Teaching, learning and the curriculum 1: The influence of content in science

Summary

There are already a number of important criteria upon which topics for inclusion in science curricula should be selected and sequenced. We have recommended two additional criteria: the topic's potential for effecting conceptual change, and its potential for generating metacognitive training. Among other things, Science curricula should foster intellectual development. Such development is often a slow process of change, where new experiences, skills and understandings build on, modify and extend existing ones. Thus, topics should be evaluated in terms of their relation to existing Children's Science and to the students' metacognitive abilities. Evaluation of the appropriateness of a particular topic in a curriculum sequence should be based on such factors as its conceptual concreteness, the number and breadth of models which can be invoked, the concreteness of corroboration of results, and its predictive power. Conjointly, evaluation should take into account the nature, scope and complexity of the associated metacognitive demands. If selected carefully, topics in the science curriculum will do more than progressively sample the universe of content areas. They will develop each students ability and desire to engage in effective, independent learning.