Science and society education are such challenging subjects to cover in any school setup as a teacher. In most cases, as a teacher, you are expected to face constraints that affect the effectiveness of how you deliver information to your students. The science, technology and society (STS) education takes into consideration the ethical and social responsibility of everyone involved in solving society problems based on scientific-related concepts.
The STS has been designed with the aim of developing well-nurtured individuals who clearly understand technological concepts and have a grasp of the socially embedded enterprises. However, in many instances, it remains a significant problem for teachers to translate the STS principles in a classroom setup. STS has been formulated with the aim of improving decision-making by individuals especially on issues related to technology and social enterprises. Issues related to decision-making are hard to understand and monitor even as a teacher.
Julie, in our case, a teacher at the Ontario Development Institute has an interest in implementing the STS perspective in her curriculum (Ontario Ministry of Education 2007). Through Julie’s case, as a teacher, I can understand various virtues and constraints involved in STS practices to try to improve how students interpret scientific concepts. Science appears to be a very challenging subject when most of these practices are ignored.
As a teacher, just like Julie participated in the development of the Septic Tank Unit, recording and involvement in personal dialogue appeared to be a great virtue. Keeping journals too seems to be a good practice in learning and decision-making. This can help me explore teaching and have a good understanding of the learning process. The Septic Tank Unit Development appears challenging to Julie especially when she tries to integrate the student’s reading and writing skills as she conducts her research in the public institute. As a teacher, this issue can also be challenging to me when it comes to the learning process.
Many virtues are presenting as Julie works in the Septic Tank Unit development at the institution. By collecting various opinions, as a teacher one can make substantial decisions related to issues that appear complex. It is through such kind of STS principles that Julie can come up with a formal strategy towards the solution to this matter. As a teacher, you can identify the goals that are required to be achieved. It’s through this that you positively develop your career.
An issue-based approach appears to be the best way to solve matters related to decision- making as a teacher based on the STS principles. It is through it that Julie is capable of making reliable decisions regarding the issue. Moreover, practicing the issue-based approach in solving problems enables students to express themselves confidently and have their opinions adhered to. It ensures responsible actions as taken to solve issues that exist in society.
Action is presented as a challenging issue for both teachers and students. As a teacher, I would opt to involve my students in the lowest forms of dialogue to ensure proper bonding and understanding. Moreover, effective understanding of issues would be an adequate solution to help in taking relevant steps in problem- solving. These solutions would appear effective since it’s through action that Julie was able to make that challenging steps of finding solutions to the Septic Tank issue.
References:
Ontario Ministry of Education. (2007). The Ontario Curriculum Grades 1-8: Science and Technology. Toronto: Queen's Printer.
Pedretti, E. (1997). Septic tank crisis: A case study of science, technology, and society eductaion in an elementary school. Toronto: Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Torornto.
Disciplinary vs. Integrated Curriculum
Disciplinary vs. Integrated Curriculum
The school science is under threat because of the integration of the curricular and new holistic views of the world. The examples of the integrated curriculum include contextualized instructions, community connections, authentic tasks, youth-centered perspectives, future studies, and democratic schools. The integrated curriculum views the approaches that the learners have in their studies and how they reflect what they have learned in the real life situation that might not be related to the discipline they studied. For instance, if the students are allowed to conduct an experimental research on a local lake to determine the quality of water and aquifers, the students will take a long time in the field doing the science that might make them bored during classwork. The students may also develop bad perceptions of the community because they may conclude that the insanity majorly comes from the carelessness of the community members (Venville, 2009). Adolescents in schools are also interested in real world science that when included in the curriculum, requires critical decision-making, values that are in disputes and uncertainty. Therefore, the change in the curriculum may cause a revolution that the students tend to think of their way rather than how they are expected.
Another threat to the integration of school curriculum is the subject matter knowledge and qualifications, and the pedagogical knowledge content. The students might not be comfortable with the school policies and curriculum guidelines because it might not cater for the poor students and those with various disabilities (Venville, 2009). The education curriculum can be well integrated, but the schools might fail to integrate their programs to accommodate the learning of the approaches to science education. For example, the school resources and facilities might be sufficient to assist in the integration of the curriculum as required by the curriculum developers. The integration of education approaches requires further training of teachers who will help in implementing the new system. Therefore, if the teachers are not adequately trained in prior on the integration approaches to education, the process might not be successful.
Science as a subject taught in schools can coexist with more holistic approaches to education. The teaching curriculum for the science subject can incorporate several topics that require research on the real world views. This is because science as a discipline comprises several other subjects that are critical in the education curriculum (Venville, 2009). It, therefore, helps the students to acquire certain careers that can assist them to nurture their knowledge and talents (Ontario Ministry of Education 2007). The integrated curriculum views the approaches that the learners have in their studies and how they reflect what the students have learned in the real life situation that might not be related to the discipline they studied. The science can be integrated into different subjects like biology, physics, chemistry, social sciences to help the students get a better scientific knowledge. In so doing the science education would be globalized and the contemporary scope expanded. This would be the actual vision that scholars would feel good to achieve. The science education can also involve doing researches that help students to acquire autodidact.
References:
Ontario Ministry of Education (2007). The Ontario Curriculum Grades 1-8: Science and Technology. Toronto, ON: Queen’s Printer.
Venville, G. (2009). Disciplinary vs. integrated curriculum: The challenge for school science. The NewCritic, 10, 1-9.
