration. 

It is quite alarming when we reflect that these issues and challenges can be easily identified, the lack of qualified teachers for example and yet, they are not addressed properly, if not at all.  In Mathematics for instance, aspiring teachers are trained to be able to teach all levels in high school.  As such, a math teacher graduate is qualified to teach all year or even grade levels.  However, in science, a student-teacher gets to be trained to teach only the branch of science he or she preferred to teach and the problem starts when most science graduates, for example, are trained to teach a certain discipline, let’s say, Biology but the required slot in school is for a Chemistry or Physics teacher.  Sometimes because of lack of qualified teachers, schools opt to hire any science graduate even through they may not be competent when it comes to pedagogy of another discipline.  The curriculum in college should have been changed years ago. Colleges who train science teachers, especially now that the K12 science curriculum is spiral, should not anymore train teachers to become specialists, but to be qualified and competent in teaching all major branches of science. Specialization could be passed on to masters degree programs or other continuing education programs. 

It is the lack of qualified science teachers that bothers me the most and gets me questioning even my own education.  Am I also qualified enough to teach the subject I am handling?  I handle elementary teachers now who are all Biology majors and I could see how some of them really struggle teaching other branches of science such as chemistry and physics, let alone earth science.  If the teacher programs in college could not produce qualified science teachers who could teach all grade levels of science, what more could you expect from the students?

I agree that the quality of science education and the students’ interest in science is greatly dependent on the science teacher, himself or herself.  There other issues that the administration and education department should address, but as teachers, our contribution to the improvement of science education lies in our commitment. I completely agree with the qualities of a committed science teacher presented in the module.  A teacher must be reflective and collaborative and be a lifelong learner.  I couldn’t emphasize more the importance of being a lifelong learner.  As a science teacher one should not rely on what he or she already knows because science is a complex as well as a diverse subject.  As more discoveries are made through the advancement of technology and the increased speed upon which information gets disseminated, scientific theories continuously get modified and factual statements get changed.  Teachers should see to it that despite obstacles, quality science education is delivered through a learner-centered classroom environment and that students become challenged, yet inspired through his or her teaching.

According to Wellington and Ireson, the school curriculum has evolved over  a period of more than a century.  At the start of the twentieth century it was a subject for a privileged few, mostly male; in the twenty-first century, in many countries, it is seen as a subject for all pupils, all abilities and both sexes. Today the curriculum still evolves, as new generations of students come along, and part of its process are debates between opposing views to make the curriculum better. Should the aim of science education be focused on training future scientists or on all citizens developing their scientific literacy? How broad should science education be? Should there be integration or separation of disciplines? Should teachers give more importance to process or content in science? Is practical work still relevant and how significant is the role of ICT in science education?

I grew up in the old curriculum where I view science as a subject that entails great memorization skills to excel. Though I find them relevant as well as interesting, I remember having the “Oh! That’s why” moments when a concept ticks on something I’ve experienced and triggered my curiosity. My idea was I need to read a lot to be in the know. I often hear that most schools don’t get to cover everything that is required and if they do, they were done hastily, because there was just a lot of topics to teach. Back in my college days, the debate breadth versus depth of curriculum was very popular. I wonder if anyone sided with breadth because it was no debate that depth in the curriculum is more essential. But in reality, most if not all teachers still teach as if going from one topic to the next is like crossing a lake by leaping from stone to stone. We only touch the surface but not go deeper. 

It was surprising to learn from the resource by Swartz, et al. that the argument for these two opposing views had been present since time immemorial and has become one of the most controversial and most debated issues in the academe.  The roots for ‘breadth’ in the science curriculum could be traced way back the classical age from Aristotle who believed that a person must come to know everything that there is to know about the natural world (Perhaps because there were few ideas to learn at that time compared to today) and this broad curriculum had been adopted without question until the 19th century. Advocates of ‘depth in the curriculum ‘ argued that success lies more to mastering a few than not mastering any. This view was strengthened in America by the AAAS or the American Association for the Advancement of Science which later in the decade produced an educational reform in science with the NRC (National Research Council) authoring the National Science Education Standards. It is indeed surprising to know that there was also breadth and depth in this debate.

Another thing I remember back in my student-teaching days was the debate in education between content vs process-based learning.  Practical work (Dillon, 2008), includes learning experiences in which students interact with materials or with secondary sources of data to observe and understand the natural world.  Robin Millar also pointed out that when using the term ‘practical work’ he referred to ‘any teaching and learning activity which at some point involves the students in observing or manipulating the objects and materials they are studying’. I do believe that practical work or termed laboratory experiments and science activities as well as collaborative work is a must in planning one’s lesson. I think there is no argument in the roles practical work in students learning science. It aims to encourage accurate observation and description, make phenomena real, arouse and maintain interest and promote a logical and reasoning method of thought according to all three studies. When well planned and effectively implemented, science education laboratory and simulation experiences situate students’ learning in varying levels of inquiry requiring students to be both mentally and physically engaged in ways that are not possible in other science education experience (Dillon, 2008).

When I was in college studying education, great importance was given on process-based and practical work in the teaching of science that it played a big role in shaping my principle as a science teacher.  I did not have a hard time going from teacher-centered, traditional science education which was the practice during my student days into a more effective student-centered approach unlike other science teachers I encounter who would rather give a lecture to easily breeze through a topic than prepare and deliver an activity that would develop the students’ science skills.

Now that I am already part of the academe, the highly significant curricular issue that I believe worth debating and considering is ‘discipline vs integration.’ When the K12 curriculum came along, science curriculum, particularly in the secondary levels, changed from discipline-based to spiral based. The perennial problem of overcrowded science curriculum was addressed. We were introduced to a framework that treats science as a whole unit integrating ideas and concepts from different disciplines. At least that would have been the goal. But it was not taken seriously, in fact, I know schools that went back to the old discipline-based curriculum. Some schools still continue the discipline-based approach since educators are more specialized and would not easily adjust to the spiral curriculum. It is my dream to have the science curriculum in the Philippines be integrated which would cater a more student-centered classroom.  Unfortunately, it would be hard to do so because that would entail a shake up in the system and difficulty to adjust for the teachers but that would also pave way to revolutionizing science education.

I remember a saying, “Those who can, teach!” When one is asked why they teach, the answer could be because they can. But really, why does one teach? Being able to know why one teaches a subject matter or having a clear goal in mind is very important, especially to a beginning teacher, because this will be one’s guiding principle once immersed in the teaching arena. Unfortunately, I graduated Bachelor of Secondary Education Major in Biology fourteen years ago without having a clear perspective as to why I’m teaching Science. Now that I realized its importance, truly recommend adding Foundations of Science Education in the curriculum, if they have not added it when they revised the curriculum due to K12. 

According to Millar (2004), “School science curriculum in most countries has two distinct purposes. First, it aims to provide every young person with sufficient understanding of science to participate confidently and effectively in the modern world – a ‘scientific literacy’ aim. Second, advanced societies require a steady supply of new recruits to jobs requiring more detailed scientific knowledge and expertise; school science provides the foundations for more advanced study leading to such jobs.” It is important science because to teach a knowledge of science is needed for citizenship in modern technological societies. In an industrially growing and technologically advancing society, learning science is a must. Citizens must be scientifically literate at least to take a critical stand in different issues regarding health, environment, power supply, wherever science is involved, which encompasses a lot of things and make sound judgement and decisions. And it is also important to teach science because of the need for future scientists, engineers, technologists, and others who will need a strong science background for their work. 

When I started taking units of master education, I already ecountered of the term ‘scientficic literacy.’ Although, in hindsight, I do think I already had a grasp of the goals and purposes of science education. I just do not express it but when I prepare my lessons, I have this goal in mind. Application of science concepts is very important for me and I see to it that my student do science. Especially that I was assigned to teach in the elementary, my goal was to make my students enjoy learning to develop an appreciation and deeper interest in the subject that they may bring as they advance higher grades.  I assume that my perspective was already in congruence with the actual goal of science education.  What I think I needed to reevaluate is whether schools, particularly mine, have this goal in mind and are we doing the right things to accomplish such goal. Being a science coordinator in my school, I need to reflect whether my teachers have the same goal in mind. 

Needless to say, these goals are laid down in the basic framework for science. I don’t think there is any problem with the goals of science education that were laid down in the science basic framework.  The real problem is whether this is properly channeled to the right agencies and relayed to different institutions especially the ones involved in teacher education because I for one had only bumped into this framework while I was browsing science education articles and was never tackled, perhaps only in passing, when I was in college studying education.  I could attest, being a science coordinator, that teachers are still teaching science under the pillar of learning to know, wherein they discuss concepts in science as if they are absolute and permanent.  The nature of science is another important concept that science teachers should master for this will guide them in their pedagogy. 

As an educator, I think I hold the greatest responsibility to achieve goals of science education to develop scientifically literate citizens of the country and the world. Reflecting on this had deepened my understanding of how impactful learning science can be and influenced me to take necessary steps to reevaluate the curriculum that we are following and make sure, as a coordinator, that my teachers and I work collaboratively towards a common goal. There are a lot of things to do.  I’ve only scratched the surface. It will be a difficult job for me to change years of tradition in teaching science and making teachers take an active role in this aspect.

There is always a first in everything! I had been writing personal journals since I was little but this is the very first time I’m going to do it as a blog. I’m very excited to begin though nervous about the content I will be able to make because I wanted it to be as informative or as inspirational as possible.