Reform is a way of life in education. Finding ways to evaluate the effectiveness of that reform in terms of children's learning is a big priority in today's atmosphere of more and better accountability in the nation's preK-12 schools. Frances Lawrenz and Doug Huffman , professor and assistant professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, are involved in numerous projects, some national in scope, to determine if recent changes in curricula and teaching methods for junior and senior high school science students are improving learning and comprehension.
Teachers take reform into their classrooms and shape it in individual ways.
It can take a while for change to filter down. Science classes today are more investigative and are emphasizing depth rather than breadth. They're interested in encouraging kids to demonstrate independent ability to design their own lab experiments, for example, rather than making sure they cover a specified number of sections in the textbook. Huffman agrees that changes often are slow to appear. Determining if improvements in test scores can be attributed to reform and making sure comparisons among schools or states are consistent, critical aspects of their work.