When ‘we wish they knew’ meets ‘I want to know’

ABSTRACT

The tension between mandated curricula and students’ interests is evident throughout the history of science education. Societal expectations for student learning often lead to standards and curricula that leave little room for students to explore their own individual interests. Occasionally, however, an event can capture the interest of so many students that teachers feel compelled to respond. The Ebola outbreak of 2014 was such an event. This article discusses findings from a study of teacher decision-making; specifically, it explores how high school science teachers in the U.S. decided whether and how they should address Ebola during the 2014–2015 school year, when the Ebola outbreak in West Africa was at its peak. Approximately 2500 teachers of science responded to an online questionnaire that addressed their Ebola-specific instruction. In comparing the decisions of those who taught about Ebola and those who did not, the study found that teachers weighed various factors, in particular student interest but also curriculum standards, time, and availability of resources for teaching about Ebola. The article concludes with implications for future urgent health-related issues.

KEYWORDS:

• Curriculum
• standards
• student interest
• Ebola
• relevance

Acknowledgements

Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 In the U.S., 18 states and the District of Columbia have so far adopted the NGSS as their state standards.

2 We acknowledge that despite efforts to create a representative sample, it may be biased by the teachers’ interest in Ebola compared to a random sample of teachers.

3 Given the exploratory nature of this study, all tests of significance were conducted without controlling the Type 1 error rate.

4 All teacher names are pseudonyms.

5 The questionnaire allowed respondents to select both responses.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by National Science Foundation under grant number DRL – 1520689.