Plans to change schools fundamentally require that we face many harsh realities. First, schools resist change with a remarkable resiliency. Efforts to restructure mathematics and science curricula historically seem to have had little effect on conventional uses of the textbook and methods of delivery. Second, all students, especially many low-income and minority students, need continuity between schooling and the rest of their lives. The inclusion of science in a mathematics curriculum, and vice versa, is one way to provide this continuity. The key thought behind this process is to develop relevancy and applicability of the discipline to the existing student experiences. Students must see mathematics, as well as science, as relevant components of their world. In other words, mathematics should no longer be seen as a discipline studied and applied for mathematics sake, but rather, because it will help make sense out of some part of our world. The “doing” of mathematics and the “doing” of science creates a new way for students to look at the world way that develops depth rather than breadth in a mathematics curriculum.
The expression “integration of science and mathematics” is used in different ways throughout the science and mathematics education community. Because integration has been a commitment of the School Science and Mathematics Association, teachers need to understand different ways in which the term integration can be used and how they apply to the teaching of science and mathematics (Underhill, 1994). School Science and Mathematics has taken the lead in presenting teachers with models for integrating mathematics and science (Berlin, 1991; Berlin&White, 1994). Two questions seem to emerge from this discussion:
l. To what extent can these integration efforts represent a bona fide integration of science and mathematics?
2.To what extent has the integration of science and mathematics been merely cosmetic?
Answers to questions such as these are critical in this climate of significant curriculum reform. We became
interested in exploring such questions as we sought to redesign pre service teacher education courses to integrate science and mathematics. The Curriculum and Evaluation Standards for School Mathematics (National Council of Teachers of Mathematics [NCTM], 1989) are radically changing views of school mathematics, and Project 2061: Science for all Americans (AAAS, 1989) and subsequent benchmarks present blueprints for changing science education. Few educators would argue about the need for an interwoven, cross-disciplinary curriculum, but to many, the nature of the integration in many interdisciplinary projects is not readily apparent. A mom pervasive problem is that integration means different things to different educators. The purpose of this article is to describe the method, type, and value of integration between and among the two disciplines and to discuss the meaning of such integration. Many topics in mathematics and science are touched upon at surface level, but few topics, historically, are covered or developed in much depth. Content coverage, rather than the provision of contextual understanding has been the valued mode in mathematics and science teaching. For these reasons, science and mathematics can be integrated to make disciplines relevant and meaningful to the learner. Mathematics, when integrated with science, provides the opportunity for students to apply the discipline to real situations, situations that are relevant to the student’s world and presented from the student’s own perspective. Integration deals with the extent to which teachers use examples, data, and information from a variety of disciplines and cultures to illustrate the key concepts, principles, generalizations, and theories in their subject area or discipline (Banks, 1993).
Understanding different types of integration becomes necessary in order to begin to understand the integration found between and among science and mathematics. Five types of science and mathematics integration (discipline specific, content, process methodological, and thematic) can be used in interdisciplinary curriculum development (Miller, Davison, & Metheny, 1993).
What does it really mean to integrate science and mathematics? Whether the integration of science and mathematics occurs within the disciplines or is infused with the disciplines, integration will provide for a more
reality-based learning experience. As national, state, and local curriculum efforts continue, closer links between science and mathematics will be explored, and thereby lead to more obviously integrated science and mathematics curricula. We have presented different meanings of integration in this article. Each of these interpretations provides a valid approach to integrating the disciplines. We believe that the most potent approach to integration is to focus, not on science and mathematics content, but on scientific processes. We have used this strategy as a guide in the redesign of a methods course in science and mathematics. In an atmosphere of curriculum restructuring which focuses on connections between the disciplines, the use of scientific processes as an emphasis is deemed appropriate Such integration between science and mathematics can serve as a model for process integration across the curriculum.
The teacher education community needs to more actively explore ways in which programs can be redesigned
to respond to this change.
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