EDUC. Outffne ?

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progs/course^—listings/Educ4l6murray.htmI

SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY?

DESIGNS FOR LEARNING: SECONDARY SCIENCE

(D01.00)

0 Ken Murray ?

Office: EDB 9508 ?

email: kgmurray@sfu.ca

Tuesday & Thursday 8:30-12:20

EDB 7500B

PREREQUISITE:

EDUC

401/402.

Educ

405 desired.

COURSE DESCRIPTION:

We will do three things:

1.

Get comfortable with the provincial science curriculum.

That science teachers working with grades 8 - 10 must teach in all areas of science in spite of their own

specialization is both the biggest challenge and the greatest strength of the BC Science Curriculum.

Students will get practice developing units and teaching lessons in all of the areas of the provincial

curriculum. We will pay particular attention to Science 10. This is a new curriculum to be implemented

in September 2008. The intention is that you will go into schools in September with some degree of

expertise in this new curriculum - a valuable commodity.

2.

Gain an understanding of our orientations to the science curriculum.

"Education doesn't serve the public, it creates the public!" -Neil Postman

We will take Postman's comment seriously as we explore why we are teaching science and what the

intentions are for the science curriculum. We will have to reconcile the stated intentions of the science

curriculum with our personal intentions, and, those intentions with our pedagogical approaches. We will

also consider science itself and the role of science in our socio-political world and establish our

curricular intentions in terms of teaching about the role of science in society or science and technology in

society.

3.

Get to some answers to the question, "What does good teaching in science look like?"

Of course, the answers are not that hard to come by, it is putting them into practice that counts, but, we

will need to articulate very clearly what is meant by "good science teaching" in the context of all of the

above.

Along the way, we will also develop an understanding of assessment practices that encourage learning

in high-school science as well as some exploration of the use of technologies to enhance science

experiences for students.

ASSIGNMENTS AND ASSESSMENT

Grades will be based on

5

weekly assignments at

15%

each and in-class work worth

25%.

Some of the

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weekly assignments will overlap with in-class work, effectively making the actual in-class component

greater than

25%.

Criteria for assessment will be developed in the first two classes and will be directed

toward the intentions of the course as outlined above, especially the part about what good science

teaching looks like.

READINGS

Most of the readings such as government curriculum documents and other articles will be available

on-line. We will use WebCF to post links and articles as well as assignment background and details.

Some information and print articles will be provided in class but we will try to avoid having an extra

photocopy fee ($10).

Students in all Faculty of

Education courses are encouraged to review policies pertaining to

academic integrity available on the Undergraduate Programs websie:

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