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Curriculum reform in the secondary school – the voices ofexperienced biology teachers

Wilhelmina S Van RooySchool of Education, Macquarie University

VAN05628

Curriculum Reform in the secondary school – the voices ofexperienced biology teachers

Wilhelmina S Van RooySchool of Education

Macquarie University

Wilhelmina.vanrooy@mq.edu.au

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Abstract:

The Office of the Board of Studies introduced major changes to the NSW HigherSchool Certificate (HSC) science subjects (Stage 6) in 2000 with the introduction offive new senior secondary school science subjects. This paper details the perspectiveof two experienced biology teachers over a two and a half year period as they goabout implementing the Stage 6 biology syllabus. The research was conducted usingsemi-structured interviews which began with the release of this syllabus six monthsbefore implementation and continued until the HSC examination results for the firstcohort of students were known. The research contributes to the growing body ofliterature about the work of science teachers in classrooms, highlights what teacherssee are constraints on their practice and the ongoing changes they make to theirpractice, along with their rational for that change.

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Introduction

Curriculum reform is not new (E.Jenkins in White, J. 2004; Blake, D. 2003) withwriters arguing that any meaningful improvement in education rests with teachers,how they view the curriculum and their work in classroom and not with governments,academics and curriculum developers (Atkin, J. & Black, P. 2003). In Australian,curriculum reform in secondary schools was the focus of several reports in the late1990s with the recommendations of some of these reports evident in many currentscience syllabus documents. In NSW Australia, changes were made to the secondaryscience syllabi both at the junior secondary level (Stage 4/5) and at the seniorsecondary level (Stage 6) from 2000. Changes were made to the NSW Higher SchoolCertificate (HSC) as a result of the McGraw Report (1997), Shaping their Future,followed by the HSC White Paper, Securing their Future: The NSW Government’sreforms for the Higher School Certificate. These reforms were matched in otherAustralian states such as Queensland with a new junior secondary science curriculumfrom the Queensland School Curriculum Council (Rigano & Ritchie, 2003), inVictoria with the reformation of the Victorian Certificate of Education (VCE) by theVictorian Curriculum and Assessment Board (Hart, C. 2001) and nationally inresearch reports prepared for the Commonwealth Department of Education, Trainingand Youth Affairs (2001) The Status and Quality of Teaching and Learning ofScience in Australian Schools (Goodrum, Hackling and Rennie, 2001).

The articulation of curriculum reform was matched in the UK with the publication ofthe Deering report Review of qualifications for 16-19 year olds and the Departmentfor Education and Employment publications Qualifying for Success and Learning toSucceed, collectively knows as Curriculum 2000; in South Africa with Curriculum2005 (Rogan & Grayson, 2003); in Canada via the Pan-Canadian Framework ofScience Learning Outcomes initiated by the Council of Ministers of Education,Canada (Hart, P. 2002) and on an earlier broad international scale across 23 countriesinstigated by the Organization for Economic cooperation and development (OECD)resulting in the development programme Science, Mathematics and TechnologyEducation (SMTE) (James, Eijkelhof, Gaskell, Olson, Raizen and Saez, 1997). Whateach of these reports has in common is the need to engage all students throughouttheir schooling with science, irrespective of academic ability and social/economicbackground.

Review of the Literature

Much has been written over the past decades about biology/science teaching includingteachers’ views about the nature of science and how they understand science as a wayof knowing (Brickhouse, 1990; Lederman, 1992, 1999; Greddis, 1993; Abd-El-Khalick & Lederman, 2000); teachers’ views about practical work (Woolnough,1991;Hodson, 1993); reports about how teachers share their with work in classrooms andhow they make this available to colleagues (Duschl &Wright, 1989; Harlen, 1999);approaches to teaching and learning science (Venville & Dawson, 2004) and howscience lessons might be understood (Reiss, 2000; Mortimer & Scott, 2003). Inparticular there is a wealth of literature for biology teachers which details classroomresources such as models, ICT, experiments (Ash, 2001; Newton & Rogers,2001;Journal of Biological Education) along with that which discusses biology/scienceteaching (Brown, 1995, Ratcliffe & Grace, 2003, School Science Review 2004).

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The process of curriculum reform and its success relies on informed teachers whothemselves are responsible ultimately for the implementation of new syllabi,assessment practices and standards of student performance (Peers, Diezmann,Watters, 2003). Reform involves change to teachers’ professional practice both in theclassroom and in the reporting of student learning. For many teachers change isdifficult to achieve and sustain because of inadequate professional support andresources (Atkin & Black, 2003; Wallace & Louden, 2003; White, 2004).Furthermore, the work of Peers et al (2003) with primary science teachers has beenhelpful in identifying from the literature (Briscoe & Peters, 1997; Fullan, 1993;Hargreaves, 1998) teacher dispositions which support professional growth duringcurriculum change:

… an acceptance of the need for change; personal commitment to change; open-mindedness,flexibility; a willingness to try things and experiment with ideas; a willingness to share problems, poolresources and co-operate; a mental attitude of survival; a spirit of risk taking; and reflective practice.(p.91)

and from their own research, factors which enhance new, innovative sciencecurriculum along with factors which inhibit successful syllabus implementation:

The time required to understand an innovation and to reflect on and make changes to teaching practice… without the provision of adequate time for professional growth it is unlikely that teacher willeffectively implement new teaching practices. (p. 104)

A trawl through the literature indicates that there is a paucity of research whichelucidates the significant role and contribution high school science teachers make toboth syllabus implementation and success given the importance this plays for studentlearning (Donnelly and Jenkins, 2001, Rigano and Richie, 2003) with few studieswhich describe and analyse how biology teachers themselves view curriculum change.The work of Ritchie and Rigano (2002) with Mr Volker and that of Rigano and Richie(2003) with Mr Murphy concerning teacher learning and teacher-initiated change hasbeen informative because it highlights the work which individual teachers undertaketo initiate change to this praxis and how this change could be sustained.

The research reported in this paper is part of a study (as yet not reported) thatexamined the perspectives of eighteen, experienced, biology teachers during a time ofsyllabus reform. The purpose of this paper is to present a view of curriculum changefrom the perspective of two experienced biology teachers – Teacher K and TeacherW. Teacher K taught in a difficult to staff NSW senior high school where herstudents varied in English language competence, academic ability, age and culturalbackground. Teacher W taught in a comprehensive, coeducational high school wherediscipline, behaviour and management problems were ongoing concerns for all staff.

The research reported here details the many and varied professional challenges facedby these teachers as she goes about preparing for, implementing and reflecting uponcurriculum change. In addition, I show how each teachers’ view of learning and theiron-going concern about students, for Teacher K English language acquisition and forTeacher W depth of student knowledge and skills, impact on their practice.

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The NSW Context

In NSW the sole curriculum and examination authority is The Office of the Board ofStudies (BoS), a statutory body that reports directly to the NSW State Government,prepares all K-12 school syllabi and the two exit school qualification examinationsnamely the Higher School Certificate (HSC) and the School Certificate (SC).Students present themselves for examination in October in a variety of subjects,including English, the only state-mandated subject for both qualifications.Examination costs are meet by the NSW government, not by individual schools orstudents, as is the case in England. The Stage 6 Biology syllabus, one of five HSCscience courses, is a two year study program leading to a HSC qualification in biologywhich can be used by students as part entry into tertiary studies. The first year,known as the Preliminary Course, focuses on evolution and ecology set within theAustralian context and provides students with the conceptual understanding and skillsrequired for the second year of study, the Higher School Certificate Course. Topicscovered in the HSC course include genetics, disease and human physiology. TheStage 6 Biology syllabus is based on the assumption that students have meet thelearning outcomes of the preceding junior science syllabus.

All experienced, practicing HSC teachers in NSW have the opportunity to work withthe BoS and so influence and contribute to syllabus development. For example, theBoS examination committees who set each of the HSC examinations comprisepractising teachers along with university academics; teachers supervise and mark theHSC examination and in addition, teachers work through their local and stateprofessional associations to lobby the Board of Studies when issues arise. Before thedevelopment and implementation of the current Stage 6 Biology syllabus, the BoSinvited all teachers to submit what they saw were the essentials components for anyfuture biology syllabus both as individuals and/or as part of the biology teaching teamat their school. Furthermore teachers were asked to comment on the draft Stage 6Biology syllabus and submit written feedback to the BoS.

Research Methodology

Teacher K and Teacher W were two of eighteen teachers who took part in the largerstudy. I have chosen these teachers as the focus of this paper because of their wideexperience. Teacher K worked in a difficult to staff school where students were fromnon-English speaking backgrounds (NESB) and/or had not experienced success withtheir learning in more mainstream schools. Like all other participants, she wasinvolved with professional development in her department and within the school butunlike many others she was also involved with professional development across thebroader, science-teaching sector. Teacher W was regarded by her Head ofDepartment as the most talented member of staff, well respected by the schoolcommunity and committed to the well being of students. She chose to teach studentswith behaviour and/or learning difficulties and had developed a wide range ofteaching and learning strategies that made science along with its associated literacyand numeracy skills accessible to students.

The research questions that guided the study were (1) How do experienced biologyteachers view curriculum change? (2) What knowledge and understanding about their

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professional practice do these teachers employ when facing curriculum change? (3)How does syllabus change impact on this practice?

The larger study sought to understand some of the particular views and experience ofNSW biology teachers about the implementation of the Stage 6 Biology syllabus asopposed to the presentation of formal generalisations about this syllabus document.The methodology used thus follows qualitative procedures with semi-structuredinterviews as the data source (Miles and Huberman, 1994; Denzin and Lincoln, 1998).I wanted to gain access to the teacher’s world as an individual and as part of a largergroup within the same bounded context, that is, the experience of implementing theStage 6 Biology syllabus and to develop detailed accounts of what teachers considercould be, would be and later was, the impact of syllabus change on their practice. Forthis reason, interviews rather than surveys were used, the advantage being that datacollection could remain flexible and thus provide opportunities for each teacher toexplain their responses at length. In addition the use of semi-structured interviewsprovided opportunities for teachers to revisit their responses via transcripts, to clarifyambiguities and misunderstandings and/or to meet with the researcher to providefeedback and comments about their final accounts before preparation of any researchpublications. Moreover, undertaking interviews over an extended period of timewould increase the chance of gaining access to the thinking and verbalisedexperiences of teachers given that such ‘crucial revelations are much more likely toemerge from chance incidents, extended comments, and both informal and formalgatherings’ (Bryman and Burgess, 1994, p.250). The methodology also drew on thework of Brown and MacIntyre (1993) by adopting a stance whereby the perspectivesabout changes to the HSC Biology syllabus were viewed from that of teachers’subjective meanings. As these writers contend:

It would be possible to understand better what kinds of changes teachers would find it practical toimplement if we knew more about how teachers perceive and think about what they do in their ownclassrooms. Such an approach would recognise that teachers’ existing patterns of classroom teachingare highly adapted to the circumstance in which they find themselves and the purposes to which theyfind they have to give priority. To have any chance of being perceived as practical, plans forinnovation would have to take account of what is already being done (particularly what is being donewell) in classrooms. (p.15)

Four semi-structured interviews of up to two hours duration following the principlesof protocol and practice outlined by Kvale (1996) were conducted with eachparticipant. My purpose was to document teachers’ responses to curriculum changeand their experience of this over a number of years (1999-2002). The first interview(July 1999) focused on each teacher’s current school context, their students and theirwork with the previous 1998 HSC Biology syllabus. Teachers also providedcomments about the new NSW Stage 6 Biology syllabus before its implementation inJanuary 2000. The second interview invited teachers to outline their experiences ofthe Preliminary Course along with their assessment strategies, the third interviewsought teachers comments about the HSC year and the HSC examination with thefocus of the fourth and final interview an overview of the initial two years ofimplementation, future directions and recent student examination success. Eventhough many of the questions were instigated by myself of the beginning of eachinterview, towards the end the talk between the teachers and myself became one of aninterview conversation or what Kvale (1996) terms an inter view between two persons‘containing the knowledge constructed inter the views of the interviewer and the

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interviewee.’(p.15). For each participant I actively sought to hear and make sense oftheir voice about the new biology syllabus and how it would and did impact on theirteaching and student learning. I sought to identify changes to their voice aboutcurriculum change. This style of semi-structured interviewing was common to allteachers who participated in the larger study and allowed the “generation ofpossibilities that could be explored rather than validate any presumed perspective ortheory”. (Rigano and Ritchie, 2003). Thus analysis of the interviews was based ongrounded theory (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) with meaning making of the data alongwith issues of reliability and validity drawn from the literature dealing with qualitativeresearch (Dey, 1993; Silverman, 1997; Marshall & Rossman, 1999).

To understand Teacher K’s and Teacher W’s perspective on curriculum reform andsyllabus change, it is first necessary to understand the teaching and learning context inwhich they worked. This is outlined in the next section. The following sections detailtheir perspective and experiences with the NSW Biology Stage 6 syllabus.

The School and Teaching Context

Teacher K

Teacher K (K) had 15 years teaching experience. She had taught in a variety ofcoeducational, comprehensive, high schools and was now teaching at a senior collegethat catered for the last 3 years of secondary education. K was the head of the sciencedepartment, worked with 3 other science teachers, a laboratory assistant and severalESL (English as a Second Language) and STLD (Support Teacher for LearningDifficulties) support teachers. She was well respected by all members of the schoolcommunity, called upon to act in the role of Deputy Principal when the need arose,dedicated and committed to providing meaningful learning opportunities to all of herstudents and, sensitive to the rich variety of student backgrounds. Teacher K sawherself as part of the teaching team at her school.

From her perspective Teacher K believed that the science department was friendlyand responsive to both student and school needs. Although there were staff changesthey did not affect directly student learning. Teacher K had taught senior biology formost of her career and was the only biology teacher at her school. This also held truefor the chemistry, physics and earth and environment specialist teachers and meantthat her staff was responsible for programming their own senior science specialistsubject with K as the coordinator. Staff professional development and attendance atcurriculum in-service was supported strongly by K.

The majority of students at Teacher K’s school were recent arrivals to Australia, oftenfrom war torn areas of the world, often not having completed primary school,generally aged 18+ with family and paid work commitments. Nevertheless they wereinterested and keen to gain a formal school qualification. In K’s opinion, teachers ather school needed to take into consideration students’ background in a positive andmeaningful way so that student learning was and remained the focus of professionalpractice. This translated into ascertaining, where appropriate, students’ previousschooling, command and level of English literacy along with their interest in, literacywith and competency of science. The other groups of students were native-Englishspeakers who for a numbers of reasons had not succeeded in mainstream schools and

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had enrolled at K’s school for an alternative educational experience. In Teacher K’sopinion, the majority of students attended school because it was a social, secure andpositive place. Students were willing to undertake extra work in biology and attendclasses outside school hours provided by the ESL and STLD teachers. However, ageneral lack of prior academic preparation meant that students needed support fortheir learning and in K’s opinion now even more so with all the changes expected inthe HSC Stage 6 Biology syllabus.

In addition to her school responsibilities, Teacher K was also involved in theprovision of professional development to colleagues outside of school via heremployer. She had been chosen to work with other biology teachers to developprograms of work and familiarisation sessions about the underpinning of the newsyllabus before implementation. Teacher K had considerable understanding aboutconstructivism and it relationship to science learning and teaching. She used thisexperience, expertise and knowledge at school, where she directed and assistedscience staff in programming and planning for syllabus change. One of the ways inwhich she assisted both her staff and her students was in the provision of studentlearning logs, a document which informed students about what the school and sciencedepartment expected of them as students, what they in turn could expect from staffalong with assessment tasks, examination dates and a work program. Student learninglogs were the written way in which the school could inform students about theirlearning and the school’s teaching. Teacher K found this document to be useful bothas an organizational and as a learning tool.

Teacher W

Teacher W worked at a comprehensive, coeducational Year 7-12 high school in thewestern area of Sydney and had been at this school since the beginning of herteaching career some 12 years ago. During the time of the study, Teacher W taughtthe HSC Biology Stage 6 syllabus to three cohorts of students and the junior generalscience syllabus to Years 7-10. In previous years, she had taught both biology andchemistry at the senior school level and had been responsible for various year groupsas a tutor and mentor.

From her perspective, Teacher W believed that the atmosphere in the sciencedepartment was collegial despite frequent staff changes and staff dissatisfaction withsome students. Even though she worked alone as a senior biology teacher, Teacher Wwas involved with others in the development, planning and assessment of the juniorscience syllabus. Teacher W viewed the school as somewhat traditional in itsapproach to teaching, at times unwilling to engage in some professional developmentactivities but generally supportive of those teachers who engaged with studentlearning. Her as a science teacher with students and staff was one of the reasons whyshe was awarded an ‘Outstanding Teacher Award’ from the NSW Department ofEducation and Training. Care for students and their welfare was a recurrent themethroughout the study. Teacher W enjoyed teaching biology/science but it wasworking with young people who often confronted her with their attitude to schoolingthat brought her the most professional satisfaction.

Teacher W believed that syllabus change was inevitable, she viewed this change aspositive for both herself and her students, but the timing of its implementation was

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difficult given that teachers who were already working with a new junior sciencesyllabus. Throughout the study Teacher W continued to express her concerns aboutstudent performance, namely the depth of their background knowledge, level ofpractical skills and literacy. Many students chose biology because they wereinterested or they thought it would be easy. At the end of the course Teacher Wwanted each of her students to engage with biology outside the school context. Thefollowing comments about students are typical of those found throughout the study –

I can’t expect them to remember names of parts of the cell or what those parts do. But if I can get akid to be able to have a decent conversation with someone sitting around having a barbeque, aboutcloning or about their ideas on genetically modified foods, I think then I’ve succeeded in my job.(Interview 3)

The Biology Syllabus – old and new

Teacher K

Teacher K believed that the previous 1998 HSC Biology syllabus was a repeat of thejunior science syllabus students were taught in the preceding four years of highschool. She noted that this could be a problem for teachers in other schools but forher, this was not an issue. Many of her students had no science background, andgiven the manner in which this syllabus was written, she was able to integrate aspectsof the junior syllabus into her biology teaching:

Here however, is a bit different because a lot of our students that we get in Year 11 come off the streetand come from overseas. They actually haven't done the 7 to 10 syllabus, so they didn't know it was arepeat and because maybe some of them had never done science or hadn't done it for a long time, it waseven hard for them. So it depends where you are … And there's no…see, with the old Syllabus, whatwe often did was we often revised, included in our lessons, stuff that most people would have normallydone in Year 10 or junior school, did a little bit of it in Year 11 to cover the basics and then went onfrom there. (Interview 1)

Apart from the need to update the biology syllabus on a regular basis, the 1998syllabus as it stood met the needs of K’s students because the content, biological skillsand mandatory practical work were accessible. From her perspective this syllabuswas general in its approach to biology teaching and learning and thus suited to thestudents who attended her school. This view changed with the introduction of thenew Stage 6 Biology syllabus in 2000 with its strong emphasis on an Australiancontext. Teacher K thought this syllabus was more academically demanding ofstudents and therefore she would of necessity be teaching with less depth thanpreviously, a professional concern for her given the status of the HSC examination:

And that's of course assuming that they've got the resources at home to be able to get (information)…oreven (have the) English language. I don't know what we're going to do in Science next year, because alot of our students aren't going to come in with the assumed knowledge that they've stated (referring tothe new syllabus). Now, the syllabus gives you the assumed knowledge before the topic, but whatwe're going to have to do…I don't know … are we going to pre-test people? (Interview 1)

Teacher K was aware of the demands of curriculum change for both herself and herstudents, that content, practical work and skills would change and that she would needto present biology to students in contexts that were meaningful and stimulating forlearning. From Teacher K’s position the Stage 6 Biology syllabus required studentsto engage with practical work which required them to plan and conduct first hand

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investigations, to use ICT, to communicate their understanding of biological conceptsto others, to think scientifically to solve problems and, to work individually and aspart of a team. From where she stood as a biology teaching, the new Stage 6 Biologysyllabus was more demanding academically of students than any previous syllabusshe had taught. It correctly assumed that students were familiar with and understoodbasic science concepts and thus could built on that knowledge.

Teacher K welcomed syllabus change despite the extra work, provided thecontent/skills of the syllabus were up-to-date and reflected modern biology. Howeverher immediate school context did not afford her much time to focus solely on syllabusdemands. The focus of Teacher K’s work was on students’ learning despite theiroften inadequate academic background and language and cultural differences. Thiswas her prime concern. Therefore, understanding Teacher K’s professional practicerested with the rich description she provided of how she viewed and interacted withstudents as learners.

Much of Teacher K’s talk focused on the difficulties her students would encounterwith the Stage 6 Biology syllabus, how she could ensure that the syllabus wasaccessible to them and how her students could be interested and motivated to engagewith its content and skills. Because the syllabus would have an emphasis onAustralian context, her students lacked most if not all the assumed backgroundknowledge. Many overseas students had not ventured outside their immediate localarea and therefore had not seen native fauna such as kangaroos and emus nor werethey able to identify native flora such as eucalypts. Lack of awareness of Australianbiota on the part of students Teacher K saw as a major problem ahead in both herpreparation of work and in the provision of learning opportunities whereby thesyllabus could be made accessible to students. This was the first challenge.

The second challenge for Teacher K’s was the expectation students had aboutteachers. Students expected the teacher to provide them with all of the content andclearly saw this as the role and responsibility of the teacher “ to put it simply, manystudents want you to tell them what to do and they like you to spoon feed them a lotmore”. Moreover, students were passive learners and for a variety of reasons, notablycultural, did not ask questions of K. K’s belief was that students’ view of herself as ‘avessel of transferable knowledge’ needed to change if real learning was to happen:

They don’t discuss with each other – our classes are different. A lot of students here are from overseasand they are use to a different type – while you try to promote discussion a lot of them just want to betaught. They are passive. Attendance is a problem here … a lot of them are just trying to get a handleon just the language so they would find it very difficult to debate and discuss. They will ask questionsamongst themselves if they don’t understand but amongst themselves they don’t discuss. (Interview 4)

The third challenge for Teacher K was her students’ inadequate grasp of the Englishlanguage. This meant learning biology along with its technical language was fraughtwith difficulties. For example, writing a grammatically correct and meaningfulsentence about a biological concept or process was a struggle for students because “allthat underlying language and knowledge that you pick up they don’t have”. Whatthese students did to succeed was to memorise content which in itself was problematicwhen out of context. In addition, many of these students lacked the most basicscience skills such as making observation and inferences or tabulating and graphing

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data. Teacher K’s response to these challenges was to be sensitive to those studentswho had made a real effort and to ascertain where they had difficulties:

I try not to say that it is all wrong! I try to say that first you don’t copy … I try to give them skills sothat they don’t copy so much and then try to show them how they could try to write their own sentence.I don’t like to put red pen through the whole thing. I try to explain to them how little bits were rightand how they could make points and then write an answer from it and I model that with them. It is anongoing development. (Interview 4)

From Teacher K’s perspective, the challenges of the new biology syllabus were tobalance the practical with the theoretical aspects of the course, to consolidate contentfor students, to develop teaching and learning strategies whereby students wouldbecome familiar with Australian biota, to encourage students to become moreresponsible for their learning and to increase their English language proficiency. Tothis end, she spent her holidays programming units of work. Therefore she felt that inorder to remain ‘balanced’ in her teaching and so maintain some semblance of‘control of change’ K would make few changes to the topics presented in the syllabusin the initial years of teaching and simply ‘go with the flow’. In this way she felt shewas not compromising student learning.

Teacher W

From Teacher W’s perspective, the 1998 biology syllabus was in need of an update inboth content and skills, and its approach to teaching and learning. The content nolonger provided a modern view of biology, some areas were now irrelevant, and otherareas lacked breadth and depth. In terms of modern biology, the content was ‘watereddown, sterile, dry and boring’ and the syllabus made no mention of nor was flexibleenough to allow for the incorporation of modern technologies and their applications tobiology. For W, any new syllabus ought to contain these elements and remainrelevant to the world of students today. Parts of the syllabus that needed attentionwere for example aspects of human physiology such as organ and tissue transplants,and diseases of body systems. From a teaching and learning perspective, Teacher Wviewed the syllabus as inadequate since there were no details about the way in whichbiology concepts ought to be presented to students. Therefore, its approach toteaching and learning needed revision.

I think there is no relevance to what’s happening in Biology today, which I think is a huge problem interms of the issues that are happening – genetic engineering, cloning, all other issues associated withwhat’s happening out there in the real world. It’s very much … very sterile … I find the old biologysyllabus, that there is no meat in it … that it’s very dry …(Interview 1)

However, what Teacher W did value and had found useful in her practice was the listof straightforward, clear, mandatory practicals along with a list of content for eachunit of work that she ‘ticked off’ when completed. This was not a feature of the newsyllabus because its layout along with the variety and type of practicals had changedand were now embedded within the syllabus document.

Teacher W’s initial response to the new syllabus was one of surprise – “I wasoverwhelmed at first. I just sort of put it away and thought I hope it will go away”.Although she had envisaged the content to be updated, the amount and depth of thiscontent and her unfamiliarity (something which she quickly addressed) with some

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areas was unexpected and therefore impacted on what she perceived was the qualityof her programming, lesson preparation and subsequent implementation. Lack ofprofessional in-service and science consultants in addition to inadequate resourcessuch as initial programs, textbooks, Internet availability at school and new equipmentnamely data loggers were cited as factors making syllabus implementation difficult.Nonetheless, she was satisfied that the new syllabus had an emphasis on currentbiology and its application to society.

The most vocal critique about the syllabus centred on students, student learning needsand syllabus outcomes. She predicted that the very able students would benefitbecause they would be able to make conceptual links and so their knowledge andunderstanding of biology would be enhanced and extended into new areas such asgenetics. However it was the weaker and average students who would struggle withboth the language and concepts of biology, and for ESL students English languageacquisition would remain an ongoing challenge for their learning. Her plan was toprovide students with scaffolds to assist them with learning and with assessmenttasks, so that everyone experienced success. Typical of these sentiments werecomments such as:

The level in which kids are expected to show that they’ve achieved these certain outcomes is also aproblem. So in terms of being able to justify, or argue (these) are skills I know that a lot of kids don’thave and they don’t have those skills by the time they reach the end of Year 12. So that concerned me,because I think it is becoming very much a subject where if you are very good at English, then you aregoing to do very well in biology. (Interview 1)

Overall, Teacher W welcomed change; she continued to enjoy teaching and wasprepared to invest her energies and time into student learning. New syllabus contentwas seen as refreshing and positive.

I was getting a bit stale, so I’m pleased that there is a change. I do enjoy teaching it. I mean it’ssomething that I’m, interested in. But it’s going to be a lot of hard work, but I’m prepared to put in sortof the hard years to make it more interesting for me. I’m going to be refreshed by it in terms of newcontent, a new ways of teaching it. Yeah, so I do enjoy biology and I’m looking forward to sort ofrefreshing myself and moving on. (Interview 1)

The following sections detail each teachers’ initial experiences of the new biologysyllabus (NSW Stage 6 Biology 2000) beginning with the Preliminary Course andthen the HSC course.

The Preliminary Course

Teacher K

Teacher K felt that the Preliminary Course was rushed and that she had not coveredthe learning outcomes, content and skills to her personal level of satisfaction. Inessence she had simply survived. She had not used or referred to any of her previousresources in their entirety. She had made a real effort to think about, reflect upon andconceptualise the underpinning of the new syllabus and to incorporate this into herteaching practice. She had begun to make use of computers and ICT in her lessons;something both her students and herself enjoyed but had not purchased new printresources preferring to wait for a ‘student friendly text’ which would engage students

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with biology. In the meantime K used previous texts and supplemented these withresources that she had now developed.

Teacher K reported that student interest in biology varied depending on the topic.Students disliked the first topic, The Local Ecosystem, which she thought wasconceptually easy and students would enjoy. They were neither interest in the contentnor in any outside learning activities such as excursions or fieldwork. Those who didparticipate did not have the assumed practical skills for fieldwork and thus found thepractical tasks difficult. In contrast the second module, Patterns in Nature, was wellreceived because in part it related to human physiology which students found relevantand of interest. There was a lot of practical work in the module which studentsenjoyed however marrying this with theory remained problematic. Many students hadconsiderable difficulties dealing with both the systematic and syntactic knowledge ofbiology and often sought assistance from her and from the ESL and STLD teachers.

Overall more planning and preparation was needed for the Preliminary Course,something which did not surprise her given the content/skills of the new syllabus andexpected the same for the HSC Course. She saw this as part of her professional roleand responsibility. Her hope was that given the heavy emphasis on content and thecomplexity of biological concepts in the entire syllabus, the BoS would makeamendments in the near future. In addition, she continued to wrestle with ways inwhich to make the Australian context more accessible and of interest to students.

Teacher W

Four features dominated Teacher W’s talk about the Preliminary Course – seekingcommonality between the old and the new syllabus as a survival strategy; studentmisconceptions of biology; her own biological content knowledge, and studentassessment and reporting requirements.

Given the demands of time management, programming and her own breadth anddepth of biological content knowledge still needing to be address, Teacher W decidedto begin the year with a unit of work similar to one in the previous syllabus, namelycells, animals and plants. This she believed might allow her to finish the course ontime. Her past practice had been to commence any senior biology course at thecellular/microscopic level and then move to the system/macroscopic level. Thispractice continued unchanged for three reasons – the belief that learning aboutbiology ought to begin with a study of cells, familiarity with content, familiarity withpractice and the current lack of textbooks, prepared programs from the Board ofStudies and consultants to assist in syllabus implementation.

The second feature concerned students’ understanding of biological concepts. As inprevious years, many students experienced difficulties with four concepts inparticular, the cell, the ratio of surface area to volume (SA:V), osmosis and celldivision. Various students were unable to appreciate the size of cells and theirfunctions and so did not conceptualised cells within any broad picture of biology. Asignificant proportion of her current students had difficulties with SA:V because oftheir poor mathematical understanding of ratios ‘it has taken me a long time to getthem use to that idea with constant reinforcement’. For the other two concepts,Teacher W comments that for osmosis ‘students start talking about the movement of

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salt water rather than concentrating on the movement of fresh water’ and for celldivision ‘mitosis - that is difficult to grasp because it is a process which they don’tsee’. Like others in the past, the current student group also had difficulties withmaking the distinction between observations and inferences. Based on Teacher W’sexperience, each of the above was not an isolated problem and needed to be addressedthroughout the course. Therefore, asking students to use their knowledge andunderstanding in different ways from what they were use to was impossibleparticularly when students were being asked to think from the concrete to the abstractand/or to possible applications.

Much of the content in the new syllabus and the associated Australian examples hadnot been part of any previous biology syllabus. Dialogue with Teacher W about howshe would come to terms with new and/or unfamiliar content, how she would makethis content accessible in a realistic and meaningful ways to students, and how sheconsequently changed her practice was evident through talk about new and innovativelearning opportunities for her students. This was the third feature of her talk about thePreliminary course.

They (students) researched the megafauna – their size – the students got pictures of the diprotodon andall the rest. What the students had to do was construct a life size cut out of the megafauna and thenthey put them onto the walls. This was to see how big they actually were … you say the thing wasthree metres high or two meters high but what they had to do was blow the diagram using the OHP (ordo a drawing), and projecting it up and tracing it out and cutting it out on butcher’s paper … so theycould see the size difference between them and the modern animal. (Interview 3).

Other innovative approaches to her practice included visits to new excursion and fieldstudy sites, and a student research project on diabetes and the dialysis machine. Hereeach student prepared a brochure for the public to read. These were then given to adiabetic, a grandmother of one of the students in the class, for comment.

Each of above were new elements and aspects of Teacher W’s practice and viewed byher as current biology and highly relevant to student learning. There is also evidenceto suggest a willingness to use outside expertise to enhance her practice so providingher with a sense of moving forward in her own professional development, and in away discharging her responsibilities as a biology teacher to her students and theschool.

The final feature of Teacher W’s talk dealt with assessment tasks - new features of thesyllabus, and something with which she had some hesitation in using andimplementing. Teacher W was unfamiliar with what exactly she was being asked doby the Board of Studies and by the school. Previously assessment had been norm-referenced and her talk centred in part on keeping this in place. What Teacher Wseemed to want to do was fit her knowledge and understanding about previousassessment into standard reference procedures. Teacher W reported that the quality ofstudents’ assessment work was good even though some students struggled with thepractical work. Most students had no difficulties with the field study reports ‘ theydid a decent job’ but found the planning, performing and writing up of practicals,particularly first-hand investigations, and practical tests demanding ‘ the practical testwas the thing they struggled with’. In order to gain some understanding into why thiswas the case, Teacher W invited students to provide her with comment:

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As individuals some of them found this difficult to do – they had been working in groups all of thetime. I spoke to them afterwards and they indicated that they were not use to working alone …working in groups, using a stop watch and adding chemicals together, recording temperatures etc anddoing this all on their own was difficult. But that was one of the questions I asked in the task – whatwas easy and what was difficult. They made comment and indicated how they could improve theexperiments – they said work with someone else. (Interview 3)

Seeking both written and aural feedback from students, about how they were learningand their thoughts about assessment, was a new feature of Teacher W’s classroompractice mitigated in part by her wish to ensure that she had discharged herprofessional responsibilities to both her students and to the school. At the end of thepreliminary year, she felt that her understanding about the new assessment procedurewas developing but would need to be further tuned in the following HSC year. Infuture, she would provide students with specific details about assessment tasksincluding the verbs to be tested and provide a comprehensive scaffold for students,again both new elements of her practice.

Despite what Teacher W considered to be a busy and demanding year, she remainedpositive about teaching and about her students. For herself the year was no lessonerous than any previous year but ‘ … there is a lot of work that you have to do tomake sure that when you go in and deliver a lesson that you know what you are goingon about. But, I think it has also been good from the point of view that I have learnt alot of new things.’ (Interview 3). Students in her opinion were now asking morequestions, particularly topics in the media, and others were improving in theirpractical work. She had come to believe that the syllabus was asking teachers tomake students independent learners, something she would be working towards in theHSC year. Lack of textbooks and teaching programs were not helpful and hamperedstudent learning. Teacher W found it difficult to gauge the depth of content coverageand/or how to correctly interpret some areas of the syllabus. In previous years thetextbook and past HSC examinations had guided her practice. For Teacher Wimplementing any new syllabus was a learning process – “ … you are developingyourself and more biological knowledge which is good and that is really healthy.That is one of the positive things. It has been hard and I have found it frustrating interms of time and finding information on things and not being able to find it. I foundit frustrating …”(Interview 3). At the end of the Preliminary Course Teacher W wasstill learning about the workings of the syllabus and expected that she would need tomodify her practice for many years to come.

The HSC Course

Teacher K

For Teacher K the HSC course itself and her teaching of this material was lessproblematic and easier than that for the Preliminary course. Not only was Teacher Know more familiar with the underpinnings of the syllabus but also she had begun toimplement some of the changes to her practice and to student learning which shedetailed at end of the Preliminary year. Her concern about students’ understanding ofbiology and their learning per se remained. Even though students found biologydifficult, they remained positive about their progress and about their learning becausethe content now dealt with people and so of more interest.

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Given that students had some exposure to the HSC requirements in the previous year,Teacher K now felt more confident about their ability to work as individuals and sohad begun to set assignment work to be done outside of class time. For example,students were using the Internet as a resource rather than simply downloading “slabsof information”. K now used more class time to focus on practical work, the biologyskills detailed in the syllabus, along with the language of biology. Students had alsobeen asked to prepare and deliver aural presentations of their work to peers. Thiswork involved students in thinking about biology and using the correct language ofEnglish and Biology with the result that many gained personal confidence aboutthemselves as learners. At the end of the HSC year Teacher K’s students seemed tohave made progress across a number of areas including their own learning: they hadbeen interested in the content about humans, had come to class, had participated andhad endeavoured to do their work.

From her own perspective Teacher K had changed her practice in a number ofsignificant ways. What she wanted to do was learn from her teaching experiences inthe Preliminary course and continue to focus all her efforts on student learning.Monitoring change to her practice was done on a continuous basis throughout theentire study and gave her considerable personal and professional satisfaction by year’send. The first change was programming and planning. This she did ahead of eachmodule. K ensured she was aware of and familiar with the content and skills neededand had gathered the required resources. Each of these was easier to undertake in theHSC year because the focus was on humans, there were more resources such astextbooks available for both students and teachers and thus with high quality planningand preparation syllabus implementation would not be a problem. It would just taketime.

The second aspect that changed was that Teacher K now allowed student to choosethe topic for the last unit of the HSC Course. She seemed to do this for two reasons;first, her belief that students ought to be begin to make their own decisions about whatto learn (the ‘how to learn’ would need on-going development) and second, thecontent of each option was new both to K and her students.

We did Communication … the students quite liked it – how we picked that was that the studentsactually selected that. What I did was that at the beginning of this year, I read through all of themodules, and said to them and explained to them what each one was about and they selected one. Ifigured that it did not really matter to me because they were all new. This was done by consensus – infact all of them wanted to do that one when I read it out. That was unusual … they liked the elective –they found it hard and they all struggled because they did not have the background knowledge and theirEnglish skills were not good. (Interview 4)

Allowing student to choose their own HSC option was not her previous practice. Insome way she had now met one of the challenges of the Preliminary Course thatstudents ought to become more independent and take responsibility for their learningrather than relying solely on the teacher.

The third aspect of Teacher K’s practice that changed in the HSC year was her viewsand concerns about assessment. The learning logs now provided students with all theorganisational details concerning assessment tasks such as formal examinations,practical tests and research tasks as well as lesson topics and homework.

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Throughout the entire study and despite the difficulties and challenges K faced overthe two-year implementation phase, she remained positive, sensitive to student needsand in control of her teaching. She continued to enjoy biology teaching, herinteractions with students and expected her staff to do likewise as part of the scienceteam. Her view was that she ought to be clear about the learning outcomes sherequired of students, to give credit to prior student knowledge and to note thatstudents’ learning styles and preferences would develop over the two years and mightwell be different for those of mainstream students. When asked about her view of thesyllabus in the final interview she commented:

There is new work, there is a new philosophy, new assessment – new everything. So, it was a bit hardbut I mean, I have been through all of this since the 1980’s at least three changes I think. …Whoeverwrote this syllabus must be teaching well educated, very literate students to think that you could coverall of this in the time given. (Interview 4)

Teacher W

Teacher W’s general feeling about the HSC course was that there seemed to be moretime. The course was not as pressurised in terms of content and skills covered as inthe previous year. Because there were few areas with which she was unfamiliar, shesaw the HSC year as basically like that of the previous syllabus. Therefore shebelieved that her content knowledge was sufficient. She taught the HSC modules andoption in the order presented because that was the way it was in the syllabus.Moreover, Teacher W reported that the HSC course was easier to implement and thatshe was now more positive, relaxed and at ease with its content and skills. Thefollowing comment encapsulate these sentiments:

I am not that concerned about the content now – that is something that you can get your head aroundand it is just a bit of hard work and time. The lack of resources is hard and something that you canovercome. (Interview 2)

Teacher W had now begun to incorporate new texts bought by the school into herHSC practice. W was glad that there were now several texts and more resourcesavailable to use for planning and for students to use both at school and at home.However, general lack of resources she admits was something she had to work with.Reliance of texts seemed at odds with her stated wish to move away from the chalkand talk of the Preliminary course to a more creative teaching approach in the HSCyear. Because of the demands of the HSC examination she was often unable to moveaway from the traditional approach. Her concern was now with loosing some of herprofessional and personal identity as a teacher:

I feel that I am delivering a more chalk and talk lesson from a teaching perspective. Now this could bebecause it was my first time, it possibly could be because I was running out of time and I did not wantto spend any more time … so at the end there I was just giving them notes on particular parts so that Iknow that it was covered. (Interview 2)

In addition, what W taught needed to be relevant and interesting to students.Achieving and maintaining such a balance against competing demands remained anongoing challenge.

Nevertheless planning in the school holidays had now paid off. Her programming andplanning now involved using some of the BoS based programs along with ‘marking

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off syllabus dot points in front of the students each lesson. This seemed to be the wayTeacher W ensured that she covered the syllabus and that her students knew what shehas covered so far. It seemed that the syllabus had become the teaching program.

Like that for the Preliminary year, assessment remained on ongoing cause for concernin the HSC course. Throughout the year, she was and remained unsure about whatwas required and how to interpret these requirements. Textbooks and web resourcesassisted her with content and practical work but assessment she believed was nowbeginning to control her teaching:

I am not concerned about the content now – that is something that you can get your head around and itis just a bit of hard work and time. The lack of resources is hard and something that you can overcome.The thing that I am finding now is my shift in emphasis – it is in the requirements that we are expectedto fulfil in regards to assessment. A lot of the assessment in the senior science courses is becoming – iscontrolling the teaching. (Interview 2)

From her perspective record keeping has ‘gone mad’. She now needed to documentevery skill she had addressed, all assessment components, individual studentcompetency with skills and student performance band levels. At the end of the studyshe still was not sure about performance band descriptors and their place in herteaching and in the assessment of students.

Teacher W also reported that on the whole her students were more interested inbiology than in the previous year, which she suspects was because the content andfocus was on people, one of the reasons why students had chosen biology for theHSC. For example, when media topics arose in class such as outbreaks of disease,students found these interesting, relevant and thus become absorbed in theirdiscussion. Her role during these learning moments was to focus students’ thinkingon the biology concepts involved and for students to engage in rational and informeddebate.

W’s belief was that the new syllabus demanded more of students academically thenthe previous syllabus. Her feeling was that students who had thought about theirlearning and their understanding of biology during class debate would perform well inthe HSC examination particularly on holistic questions. Her responsibility was seenin the provision of learning opportunities through discussion in class that encouraged,developed and challenged students to think.

Overall the strengths of the HSC course were that there were no great or pressingresource issues, the content was relevant and of interest to students and there wassomething about the history of science/biology throughout the year. The balance oftime and content she thought was much better; she did not seem rushed for time andthe course was more relevant to students:

I find that the time to do all of the work is a lot more balanced compared with the prelim – the threecore topics and the electives – I had time to finish all of that. In the Prelim, there is a lot more contentto get through and we run out of time. Time in the HSC is quite good – in the HSC year, I finish withinmy time frame but in the prelim year I don’t. (Interview 4)

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Conclusion

This report has sought to give voice to biology teachers working with curriculumchange by providing a rich description of their experiences through the initial years ofimplementation. Even though both Teacher K and Teacher W taught in quitedifferent schools, their practice focused on supporting students with their learningand, both were of the opinion that syllabus change was important given currentscientific research and developments in teaching and learning. However, the newsyllabus was demanding both for them as teachers in terms of preparation andplanning but more importantly it was demanding academically for studentsparticularly those for whom language and literacy were difficult. Moreover, they feltthere had been insufficient lead time before mandatory implementation. For TeacherK and Teacher W the new syllabus was simply inevitable.

Teacher K’s on-going care and concern for her students as learners, manifested in herfocus on their acquisition of the English language and their developing linguisticabilities in order to understand and gain an appreciation of biology, was the axis ofher practice. This care and concern and the quality of learning support she providedstudents defined much of her professional identity. Even though student learning andexamination success were of importance and of value to her, each could not succeedfully without sustained support for literacy. Against the background of school cultureproviding high quality learning opportunities in biology for students was alwayscoupled with both the acquisition of English language and the language/technicalterms of biology. Indeed, this was essential because many of Teacher K’s students, inparticular those from overseas, had little if any science background:

Teacher W remained ambivalent about the Stage 6 Biology syllabus even though shefelt she was no longer totally negative nor ‘bogged down’ in the amount of material tobe covered. She was pleased that the biology content was now up to date and that thebetter students were challenged academically. She maintained her belief that thesyllabus was content and skills driven and therefore forced her to employ more chalkand talk lesson. This was a concern given her strong belief that lesson ought to bestudent centred as reflected in her final comments:

I don’ know if it has changed for the better and that is what worries me because of the amount ofcontent that I have to get through. It is a very content based and driven syllabus, it is like that in Year10 as well. The skills seem to be secondary and I find that a worry because of my teaching now. In theprelim year it is very content driven – I don’t have the flexibility to spend time doing stuff in a fun waybecause there is no time. I don’t have time to do things in a fun way and then have time to come backand reinforce it. Now it is – get it done and get it finished, that is it. I find that very frustrating. I amnot a teacher that likes to be content based all of the time, that is hard. So, in that way a lot of myteaching, the way that I am giving my lessons has changed. For the better, I have increased mypersonal knowledge about certain things, it has forced me to go to the Internet and look things up andthis has increased my biology knowledge and confidence and this I have passed onto the students. Theworkload has increased. (Interview 4)

On a personal level, both Teacher K and Teacher W found biology/scienceinteresting, enjoyable and fun and wanted to impart this to students. They were awarethat both the knowledge base of science and its teaching was continually changing andfor this reason believed that syllabus change in all its facets was essential and ought tobe refected in classroom practice. For this reason curriculum reform in high schoolscience was welcomed despite the associated increase in workload, a task they

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willingly undertook. Like Mr Volker (Ritchie & Rigano, 2002) Teacher K ‘becamean agent for his [her] own professional development’ and thus ‘external agents werenot necessary to sustain the impetus for change’. The impetus for syllabus change andthe need to keep up to date with science and its changing pedagogy came through herown readings and from the rich and varied student backgrounds. In contrast TeacherW was resigned to lessons being as more teacher-centred for the time being becauseof the amount of content in the new syllabus.

Teacher K possessed many of the essential attributes for coping with syllabus changenamely their own acceptance of and personal commitment to change, an open mindand a flexibility of thinking. As pedagogically challenging as her students were,Teacher K continued to provide meaning to their learning of biology, to ensure thatthey could succeed and to remain flexible in her approach to them as learners.However, the importance of assessment and the need to prepare students for theexternal examination remained and continued to be part of what she saw as herprofessional accountability. Professionally, Teacher K displayed a willingness toshare her expertise, problems and experiences with colleagues, to try new classroompractice, to give students the opportunity to become confident, independent learners,to take risks and to be reflective of her teaching (Peers et al, 2003). Teacher Kexpressed little concern about the change process per se, nor about resources and thedevelopment of programs all of which would happen in due course. Her discoursewas about both the ESL and biology needs of her students as learners, the importanceof listening to students and the necessity of planning ahead.

Teacher W being flexible in her approach to teaching and learning represented ‘good’biology teaching, not doing do was a source of frustration. Timing of syllabusimplementation and the paucity of resources especially in the Preliminary course wereunacceptable even though she had the wherewithal to locate relevant teachingmaterials as indicated at the end of the study.

In the old syllabus, we had more textbooks to use. We had basically nothing when we started – notexts to go to. Teachers now are a little bit happier but I still don’t believe that they should haveintroduced this syllabus when they did. They should have given us a year to look at it, get the people towrite the texts and have them available at the beginning so that we can start programming and gettingorganised.

Teacher W had resigned herself to the Stage 6 Biology syllabus. She had meet herprofessional responsibilities to the school and to students, had addressed her initiallack of biological content knowledge and had developed innovative students activitiesusing available resources. Her increased workload, the demands of assessment andpreparation of students for the HSC examination were seen as part of her professionalresponsibility. Her experience as a HSC marker had allowed her to assess her teachingand to gauge student learning. Despite being positive about her teaching and studentlearning at the end of the Preliminary course and being of the view that the content inthe HSC course was more interesting for students because it dealt with them, TeacherW was not empowered by syllabus change.

Both Teacher K and Teacher W were committed to providing students with learningopportunities in biology that fostered learning and a love of biology. They wereconvinced that curriculum change was essential, indeed vital, however in their view

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this could only be achieved if adequate time and resources were provided to ensurethat the change process occur in the most appropriate manner. They often felt that thesyllabus had been thrust upon them and thus often felt a lack of ownership for theirteaching and for student learning. This was especially the case when lessons hadbecome teacher centred. These teachers welcomed curriculum change provided thattheir professional needs were acknowledged and meet by the Board of Studies.

Correspondence: Wilhelmina Van Rooy, School of Education, Macquarie University,NSW 2109, AustraliaE-mail: wilhelmina.vanrooy@mq.edu.au

References

Office of the Board of Studieshttp:www.boardofstudies.nsw.gov.au

Web address of Stage 6 Biology syllabus and support documentsWeb address of the Junior science syllabus and support documents

1998 Biology syllabusPre 1998 Junior science syllabus and support documents

Performance bands are located at:

http:www.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/syllabus_hsc/syllabus2000_listb.htnl#biology

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