Vision
The content of these standards is based heavily on a specific model of learning, constructivism (learning theory). Like reform mathematics, which is distinguished by an emphasis on building on what a child already knows and understands, the standards intend to update the methods of science education to achieve greater effectiveness with children. The goals of the standards include:
- An outline of what students need to know, understand, and be able to do
- Targets for scientific literacy at different grade levels
- All students demonstrate high levels of performance
- Teachers are empowered to make the decisions essential for effective learning
- Communities of teachers and students are focused on learning science
- Educational programs and systems nurture achievement
The intended purpose of the standards is to define teaching methods which apply to all students, regardless of age, gender, cultural or ethnic background, disabilities, aspirations, or interest and motivation in science, recognizing that different students will achieve understanding in different ways, and some students will achieve different degrees of depth and breadth of understanding depending on interest, ability, and context. However, the standards expect that all students can develop the knowledge and skills described in the standards.
The goal of scientific literacy includes inquiry, history and nature of science, personal and social perspectives of science, science, and technology, in addition to the science domains of life science, physical science, and earth and space science. Programs defined according to these standards should be developmentally appropriate, interesting, and relevant to students’ lives.
Read more about this topic: National Science Education Standards
Famous quotes containing the word vision:
“I have always fought for ideas—until I learned that it isn’t ideas but grief, struggle, and flashes of vision which enlighten.”
—Margaret Anderson (1886–1973)
“Whatever else American thinkers do, they psychologize, often brilliantly. The trouble is that psychology only takes us so far. The new interest in families has its merits, but it will have done us all a disservice if it turns us away from public issues to private matters. A vision of things that has no room for the inner life is bankrupt, but a psychology without social analysis or politics is both powerless and very lonely.”
—Joseph Featherstone (20th century)
“The liveliness of literature lies in its exceptionality, in being the individual, idiosyncratic vision of one human being, in which, to our delight and great surprise, we may find our own vision reflected.”
—Salman Rushdie (b. 1947)