Values Education is an essential part of effective teaching and is so important that a National Framework for Values Education in Australian Schools has been established and there is an outcome (P16 and H16) to incorporate this into the syllabus. If used effectively it can ‘strengthen students’ self-esteem, optimism and commitment to personal fulfillment and help students exercise ethical judgment and social responsibility (DET, 2005). Values education should be taken on board with a whole school approach. This includes ‘incorporating values into all school policies and practices, including teaching programmes across the key learning areas’ (DET, 2005).
It is important to note that for the Preliminary Biology Course, the outcomes for Domain: Values and Attitudes (P16) only requires the students to ‘demonstrate’ positive values about and attitudes towards…, whereas the HSC course requires students to ‘justify’ positive values about and attitudes towards… Personally I think the requirement for the year 11 students to only ‘demonstrate’ positive values and attitudes is effective in a way to gently ease students into the frame of mind of developing personal values and attitudes towards topics and issues, which can be challenging for some students. When the student reaches the HSC level, therefore, they would have had practice at exercising ethical judgment and social responsibility so they should feel more comfortable to ‘justify’ their opinions.
When I looked at the Module: Patterns in Nature (8.3) for the year 11 Biology Syllabus, admittedly I struggled to work out where I could effectively incorporate the principles of values education into the teaching of the Module. The topic seems to be very content heavy and based on facts with little room for personal values and judgment to be established. A possible area which may provide opportunity for values education may be within the discussion of the significance of technical advances to the development of the cell theory. Here, the students could look at the positive and negatives of the development of new technologies to the cell theory and discuss the future of technical advancements on the humans cells, such as the Human Genome project and discuss the positives and negatives. To incorporate values education here however; I feel would be pushing the student above and beyond the requirements for the syllabus which is to simply to discuss the impact of technical advances like the microscope on the development of the cell theory. In a tight schedule which the students are under, spending time delving more into the values and attitudes towards the cell theory may be stretching the length of the module. Unfortunately, I struggled to find anywhere else where values education may have been incorporated into the Module, perhaps over time and with experience, the opportunities to incorporate values education within modules may become more obvious.
- SimoneReference:
Australia Government Department of Education, Science and Training (2005) National Framework for Values Education in Australian Schools. Accessed 6th August 2011 from: http://www.curriculum.edu.au/verve/_resources/Framework_PDF_version_for_the_web.pdf
Simone, I also used 8.3 Patterns in Nature for this blog and like you also struggled to find an area to incorporate Values into the topic. I also went along the line as with you as looking at technology advances. Our blogs were very similar in this sense. I do agree that once teaching experience has occurred that values will become more obvious and easier to recognise.
ReplyDeleteLooking at the positive/negative values as an activity allows for students to see the struggle and question the development of science for the future. Is the research being conducted necessary?
You do not need to be in the classroom to recognise values.
ReplyDelete