Volume 97, Number 4, April 1997

Table of Contents

Abstracts

Table of Contents

Abstracts

• Performance Assessment in Science as a Tool to Enhance the Picture of Student Learning

James A. Shymansky, Jennifer L. Chidsey, Laura Henriques, & Sandra Enger
University of Iowa
Larry D. Yore
University of Victoria
Edward W. Wolfe & Margaret Jorgensen
Educational Testing Service 

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        The Iowa Assessment Project was funded by the National Science Foundation to explore the feasibility of combining the expertise of science teachers, science educators, and test developers to build innovative performance assessments that complement traditional, norm-referenced, multiple-choice science tests. The science teachers, graduate students, and science educators designed and tested performance assessment tasks to enhance the picture of science understanding in students through multiple points of evidence. This paper describes the design of four science performance tasks for Grade 9 students and the relationship between their performance on these tasks and multiple-choice items in the Iowa Tests of Educational Development. Students and schools used to develop the tasks were not included in the verification sample.
 

• Practitionerâs Research: A Study in Changing Preservice Teachersâ Conceptions About Mathematics and Mathematics Teaching and Learning

Diana F. Steele
Northern Illinois University
Teresa Fehrs Widman
University of Florida 

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        Educators involved in the current reform movement in mathematics education recommend that students be actively involved in constructing their own knowledge and developing powerful mathematical concepts. This study suggests how ideas based on constructivist learning theory can be put into practice in a preservice mathematics education class.
 

• Preparing Science Teachers in an Era of Reform: Practitionersâ Perspectives of Methods Courses

William J. Letts IV, Bambi L. Bailey & Kathryn Scantlebury
University of Delaware 

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        With recent national calls for the reform of science education have come standards that delineate not only science content but also assessment, pedagogy, and teachersâ professional development. If teachers must teach science differently, then teacher preparation must change. This study asked 31 inservice secondary science teachers to complete a survey about topics for inclusion in a secondary science methods course. Respondents ranked a list of prespecified topics and had an opportunity to suggest other topics for inclusion in the course. Results showed that the majority of prespecified potential topics were judged important enough by these teachers to warrant inclusion in a methods course, though no individual added topic appeared on more than two surveys. Results demonstrate that these teachers believe teaching many of the traditional topics in science methods courses is still needed. In addition, they advocated the inclusion of several topics that either represent recent technological and theoretical advances, or long-standing ideas that have recently received considerable attention.
 

• The Integration of Math and Science Via Centroids

Cheng-Shyong Lee
National Taipei Teachers College, Taipei, Taiwan 

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        Science problems enhance and promote math functions to establish some formulas to solve them; conversely, many math results give the explanation and the development of science phenomena and their related situation. From Archimedesâ Law of the Lever, together with some properties of vectorâs representation, the geometrical construction of the weighted centroid of gravity of finite particles is given, the new proving of Cevaâs and Menelausâs results is explored, and a related result to spacial shape is set up. These presentations are important in math, physics, chemistry, statistics, and engineering. The ideas are significant to these fields for the integration of multifarious curricula.
 

• Integrating Tech Prep into Science Teacher Preparation

Steven W. Gilbert
Indiana University Kokomo 

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        Tech Prep is an emerging educational reform in the United States. Thirty of 37 states responding to a recent survey had some type of formal Tech Prep initiative in place (R. Hayes, 1995). Although Tech Prep has received its strongest backing from practitioners in technology education, science teacher educators must prepare teachers for these programs. The problem is that few may be ready. This paper provides an overview of Tech Prep and a model for its integration into the K-12 curriculum. It then discusses implications for science and mathematics teacher preparation.
 

• Integration of Science and Mathematics: A Theoretical Model

Robert A. Lonning and Thomas C. DeFranco
The University of Connecticut 

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        Interest in interdisciplinary, integrated curriculum development continues to increase. However, teachers, who have been given primary responsibility for developing these materials, are often working with little guidance. At present there exists no clear definition of the meaning of integration of mathematics and science. A continuum model of integration is proposed as a useful tool for curriculum developers as they create new integrated mathematics and science curricula or adapt commercially prepared materials. On the continuum, activities range from mathematics or science involving no integration to those activities including balanced mathematics and science concepts. Several examples are given to illustrate the utility of the continuum model for analyzing integrated curricula. The continuum model is intended to be used by curriculum developers to clarify the relationship between the mathematics and science activities and concepts and to guide the modification of lessons.