Reviewed by Rita Hoots
Professor
Taking a cultural approach to teaching science, this expanded second edition of a traditional science teaching text emphasizes strategies to engage students of diverse backgrounds at the elementary and middle school levels. In fourteen packed chapters, the content covers the nature of science, the basic process skills inherent in learning science, variations on basic experimental procedures, as well as learning theory.
As demanded for accountability, a section on several types of assessment is included. Teaching approaches including discovery, inquiry methods, and conceptual change for the non–native English learners as well as special needs students are examined. One challenging topic covers the integration of science with other subjects, which sounds ideal but often conflicts with curricular time constraints. While the intent of the book is commendable, the text is crammed in small type into many pages with much repetition of basic idealized themes.
This is a book that should be chewed over by practicing teachers along with their administrators, to enable the transformation of science education from what is actually practiced into the pedantic theoretical objectives so repeatedly recounted in science education texts.
Review posted on 8/2/2012
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