Development Of A Standards-Based Integrated Science Course For Elementary Teachers

Abstract

With the national mandates that science be an integral component of all levels of education, the importance of having courses for future elementary teachers designed to meet state and national standards is critical. This paper describes how three SIUE faculty, one from biology, chemistry, and physics, initiated, coordinated, and implemented curricular changes to our Foundations of Science course. The goals of this project were 1) to enhance the current content curriculum, 2) to revise current curricular modules and develop new modules to be inquiry‐based, 3) to improve and expand upon the use of technology, and 4) to further articulate the interrelatedness of the sciences in the curriculum. Meeting these goals required the complete revision or creation of 25 hands‐on inquiry‐based modules. Evaluation of the project involved 1) determining the impact of the modules on student learning, 2) gathering student perspectives of the modules, and 3) collecting faculty feedback. This paper outlines the developed modules and presents our initial findings related to the student perspectives of the modules and their impact on student learning..