Curriculum Unit Research Articles

The Competence-Based Advanced Level Mathematics Curriculum: Implications for Students’ Enrolment in one University in Zimbabwe

The study set out to examine the relevance of the competence-based Advanced Level mathematics curriculum for entry into university mathematics-related degree programmes. The study adopted a qualitative approach ingrained in the interpretive paradigm which employed a case study design. Four A-Level mathematics teachers, eighteen Lower Sixth and six Upper Sixth mathematics major students were purposively sampled to respond to semi-structured face-to-face interviews and focus group interviews. The study found that the implementation of the competence-based Advanced Level mathematics curriculum was negatively affected by incompetent teachers and supervisors, lack of resources and lack of support from other stakeholders. The study concluded that these impediments impacted negatively on students who aspired to pursue mathematics-related degree programmes at university and that there is a mismatch on the mathematics units in the competence-based Advanced Level mathematics curriculum and university requirements for mathematics-related degree programmes. The study recommends ministerial corroboration fostering university degree programmes requirements to be taught in high school, stakeholder involvement and continuous professional development for mathematics teachers and supervisors.

Eco-Solutioning: The Design and Evaluation of a Curricular Unit to Foster Students’ Creation of Solutions to Address Local Socio-Scientific Issues

The global pandemic and climate change have led to unprecedented environmental, social, and economic challenges with interdisciplinary STEM foundations. Even as STEM learning has never been more important, very few pre-college programs prepare students to address these challenges by emphasizing socio-scientific issue (SSI) problem solving and the engineering design of solutions to address local phenomena. The paper discusses the design and evaluation of a pre-college, SSI curricular unit where students expand their learning by creating solutions to increase biodiversity within local urban neighborhoods. The learning approach, which we call eco-solutioning, builds from current vision and policy documents in STEM education emphasizing phenomenon-centric instructional materials, science investigations, and engineering design. The paper outlines design principles for creating an eco-solutioning instructional unit that guides young students to: collect and analyze data on local organisms, use an engineering design approach to craft solutions to increase local biodiversity, and present their solutions to local city planners and community members. Two cycles of research studies evaluated student learning using paired t-tests. Results demonstrated significant pre-post learning outcomes in both research cycles. A third research cycle in the form of a summer extension program supported students as they implemented their local solutions. Conclusions highlight design principles for the successful creation of SSI curricular units centered on local environmental issues of interest to students, teachers, and stakeholders.

Using Students’ Conceptual Models to Represent Understanding of Crosscutting Concepts in an NGSS-Aligned Curriculum Unit About Urban Water Runoff

Recent science education reforms, as described in the Framework for K-12 Science Education (NRC, 2012), call for three-dimensional learning that engages students in scientific practices and the use of scientific lenses to learn science content. However, relatively little research at any grade level has focused on how students develop this kind of three-dimensional knowledge that includes crosscutting concepts. This paper aims to contribute to a growing knowledge base that describes how to engage students in three-dimensional learning by exploring to what extent elementary students represent the crosscutting concept systems and system models when engaged in the practice developing and using models as part of an NGSS-aligned curriculum unit. This paper answers the questions: How do students represent elements of crosscutting concepts in conceptual models of water systems? How do students’ representations of crosscutting concepts change related to different task-based scaffolds? To analyze students’ models, we developed and applied a descriptive coding scheme to describe how the students illustrated the flow of water. The results show important differences in how students represented system elements across models. Findings provide insight for the kinds of support that students might need in order to move towards the development of three-dimensional understandings of science content.

Preventing teacher violence against children: the need for a research agenda

Preventing teacher violence against children: the need for a research agenda

THE DEVELOPMENT OF A UNIT OF SCIENCE CURRICULUM FOR 2ND GRADE PREPARATORY SCHOOL BASED ON WOODS STRATEGY FOR DEVELOPING ATTITUDES TOWARDS RATIONALIZATION OF SUSTAINABLE CONSUMPTION AND CRITICAL THINKING OF 2ND GRADE PREPARATORY SCHOOL STUDENTS

The aim of the current research is to identify the effect of How can we develop a unit of science curriculum for the second preparatory grade based on the strategy of Woods for development of attitudes towards the rationalization of sustainable consumpton. The researcher uses the experiment method in her study to be administered upon a sample consistes of (60) the second preparatory grade students, they are divided into two groups, an experimental group (30) pupils and a control group (30) pupils. The Research uses Pre-application of tools (a list of concepts of sustainable production and consumption suitable for the second grade preparatory students- Scale of Attitudes towards Rationalizing Sustainable Consumption.-Scale of Critical Thinking on both groups (an experimental group , and a control group pupils. The experimental group has been treated then a post–application is administered on both group. For examination signification of differences between averages,a T. Test is used for two independent sample accompanied by a statistical treatment of SPSS Program.

How Do Scientists Know? Answering High School Students’ Questions with an Ecological Sampling Unit

What do animals eat? What animals are present in a habitat? How many animals are present? How was the habitat different years ago? How old is this animal? These are all questions that scientists want to answer. We know the answers to questions like these from data collected by scientists in a variety of ways. Science is evidence based, and conclusions are arrived at after multiple replicable experiments. Presented here are six ecological scenarios that demonstrate how scientists arrive at answers to population ecology questions. These lessons can be implemented as single activities that supplement a high school ecology or environmental science curricular unit or as a multiday rotation of stations in which students practice field sampling techniques used in population and community ecology, designed to answer ecological questions. Student scientists learn how to use indirect sampling methods to estimate abundance, density, age, and population size using mark–recapture, transects, and quadrats to model authentic field methods. They calculate species richness and biodiversity with a simplified Simpson’s diversity index and describe species age structure and distribution using tree rings, sheep horns, and camera trap images. Students also learn to display population data appropriately, graphing survivorship and richness vs. area and studying trophic pyramids.

Games based learning in accounting education – which dimensions are the most relevant?

ABSTRACT As new technologies pave the way to increasingly sophisticated and academically relevant experiences, gamification of the learning process, regardless of the field of expertise, becomes more and more important. This study aims to express several constructs that explain how one can apply Game-Based Learning to education while granting motivational success, attitudes, flow and learning. In this sense, in the present article, several theories have been used and related to each other, namely Landers’ Theory of Gamified Learning, Self Determination Theory, Flow Theory, and Planned Behaviour. The aim was to understand how Motivation, Flow and Attitude dimensions, which were obtained by applying Games Based Learning resources to the teaching of Accounting, can influence Perceived Learning. These constructs were examined to see how they influenced the Perceived Learning of Accounting (N = 816) college undergraduates who used AccountinGame like a quiz with contents learned in the classes. This research contributes to the current body of literature on Game-Based Learning in Accounting Education. Results clearly showed there is a robust relationship between the proposed framework dimensions. In this sense, after students had used games in Accounting curricular units, it was observed that Motivation and Attitudes influenced Perceived Learning, unlike Flow, which had no statistical influence.

Teachers as Curriculum Designers: Inviting Teachers into the Productive Struggle

This exploratory, embedded single study examined the experiences of middle grades teacher design teams over 10 months as they were immersed in the development of interdisciplinary curriculum units using a backward design framework. The teachers were supported by a researcher-practitioner partnership and situated in a middle level school structure that valued teachers’ engagement with curriculum design. Most notably, we found that the teachers experienced productive struggle throughout their design process and, as a result, shifted their pedagogical design capacity from adapting or offloading to improvising their curriculum. These findings are particularly significant to middle grades education because of the importance of curricular learning experiences for young adolescents that are challenging, exploratory, integrative, and diverse. Teachers can better create these kinds of experiences for their middle grades students if they are the ones designing those experiences with their particular students in mind.

The Increase of Brazilian Students in a Portuguese Engineering School

In the last fifteen years, the number of Brazilian students in Portugal has shown an increase of more than 600%. This trend was firstly driven by Portuguese economic recovery, which included investments in university education and incentives for receiving foreign students, through the international student statute, established in 2014. In the same year, Portugal started to accept the Brazilian national exams (ENEM) for the university admission, increasing the educational migratory flux once a directly access was stablished. Moreover, other secondary reasons led to this increase, such as the opportunity to study and live in a safer country and the possibility of obtaining a prestigious foreign degree. Currently, Brazilian students represent more than 33% of the foreign students in Portugal. However, the Brazilian students are highly concentrated in the top 3 Portuguese universities, Coimbra, Lisbon and Porto. In the specific case of the University of Porto, 73% of the foreign students are of Brazilian origin, with the Faculty of Engineering (FEUP) representing the largest contingent. This sharp growth in a specific group of foreign students on the engineering courses has created several important educational challenges, as the Brazilian students often exhibit higher failure rates in exams and curricular units as well as increased dropout rates when compared with Portuguese students. This is due to several factors, such as differences on the educational methodology, the quality of the high-school education, cultural differences, difficulty of adaptation and other socioeconomics aspects. The present work evaluates the causes behind the limited academic success of Brazilian students and introduces the measures and methodologies applied to the Brazilian students on the Faculty of Engineering of University of Porto, and on the Integrated Master’s in Mechanical Engineering (MIEM) in particular, in the pursuit of maintaining educational equality and ensuring success for all enrolled students, independently of their origin.

Collaborative Inquiry in Digital Information Environments

This paper presents selected findings from current research being undertaken by the Center for International Scholarship in School Libraries (CISSL) at Rutgers University that examines the research and writing processes of high school students undertaking a group research task in a New Jersey High school library. The purpose of this task was for students to produce a co-constructed product that represents the group’s understanding of their chosen curriculum topic. The study involved 42 grade 9 students undertaking an accelerated English Language Arts curriculum unit focusing on examining a wide range of challenging literature in the genres of short story, novel, drama, nonfiction, and poetry. The course includes independent reading assignments, and stresses critical thinking and speaking skills, study skills, and research strategies. The learning environment was supported by a Wiki/ Google documents digital environment that tracked the group dynamics, student-to-student interactions, resource use patterns, and knowledge building processes, as well as classroom teacher and school librarian interactions with the students, as groups and as individuals. This paper reports specifically on cognitive, personal and interpersonal dynamics reported by students as they worked in groups.

Developing a seminar curriculum for the Competence Center for General Practice in Baden-Wuerttemberg - a progress report.

Aim: The seminar program of the KWBW Verbundweiterbildungplus® is offered by the Competence Center for Postgraduate Medical Education in Baden-Württemberg (KWBW) for physicians specializing in general practice (GP trainees). Attendance is a voluntary one comprised of 48 curricular units of 45 minutes each per GP trainee. This seminar program is meant to be attended in parallel to the postgraduate medical education in clinic or practice. The intention behind this project was to develop objectives, topics and a feasible structure for a seminar curriculum while taking time and financial constraints into account.Method: The Kern cycle was applied in an open, modified nominal group consensus technique in the form of an iterative process. Participating were 17 experts from the departments of general practice at the universities in Freiburg, Heidelberg, Tuebingen and Ulm, plus a pediatrician.Results: The main objective was defined as empowering GP trainees to independently provide high-quality primary care, including in rural areas. A basic curriculum was defined based on relevant frameworks, such as the 2018 Model Regulation for Postgraduate Medical Training (Musterweiterbildungsordnung/MWBO) and the Competency-based Curriculum General Practice (KCA). Overall, the seminar curriculum has 62 basic modules with 2 curricular units each (e.g. Basic Principles of General Practice, Chest Pain, Billing) and another 58 two-unit modules on variable topics (e.g. digitalization, travel medicine) adding up to 240 (124+116) curricular units. A blueprint with a rotation schedule for all of the teaching sites in Baden-Württemberg allows regular attendance by n=400 GP trainees over a period of five years, with individual variability in terms of program length.Conclusion: The model entails a five-year, flexible program to accompany the postgraduate medical education in general practice which can also be implemented in multicenter programs and those with high enrollments. The model’s focus is on acquisition of core competencies for general practice. Despite the current shift to eLearning seminars due to SARS-CoV, the program’s implementation is being continued, constantly evaluated, and used to further develop the KWBW Verbundweiterbildungplus® program.

Higher Education and Sustainable Development Goals (SDG)—Potential Contribution of the Undergraduate Courses of the School of Social Sciences of the University of Évora

In this work we analyzed the mapping of Sustainable Development Goals in the curricular units of the undergraduate courses of the School of Social Sciences at the University of Évora. Of a total of 449 curricular units, only 374 had students enrolled in 2020/2021. The data presented refer to the 187 course units that had Sustainable Development Goals in addition to SDG4 (Quality Education) assigned to all the course units. Considering the set of curricular units, the results showed that the most mentioned objectives were those related to Gender Equality (SDG 5), Reduced Inequalities (SDG 10), Decent Work and Economic Growth (SDG 8) and Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions (SDG 16). Regarding the differences between the departments, which are also distinct scientific areas, we have observed that the Departments of Economics and Management had more objectives related to labor and economic growth, while the other departments mentioned more objectives related to inequalities, gender or other.

Bomba: The Sound of Puerto Rico’s African Heritage

Bomba is an emblematic Puerto Rican musical genre that emerged 400 years ago from the colonial plantations where West African slaves and their descendants worked. It remains one of the most popular forms of folk music on the island and serves as significant evidence of its rich African heritage. This article explores the main components of bomba by making them more accessible to those that have not experienced it from an insider’s perspective. The material presented in this article provides a learning sequence that could take the form of several lessons, or even a curricular unit. Transcriptions of rhythms typically learned aurally are also included.

Improving Student Engagement With Project-Based Learning: A Case Study in Software Engineering

In the area of Information and Communication Technologies, in addition to the problem of engagement, students often have difficulties in learning subjects related to modeling and programming. The reasons for these difficulties are well known and described in the literature, pointing to difficulties in abstraction and logic thinking. Knowing that the value of flexible and personalized learning, teachers are changing the way they teach, using different active learning methodologies, such as flipped classroom, project-based learning, and peer instruction. This paper describes an experiment conducted to improve the learning experiences of the students enrolled in the Computer Science bachelor’s degree course, attending three curricular units: Information Systems Development, Data Structures, and Web Languages and Technologies. The approach followed by the teachers used project-based learning as an active learning methodology. This methodology allows us to achieve four main objectives: (i) improve student engagement; (ii) improve learning outcomes achievement (iii) increase the course success rate and (iv) allow students to experience the need for the software development lifecycle, feeling that software engineering is not a block-based process but depending on previous activity, often leads to the need to go back in the process. The results obtained with the use of the active methodology were well accepted by the students and allowed both teachers and students to reach the objectives set.

Building Argumentation Skills in the Biology Classroom

Arguing from evidence is one of eight key science practices in which students should engage. It is an essential component of science, yet students have difficulties with this practice. We describe a scaffolded claims-evidence-reasoning (CER) argumentation framework that is embedded within a new eight-week, freely available curriculum unit developed by the Genetic Science Learning Center – Evolution: DNA and the Unity of Life. The scaffold provides high school students with practice in both developing and evaluating written arguments. It is designed to incrementally build student skill week-by-week, starting with an introduction to the CER components of an argument, and ending with students evaluating data and constructing a supported written argument. We also present evaluation findings from field testing the argumentation scaffold in the context of the complete Evolution unit in dozens of classrooms. And we discuss how this integrated, scaffolded approach to argumentation influenced both student and teacher learning.

Ideation to implementation: A 4-year exploration of innovating education through maker pedagogy

The current study explores how teachers’ behaviors and environmental factors influenced the use of a K-12 makerspace. Teachers attended professional learning sessions, developed a makerspace, and created curricular units aimed at teaching students design thinking stages and principles. Given the longitudinal (4 years) nature of this study within an authentic environment, this qualitative study reports data collected from focus groups, with varied teacher participation (n = 7-14 teachers). Using thematic analysis, we identified two primary themes. First, teachers’ behaviors were pliable, as they embraced yet requested additional change, collaboratively explored, attempted to reconcile their sense of responsibility, and sought knowledge as an ongoing pursuit. Second, the teachers were embedded within an environmental context that influenced their implementation through professional learning opportunities, use of planning time, access to the space, and the overall school culture. The nuance within these themes shifted throughout the 4 years of implementation. Collectively, these findings demonstrate the complex interaction between teachers and their environments when integrating a makerspace into students’ educational experiences. Specific recommendations are discussed regarding the facilitation of effective collaboration and meaningful professional learning.

Students' Experiences of Working With a Socio-Scientific Issues-Based Curriculum Unit Using Role-Playing to Negotiate Antibiotic Resistance.

The emergence and widespread of antibiotic-resistant pathogenic microorganisms are of great individual and societal relevance. Due to the complex and multilayered nature of the topic, antibiotic resistance (ABR) is the object of concern for several scientific fields, such as microbiology or medicine, and encompasses a broad range of political, economic, and social aspects. Thus, the issue related to antibiotic-resistant bacterial diseases offers an excellent platform for designing and implementing the teaching and learning of socio-scientific issues (SSI). We created a SSI-based curriculum unit for use in secondary science classrooms by developing a collaborative partnership between education researchers and microbiologists. This classroom environment allows students to explore and negotiate ABR as a societal and scientific phenomenon. For this purpose, we leveraged role-playing within the SSI-based unit as a productive context for engaging students in learning opportunities that provide multiple perspectives on ABR and the complex interplay of its accelerators. This case-based paper describes Austrian school students’ experiences from their participation in a SSI-embedded role-playing classroom environment and subsequent activities that included a mini congress with a poster presentation and a panel discussion. An open-ended questionnaire-based assessment tool was used to examine the situational characteristics of the students’ work. To assess students’ contributions, we applied a qualitative content analysis design and identified cognitive and affective outcomes. The students’ learning experiences demonstrate that they considered the content – the social complexities of antibiotic-resistant bacteria and associated diseases – exciting and very topical. The students perceived that learning about ABR is relevant for their future and involves both individual and societal responsibility for action. Although the curriculum unit and its assignments were described as labor-intensive, it became apparent that the role-playing setting has the potential to inform students about multiple stakeholder positions concerning ABR. Concerning the promotion of science practices, almost all students claimed that they learned to organize, analyze, evaluate, and present relevant information. Moreover, the students affirmed that they learned to argue from the perspective of their assigned roles. However, the students did not clarify whether they learned more through this SSI-based classroom instruction than through conventional science teaching approaches.

Expansive learning in a change laboratory intervention for teachers

The theory of Expansive learning and the change laboratory (CL) methodology has been developed and applied in many studies on workplace learning and educational change. There are fewer studies made on small-scale interventions, exploring the longitudinal development of expansive learning in an educational change effort. This article examines a CL intervention performed in an upper secondary school in Sweden, with a small group of teachers engaged in a participatory design project. By identifying and analysing the relationship of the seven learning actions posited by the theory of expansive learning, the aim was to contribute to the discussion of the CL methodology and the empirical usability of the theory. The results showed that the seven expansive learning actions functioned as analytical tools to map the teachers learning and development, but the analysis also showed many deviations, disruptions and occurrence of practical actions of design in the process. This challenge the notions of cyclicity and ascension in the theory of expansive learning. Cyclicity might be desirable but not necessary for expansive learning which questions the need to first grasp the problem at a conceptual level before generating concrete solutions. The Findings in this study suggests the opposite; that the entanglement and parallel movement between the abstract and the concrete was a driving force for the teachers expansive learning and the design of new curricular units.

Understanding coherence and integration in integrated STEM curriculum

BackgroundFew tools or rubrics exist to assess the quality of integrated STEM curricula, and existing tools focus on checklists of characteristics of integrated STEM. While such instruments provide important information about the presence and quality of certain curricular components, they do not assess the level and nature of integration of the curriculum as a whole. Thus, this study explores the development of a process focused to understand the nature of integration within a STEM curriculum unit.FindingsA conceptual flow graphic (CFG) was constructed for 50 integrated STEM curriculum units. Patterns in the nature of the interdisciplinary connections were used to categorize and understand the nature of integration and curricular coherence within each unit. The units formed four broad types of integrated STEM curricula: (i) coherent science unit with loosely connected engineering design challenge (EDC), (ii) engineering design-focused unit with limited connections to science content, (iii) engineering design unit with science content as context, and (iv) integrated and coherent STEM units. All physical science units were in the integrated and coherent category with strong conceptual integration between the main science concepts and the EDC. Curricula based in the Earth and life sciences generally lacked conceptual integration between the science content and the EDC and relied on the engineering design process to provide a coherent storyline for the unit.ConclusionsOur study shows that engineering practices can serve as a contextual integrator within a STEM unit. The utilization of an EDC also provides the potential for conceptual integration because engineering is grounded in the application of science and mathematics. Integrated STEM curricula that purposefully include science and mathematics concepts necessary to develop solutions to the EDC engage students in authentic engineering experiences and provide conceptual integration between the disciplines. However, the alignment of grade-level science standards with the EDC can be problematic, particularly in life science and Earth science. The CFG process provides a tool for determining the nature of integration between science and mathematics content and an EDC. These connections can be conceptual and/or contextual, as both forms of integration are appropriate depending on the instructional goals.

Pedagogy, Partnership, and Collaboration: A Longitudinal, Empirical Study of Serious Educational Gameplay in Secondary Biology Classrooms.

The use of serious educational games has the potential to increase student learning outcomes in science education by providing students with opportunities to explore phenomena in ways that vary from traditional instruction; yet, empirical research to support this assertion is limited. This study aimed to explore deeply what learning gains were associated with the use of three serious educational games (SEGs) created for use in secondary biology classrooms that partner teachers implemented during a 2-week curriculum unit. This longitudinal, mixed method study includes a control year, in which we examined how six highly qualified teachers taught students (n = 407) a 2-week curriculum unit addressing cellular biology without the SEGs, followed by 2 years in which the teachers integrated the SEGs into the curriculum unit with students (n =871). Data were collected from multiple sources, including a validated content pre- and post-test measure, embedded gameplay data, participant observation, teacher interviews, and focus groups. Quantitative findings showed significant learning gains associated with students who experienced the game condition during year 2, when compared with the control condition. During the replication year (year 3), learning gains increased again, compared with year two. Although the SEGs did not change between years 2 and 3, teachers were provided real-time access to students’ performance during gameplay. Thematic analysis of observation notes, teacher interviews, and student performance in-game identified four affordances teachers identified related to the use of serious educational games in their classrooms and the extended partnership model employed. Implications for researchers and game designers are discussed.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1007/s10956-020-09868-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.