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:
“Redeem
The time. Redeem.
The unread vision in the higher dream
While jewelled unicorns draw by the gilded hearse.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
““The god has not yet answered to our pity
For the black vision and tangle in her brains,
Nor is there knowing soever in the city
Of the red histories that throbbed in her blue veins.””
—Allen Tate (1899–1979)
“I wish I could take back some of the things I said and some of the things I did. But in the bigger picture, I don’t feel that it was violent and terrible. I feel like it was primarily—obviously not completely—moral, based on a vision that the government should be better, and that people could be better, and that democracy should be real.”
—Bernardine Dohrn (b. 1942)