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Toward a more coherent model for science education than the crosscutting concepts of the next generation science standards: The affordances of styles of reasoning
Author(s) -
Osborne Jonathan,
Rafanelli Stephanie,
Kind Per
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
journal of research in science teaching
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.067
H-Index - 131
eISSN - 1098-2736
pISSN - 0022-4308
DOI - 10.1002/tea.21460
Subject(s) - curriculum , next generation science standards , affordance , clarity , set (abstract data type) , mathematics education , science education , engineering ethics , nature of science , computer science , academic standards , philosophy of science , formative assessment , scientific reasoning , sociology , epistemology , pedagogy , psychology , engineering , higher education , chemistry , political science , human–computer interaction , biochemistry , philosophy , programming language , law
In this article, we argue for a new rationale for the science curriculum that is more coherent and more useful than the crosscutting concepts of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). In an effort to provide both clarity and justification for the science curriculum, we contend that a framework based on the idea that there are six styles of scientific reasoning will better guide teachers, curriculum designers, and assessment developers. While the NGSS set out to articulate the learning outcomes of the science curriculum as a set of performance expectations within three major scientific disciplines, we argue that the crosscutting concepts have no scholarly basis for what the sciences have in common. The consequence is that the NGSS make no case for the over‐arching importance of specific performance expectations, include cross cutting concepts inconsistently across different grades, and provide no rationale for each standard. In contrast, we argue that the framework of styles of scientific reasoning does offer a coherent curriculum framework for the science curriculum from grades K through 12, a justification for each performance expectation, and a vision of how each standard might support the development of scientific reasoning. Implications for curriculum designers and educators are discussed.