How Well Do Middle School Science Programs Measure Up? Findings from Project 2061's Curriculum Review

The purposes of this study were to examine how well middle school programs support the attainment of key scientific ideas specified in national science standards, and to identify typical strengths and weaknesses of these programs using research-based criteria. Nine widely used programs were examined by teams of teachers and specialists in research on teaching and learning. Reviewers found that whereas key ideas were generally present in the programs, they were typically buried between detailed or even unrelated ideas. Programs only rarely provided students with a sense of purpose for the units of study, took account of student beliefs that interfere with learning, engaged students with relevant phenomena to make abstract scientific ideas plausible, modeled the use of scientific knowledge so that students could apply what they learned in everyday situations, or scaffolded student efforts to make meaning of key phenomena and ideas presented in the programs. New middle school science programs that reflect findings from learning research are needed to support teachers better in helping students learn key ideas in science. The criteria and findings from this study on the inadequacies in existing programs could serve as guidelines in new curriculum development. 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 39: 522–549, 2002 Whereas curriculum materials (and in particular textbooks and their accompanying teacher’s guides) are but one of the resources available to teachers, they have a major role in teaching and learning. Many teachers rely on them to provide some or all of their content and pedagogical content knowledge, and this is especially so when the teacher is a novice or is teaching outside his or her area of expertise (Ball & Feiman-Nemser, 1988; National Educational Goals Panel, 1994). Acknowledging their role in teaching and learning, both science education researchers and policy makers have called for systematic, research-based reviews of science curriculum materials as a means for improving their quality, influencing teacher practice, and supporting science education reform [Good, 1993; National Research Council (NRC), 1999, 2000b]. Correspondence to: Sofia Kesidou; E-mail: skesidou@aaas.org DOI 10.1002/tea.10035 Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Reviews of science curriculum materials so far have had a narrow focus. They have typically considered isolated characteristics of curriculum materials, such as the range of topics covered in the material (e.g., Chiapetta, Sethna, & Fillman, 1993), the level of difficulty of the writing (e.g., Vachon & Haney, 1991), the use of illustrations (e.g., Holliday, 1990), attention to student diversity (e.g., Bazler & Simonis, 1991; Potter & Rosser, 1992), or the extent of inquiry focus (e.g., Eltinge & Roberts, 1993). Only a few studies have explicitly looked at curriculum materials in the light of current theories of learning (Jimenez, 1994; Shiland, 1997). Findings from the learning sciences in the past 2 decades have not influenced systematically the evaluations of curriculum materials. This includes more general findings on knowledge organization in expertise, the role of prior knowledge (both conceptual and cultural) in learning, and conditions that facilitate the transfer of knowledge (NRC, 2000a). It also includes specific findings on characteristics of content area text that affect comprehension and learning as well as procedures for teaching students to learn from reading texts (Alexander & Kulikowich, 1994; Holliday, Yore, & Alvermann, 1994; Hynd, McWhorter, Phares, & Suttles, 1994), and content-specific instructional strategies and representations that support student learning (Chinn & Brewer, 1993; Guzzeti, Snyder, Glass, & Gamas, 1993; Scott, Asoko, & Driver, 1992; Smith, Blakeslee, & Anderson, 1993; White & Frederiksen, 1998). These findings have implications for the design of texts and teacher’s guides, and can serve as the basis for criteria to judge the quality of curriculum materials (Good & Shymansky, 1986; NRC, 1999, 2000a, 2000b). The study presented here is part of a long-term effort by Project 2061 to develop researchbased criteria for reviewing science curriculum materials, and to carry out and make widely available reviews of curriculum materials based on these criteria. The study’s purposes are to examine how well currently available middle school curriculum materials support the attainment of important scientific ideas specified in national science standards, and to identify typical strengths and weaknesses of these materials. Conceptual Framework Educators have different views on curriculum materials. They range from the view that curriculum materials need to prescribe to teachers exactly what to do, when to do it, and in what order (what was once called teacher-proof curriculum), to the view that curriculum materials are not needed at all, and the teacher must develop his or her own materials because he or she is the only one who knows the particular students’ learning needs well enough to modify the classroom environment in response to these needs. In between, there are various other views, such as that curriculum materials are a necessary evil—some teachers (especially beginning teachers) are not yet adequately prepared to teach science—so curriculum materials may be needed until we have accomplished the job of large-scale teacher development; or that curriculum materials are useful reference materials—teachers need them as starting points from which they can put together materials of their own. We (like others) view curriculum materials as tools that allow teachers to do their best work with students. They provide a coherent science program for students based on the best thinking available in the field, and material that supports teachers in making more thoughtful and informed decisions about their own students science learning. Accordingly, our analysis of curriculum materials focuses on whether they meet the following essential requirements: their content primarily focuses on a coherent set of important, age-appropriate student learning goals; their instructional design effectively supports the attainment of the specified student learning goals; and the teacher’s guides support teachers in helping students attain these goals. MIDDLE SCHOOL CURRICULUM REVIEW 523