The American Association for the Advancement of Science's Project 2061 created Benchmarks for Science Literacy (AAAS, 1993) as a tool for curriculum design. It is more than a simple framework or pattern to be followed in rearranging the content of science. The developers sought to establish benchmarks for science learning for all students, to define what they should know and be able to do in science, mathematics, and technology. These checkpoints are for grades 2, 5, 8, and 12 and provide the basis for progress goals. They are consistent with the goals for student learning established in an earlier publication, Science for All Americans (Rutherford & Ahlgren, 1990). The intention of the grade-level standards is to define a common core of learning to be mastered by students before they leave high school so that they can be considered scientifically literate.
Andrew Ahlgren, associate director of Project 2061, talks about implementing
the Benchmarks in schools. Excerpted from NCREL's videoseries,
Schools That Work: The Research Advantage, videoconference 3, Children
as Explorers (NCREL, 1991). (Audio comment, 221k) A text
transcript is available.
The Benchmarks were not prepared to dictate curriculum or instruction methodology. Rather, they are meant to enlighten and inform the decisions of teachers and curriculum developers as they determine the substance of instruction and choose the methods by which it is presented. The Benchmarks are a tool for transforming learning in science, mathematics, and technology. As such, they are a significant source of ideas and background for science educators at all levels.
In spring 1991, the president of the National Science Teachers Association asked the National Research Council (NRC) to "convene and coordinate a process that would lead to the establishment of National Science Education Standards, K-12." Since then, the NRC's National Science Education Standards (1994, November, draft) project has worked to provide qualitative criteria and a framework for judging science content, teaching, and assessment. This project is scheduled to be completed in 1995. In its final form, the NRC Standards will provide a basis for making judgments about what is taught in science classrooms, the way it is taught, and how learning is measured or assessed.
As in the work of Project 2061, the underlying purpose of the NRC Standards is to inform decisionmaking - not dictate it. The content portion of the NRC Standards will shape and organize the content of science in a framework intended to be descriptive - not prescriptive. The teaching standards segment will establish skills and knowledge that teachers need to help students achieve the learning outcomes of the science curriculum. Guidelines for measuring student achievement will be presented in the science assessment standards. Both projects seek to ensure that all students have access to meaningful learning in the sciences.
References