Curriculum

Recent reform efforts in science education include a focus on science practices. Teachers require support in integrating these practices into instruction. Multimedia educative curriculum materials (MECMs), digital materials explicitly designed to support teacher learning, offer one potential resource for this critical need. Consequently, the authors investigated how teachers used MECMs and whether that use impacted their beliefs about the practice of scientific argumentation. They conducted a randomised experimental study with 90 middle school science teachers in the USA.

Implementation of reform curricula requires teachers to adopt new approaches to teaching. Research has provided promising results about the influence of educative curriculum on teachers’ learning and instruction. However, this approach generally focuses on teachers as isolated learners. Using a design-based research approach, the authors developed a web-based tool, iPlan, which provides access to educative curriculum materials in an online interactive learning platform.

Linear Algebra and Geometry is organized around carefully sequenced problems that help students build both the tools and the habits that provide a solid basis for further study in mathematics. Requiring only high school algebra, it uses elementary geometry to build the beautiful edifice of results and methods that make linear algebra such an important field. 

Bhattacharya, D., Carroll-Steward, K., Sutter, A., Chandler, M., & Forbes, C.T. (2018). Climate literacy: Insights from research on K-16 climate education. Green Schools Catalyst Quarterly, V(4), 26-35.

Disruptions in Ecosystems is a middle school curriculum unit with supporting teacher materials. The unit includes five chapters, each focused on a specific phenomenon related to ecosystem disruption, including questions around the reintroduction of wolves into Yellowstone and the invasion of zebra mussels in the Great Lakes and Hudson River.

• Genetics