Mapping Energy in the Boston Public Schools Curriculum
Energy is a cross-cutting concept that can be used to integrate all scientific disciplines. However, most curricula are not organized, taught, or learned from this integrated energy perspective. As science becomes increasingly interdisciplinary, K-8 science teachers often teach all scientific disciplines, and many scientific concepts are taught repeatedly in different curricula, we hypothesize that using an integrated energy approach allows for more efficient learning of science as a whole. This idea is consistent with the Next Generation Science Standards being introduced in the United States with a major cross-cutting concept being Matter and Energy. To examine how energy pervades the Boston Public Schools (BPS) curriculum, grades 1–12, the Boston Energy in Science Teaching (BEST) project gathered 12 teacher leaders (one representing each grade) to identify where energy was most prominent in the curriculum they teach and how these energy ideas, activities, and examples were connected horizontally across science disciplines and vertically across grade bands. After 3 days of an Energy Institute devoted to this task, the teachers’ inputs resulted in a matrix of 162 connections among the 105 curriculum units (grades 1–12) that featured energy most prominently. Identified energy ideas were consistent with four energy subthemes: Forms and Transformation, Systems, Conservation of Energy, and Energy Resources. The most critical energy ideas and activities were identified and crossed all disciplines and grade bands equally. Challenges remain in aligning the energy map in BPS with energy learning progressions and making the energy content map more generalizable for use across many districts as the Next Generation Science Standards are adopted.
Evaluating item difficulty patterns for assessing student misconceptions in science across physics, chemistry, and biology concepts
Understanding item difficulty in science concepts is essential for teachers in teaching and learning to avoid student misconceptions. This study aims to evaluate the patterns of item difficulty estimates in science concepts exploring student misconceptions across physics, biology, and chemistry and to explore differential item functioning (DIF) items in the developed diagnostic test on the basis of gender and grade. Participants were drawn from 856 students (52.3% females and 47.7% males) comprising senior high school students from 11th to 12th grades and pre-service science teachers in the West Kalimantan province, Indonesia. Out of 16 science concepts categorized, the common science concepts causing misconceptions among students were investigated to understand item difficulty patterns using Rasch measurement. The findings of this study evaluated that 32 developed items are valid and reliable whereby the item difficulty estimates ranged from −5.13 logits to 5.06 logits. Chemistry is the scientific discipline with the highest mean logits than other disciplines. There is no significant item difficulty estimate across the science disciplines. We also found DIF issues in one item based on gender and four items based on grade. This study contributes a significant role in mapping and informing item difficulty patterns in science concepts to tackle teachers' problems in assessing and teaching science concepts to improve the students’ science performance. Future studies and limitations are also discussed.
THE ATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE AND COLONIALISM: REASONS FOR AFRICA’S UNDERDEVELOPMENT?
It is probably an understatement to assert that Africa, the world’s second largest continent, is underdeveloped compared with other continents. Two major exogenous factors often cited for Africa’s development crisis are the so called ‘dual historical injustices’ – the Atlantic slave trade and colonialism. It is often pointed out that while the former almost completely arrested and retarded Africa’s demographical growth for more than three centuries, evoked a perennial state of acrimony and warfare and created a tense and unprecedented atmosphere of insecurity which hindered economic activities and stifled local entrepreneurship and technological drive and dislocated Africa’s socio-economic and political structures and institutions; the latter tied African countries to the apron strings of western imperial powers thereby rendering the pre-conditions necessary for socio-economic and political transformation unachievable. This paper contends that while the history of Africa’s underdevelopment may be traceable to the Atlantic slave trade and colonialism, African leaders had made enormous contributions to the continent’s underdevelopment and backwardness. The paper concludes that irresponsible and irresponsive leadership, vampirism and prodigality, corruption, lack of respect for democratic ideals, insecurity, endemic civil wars, nepotism, etc are the fundamental causes of Africa’s underdevelopment.