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The Materials of Physics Instruction

SEP 01, 1991
The mathematics and science communities are redefining what students should know and how they should learn it. Much new instructional material is available embodying the new reforms.
Gerhard L. Salinger

Since the middle 1980s there has been great ferment in the US over the need to reform education in science, mathematics and technology. Reports such as “A Nation at Risk” and international comparisons of achievement in mathematics and science gave impetus to efforts to develop new materials and improve the education of both in‐service and pre‐service teachers so that they can better educate the students who will become our nation’s scientists, mathematicians, engineers, technicians, workers and voting citizens.

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References

  1. 1. Natl. Commission on Excellence in Education, A Nation at Risk, US Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. (1983).
    Int. Assoc. for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement, Science Achievement in Seventeen Nations, Pergamon, New York (1988).
    Nat. Science Board Commission on Precollege Education in Mathematics, Science and Technology, Educating Americans for the 21st Century, NSF, Washington, D.C. (1983).
    Quality Education for Minorities Project, Education that Works: An Action Plan’for the Education of Minorities, MIT, Cambridge, Mass. (1990).

  2. 2. Natl. Council of Teachers of Math., Curriculum and Evaluation Standards for School Mathematics (1989) and Professional Standards for Teaching Mathematics (1991)
    Reston, Virginia. Mathematical Sciences Ed. Board, Everybody Counts, Natl. Acad. P., Washington D.C. (1989).

  3. 3. E. Fennema, T. P. Carpenter, A Program Implementation Guide for Cognitively Guided Instruction, School of Education, U. Wisconsin, Madison (1990).

  4. 4. W. Fitzgerald, Middle Grades Mathematics Project, Addison‐Wesley, Menlo Park, Calif. (1986).
    R. Corwin, S. Russell, Used Numbers, Dale Seymour Publications, Palo Alto, Calif. (1990).

  5. 5. F. X. Sutman et al., “Chemistry in the Community: A Five Year Evaluation,” submitted to J. Chem. Ed.

  6. 6. Committee on High School Biology Education, Fulfilling the Promise, Nat. Acad. P., Washington, D.C. (1990).

  7. 7. F. J. Rutherford, A. Ahlgren, Science for All Americans, Oxford U.P., New York (1990).

  8. 8. R. K. Thornton, in Proc. Conf. on Computers in Science Teaching, E. Redish, J. Redish, eds., Addison‐Wesley, Reading, Mass. (1989).

  9. 9. AAAS, Assessment in the Service of Instruction, A. Champagne, ed., Washington, D.C. (1990).

More about the authors

Gerhard L. Salinger, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York.

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This Content Appeared In
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Volume 44, Number 9

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