ERIC Number: EJ998623
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2013-Feb
Pages: 21
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0157-244X
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Responding to a Relevance Imperative in School Science and Mathematics: Humanising the Curriculum through Story
Darby-Hobbs, Linda
Research in Science Education, v43 n1 p77-97 Feb 2013
There has been a recent push to reframe curriculum and pedagogy in ways that make school more meaningful and relevant to students' lives and perceived needs. This "relevance imperative" is evident in contemporary rhetoric surrounding quality education, and particularly in relation to the junior secondary years where student disengagement with schooling continues to abate. This paper explores how teachers translate this imperative into their mathematics and science teaching. Interview data and critical incidents from classroom practice are used to explore how six teachers attempted to make the subject matter meaningful for their students. Four "Categories of Meaning Making" emerged, highlighting key differences in how the nature of science and mathematics content constrained or enabled linkages between content and students' lifeworlds. While the teachers demonstrated a commitment to humanising the subject at some level, this analysis has shown that expecting teachers to make the curriculum relevant is not unproblematic because the meaning of relevance as a construct is complex, subject-specific, and embedded in understanding the human dimensions of learning, using, and identifying with, content. Through an examination of the construct of relevance and a humanistic turn in mathematics and science literature I argue for an expanded notion of relevance.
Descriptors: Secondary School Curriculum, Curriculum Development, Instructional Development, Relevance (Education), Secondary School Students, Learner Engagement, Secondary School Mathematics, Secondary School Science, Classroom Techniques
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Secondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
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Author Affiliations: N/A