Biology High School Science Curricula for the 21st Century

Mahmood Khalil,Rachel Hertz-Lazarowitz,Reuven Lazarowitz

doi:10.4236/ce.2014.516164

Abstract

High school science curricula of the 21st century have to include science-technology content and pedagogical content knowledge in a continuous interaction in order to be relevant to students’ needs. Learning units, including science, technology and related societal issues written on the Science, Technology and Society (STS), approach have to use teaching/learning strategies, and learning settings, such as cooperative learning in small groups, individual learning and computer episodes, so students will acquire science-technology literacy connected to societal issues. This approach may provide integration and participation in the advance society, so students will be able to look and find a job based on their learning. Dreyfus (1995) emphasized the importance of moral and ethics education. Science knowledge is not only for academic achievement and mastery of cognitive and meta-cognitive skills, but to educate students on the affective domain being active in the community life based on moral and ethical values, and positive attitudes toward societal issues, like social justice. Preservation of the environment and peace, as other values are addressed in the learning units presented.

Highlights

High school science curricula have to include side by side science-technology content knowledge as well as pedagogical content knowledge in a continuous interaction in order to answer issues of relevancy of both of themHow to cite this paper: Khalil, M., Lazarowitz, R., & Hertz-Lazarowitz, R. (2014)
What happen in the three cooperative learning depicted above? a) Teachers roles were depicted above. b) Students’ activities varied according to the learning tasks. c) They read the tasks while each one received a task at a different cognitive level in order to meet the heterogeneous nature of the group members. d) every student reads, prepare his/her part for teaching it to the other members of the group, each one in his/her mode by mentioning the important points or other methods, they check themselves for mastery of the knowledge and if they are ready to teach and prepare questions to ask their counterparts if they master the learning material and will be ready to take the test administered by the teacher at the end of the learning unit
The results indicate that among the teachers there is a medium to low level of awareness of societal issues, and the main emphasis is on the “pure” by scientific subjects taught for the matriculation exams

Summary

Introduction

High school science curricula have to include side by side science-technology content knowledge as well as pedagogical content knowledge in a continuous interaction in order to answer issues of relevancy of both of themHow to cite this paper: Khalil, M., Lazarowitz, R., & Hertz-Lazarowitz, R. (2014). Biology High School Science Curricula for the 21st Century. Two main roles of science education for high schools students will be addressed, so science curricula will be adequate for the 21st century. 1. With the role of Science Technology Society (STS) learning units, which have to use specific teaching/learning strategies, and specific learning settings, students will acquire science-technology literacy connected to societal issues, which can facilitate their integration and participation in our advance society and will be able to find a job based on their learning; 2. The role of moral education, values and attitudes via acquiring knowledge in science content knowledge is as Dreyfus (1995) emphasized that “biological knowledge is a prerequisite for the development of students’ values and attitudes”

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Conclusion