An Enactment of Science: A Dynamic Balance Among Curriculum Context and Teacher Beliefs
examines the specific role of an urban sixth-grade teacher as she engages her students in the
learning of science. With a four component model of curriculum enactment (curriculum context
teacher beliefs and enactment) as a guiding framework for inquiry this book addresses an
essential question in contemporary science education: Is exemplary science teaching a process
of traditional practices progressive practices or an eclectic combination of both
constituting some notion of a middle ground? Also examined is the teacher's explicit process of
coaching students in the use of social skills as part of the content of science as she guides
students toward successful cooperative group work and collective and individual problem
solving. Robert W. Blake Jr. suggests that pre-service and in-service teachers may want to
evaluate how closely their beliefs about the curriculum context and teaching match the
reality of their classroom situation with the potential of altering one (the curriculum) or the
other (their beliefs) to enhance the enactment of science. Also explicit teacher modeling of
social skills may serve useful for students to act independently of the teacher as they engage
in science activities. Finally teachers may consider their practice a balance between
traditional and progressive modes of teaching finding what is most useful are components from
both frameworks.
