SAPA is an example of Alphabet soup Elementary science programs .SAPA, SCIS and ESS are landmark elementary science programs, still available today. As in the figure below, they differ essentially on two factors; the amount of structure or flexibility each contains in its design for classroom use and the emphasis each gives to science content, attitudes or thinking processes.
SAPA SCIS ESS Structured Moderately Unstructured Step By Step Structured
Emphasizes Emphasizes Emphasizes Science process Content &process Science attitudes Around content topics
Around content
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Content Development SAPAs Prime Assumptions Children learn how to do science, and this means acquiring the skills essential to learning and understanding science information. These knowledge acquiring skills are called cognitive (thinking) skills or process skills and are similar to the procedures used by scientists to acquire new knowledge. The American Association for the advancement of sciences on science education assumed that a sequential program was necessary for developing a childs intellect. In 1963, a team of scientists, psychologists, elementary teachers and curriculum specialists developed plans and materials for trial version of what became Science-A Process Approach. The program is based on two assumptions: first, that prepared materials must consider the intellectual development of the child and second, that a total program must use a sequential approach for the long range development of the childs intellectual skills. The first assumption worked well. Materials that were developed on the childs ability level were appropriate. Incremental advances in the complexity of the materials seemed to help children develop intellectually. However, the long term sequential approach proved to rigid to use without difficulty in schools where children attend school irregularly or transfer in mid year.
Description of SAPA
SAPA is the most structured of the three programs. Its structure arises from behavioral psychology. The underlying psychological assumptions were that any skill can be broken down into smaller steps and that children need to learn lower-level skills before they can learn more advanced skills. The original version of SAPA developed into a set of skills to
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be mastered through a complex, highly structured hierarchy and step by step teaching. Skill development takes precedence over science subject matter in SAPA. Even after revision and the development of SAPA 2, the content of science is important only as it serves as a vehicle for developing thinking processes. The complex task of inquiry is broken into a series of smaller, easier- to- acquire skills .All skills development is expected to arise from a childs direct experiences performing prescribed learning tasks, usually with concrete manipulable objects. SAPA science process skills are divided into two types 1. Basic skills 2. Itegrated skills In the primary grades (K-3) children develop these basic process skills: usingspace/timerelationships,classifying,usingnumbers,measuring,communica ting.In the intermediate grades (4-6) children use the basic process skills as a foundation for developing more complex skills; controlling variables, interpreting data ,formulating hypothesis ,defining operationally and experimenting. SAPA is a complete K-6 program .The learning activities in the revised proximately SAPA 2 are packaged in a series of 105 upgraded learning modules, with approximately 15 modules per traditional grade level. Students have no books, yet copy masters are available: modular teacher guides are used in place of teachers textbook guide. Each learning module has the same features and structures .The cover of each module presents the specific process skills that are emphasized within. The sequence chart inside the cover shows the relationship and fit of the modules objectives with those of related modules. Evaluation is emphasized strongly in SAPA. An appraisal section describes class performance for evaluation, and the competency measures section fully describes evaluation tasks that can be used with individual children .Specific
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questions and suggested answers are given .Competency measure tasks are keyed to the specific module objectives.
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CONCLUSION The average student score from the traditional science program class is at the 15% on a test designed to measure knowledge of science facts. Then by comparison, the average student in the SAPA class achieves at the 57% on the same test. The SAPA students knew more facts. SAPA has several other factors going for it even more important than the performance of the average children from our example. On tests of process skills, SAPA students scored 36% points higher than children from traditional programs. In such other areas as related to study skills (reading& mathematics) creativity and Piagetian tasks, SAPA children scored higher by 4,7 and 12 percentile points, respectively. Many of the assumptions that under grid SAPA appear to produce differences, just as its developers envisioned.
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REFERENCES
Wikipedia-Free Encyclopedia Curriculum Landscapes and Trends- Akker , Kuiper , Hameyar Curriculum Trends: A Reference Handbook Curriculum: Construction and Critique-Laura Tryssenaar