Abstract
Although the learning of micro–macro thinking is a key conceptual area in chemistry, it is perceived as difficult and abstract. Two strategies have been applied to address this problem: the use of contexts and a regular update with contemporary content. In this chapter, we describe how curriculum development can fall back into a typical dominant version of school chemistry, especially for the area of micro–macro thinking. This ‘fall back’ can be explained by a synthesis of curriculum theories based on the ideas of curriculum emphases (Roberts), curriculum structures (Schwab), normal science (Kuhn) and curriculum representations (Goodlad). This theory describes the dominant version of school chemistry as a curriculum with a typical philosophical substructure of educational positivism, a substantive substructure based on corpuscular theory and a pedagogical substructure focusing on the initiatory and preparatory training of future chemists. For an escape from these constraints, a co-ordinated replacement of the currently rigid combination of substantive, philosophical and pedagogical substructures of school chemistry will be necessary. A successful curriculum development implies the consistent transformations between curriculum representations: from a vision on chemistry education into design criteria for an entire curriculum (1), into an exemplary unit (2), into student and teacher materials (3), into the operational form in a real classroom, with attained learning results of students (4). Evaluative feedback loops of the transformations support the iteration in the development. In Chapter~9 of this book a first step towards such a unit is described.
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van Berkel, B., Pilot, A., Bulte, A.M.W. (2009). Micro–Macro Thinking in Chemical Education: Why and How to Escape. In: Gilbert, J.K., Treagust, D. (eds) Multiple Representations in Chemical Education. Models and Modeling in Science Education, vol 4. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-8872-8_3
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