Instructional Coherence and the Development of Student Competence in Physics

Knut Neumann; Jeffrey Nordine

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-87391-2_6

The world is rapidly changing, driven by ever-accelerating scientific progress (e.g. Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in The future of education and skills: education 2030. OECD, 2018). The number of problems with conceptual or technological ties to science that societies as a whole as well as individuals in their everyday lives are facing is continuously increasing (e.g. Sadler in Journal of Research in Science Teaching: The Official Journal of the National Association for Research in Science Teaching 41(5):513–536, 2004). In order to meet these problems, individuals need more than knowledge of isolated science ideas or skill to engage in isolated scientific practices. Instead, individuals need to develop a competence in science that enables them to explain phenomena and solve problems in their everyday lives and prepares them for future learning and development (OECD in PISA 2015 assessment and analytical framework: science, reading, mathematic, financial literacy and collaborative problem solving. OECD, 2017, p. 20). Physics education should contribute to the development of such competence (Sekretariat der Ständigen Konferenz der Kultusminister der Bundesrepublik Deutschland [KMK] in Beschlüsse der Kultusministerkonferenz – Bildungsstandards im Fach Physik für den Mittleren Schulabschluss (Jahrgangsstufe 10). München Neuwied, 2005). The development of competence in physics requires engaging students in the scientific endeavour to learn about a small number of core physics ideas (e.g. energy). Developing such competence requires coherent effort over multiple years of schooling. Single lessons or single instructional units do not suffice in developing the envisioned competence. Instead, the development of competence requires instruction to cohere with educational aims, across multiple lessons (i.e. within a unit), across units (i.e. within and across school years). This chapter discusses the notion of competence in science as the vision for twenty-first-century science education. It further argues that such competence requires coherent efforts across multiple years of schooling and delineates this idea with several examples from coherent curricula as well as corresponding assessments to monitor student learning across grades and grade bands from K to 12. The chapter concludes by discussing the role of learning progressions as a basis for organizing coherent instruction and thus allowing for a smooth progression of students in developing competence in physics and science, respectively, over extended periods of schooling.

Instructional Coherence and the Development of Student Competence in Physics

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