Problems of Science Education Reform: Cross-Disciplinary Analysis of the 5E Lesson Format

• In Event: 67.069 - Sheraton Roundtable 14 - Osgoode Ballroom
  In Roundtable Session: 67.069-2 - Roundtable: Research on Instructional Strategies for Science Learning

Abstract

Educational reform efforts are caught between two unworkable alternatives. To obtain clarity educational practice sometimes has been guided by a unitary theory of learning as with behavioral theory that dominated education during much of the last century. To avoid such narrowing of the educational enterprise, reformers have been guided by multifaceted visions of learning (diSessa, Levin, & Brown, 2016), which, however, provide only diffuse guidance for teaching. Is there a middle ground between overly-restrictive and underspecified guidance for teaching? This paper applies a crossdisciplinary framework (Author, 2016) to achieve unitary-theory-precise analysis of curriculum and implementation guidance for the 5E lesson format (Bybee, et al., 2006), a format increasingly used in science education to ensure breadth and depth of learning agendas.

Authors

• David Kirshner, Louisiana State University

• Hannah Cooling

• Leiflyn Gamborg, University of Connecticut