• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.386-400
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• 2003

This paper presents an analysis of the Developmental Approaches in Science, Health and Technology (DASH) program, a K-6 curriculum developed by the Curriculum Research & Development Group (CRDG) at the University of Hawaii employing the curriculum analysis framework created by Posner. Using this framework the analyst found that the DASH design is based on the research on learning, teaching, and assessment now driving efforts to reform science education at the elementary level. DASH embraces the constructivist idea that learning is a personal and social process and the recapitulation model that new concepts are built out of theories previously learned. DASH provides an understandable, exciting, and memorable experience in the operations of science, health, and technology, and develops their capacity to use the skills and knowledge of science, health, and technology both in and outside school. A number of studies of DASH have examined its functionality, effectiveness of pedagogy and what students learn. The innovative nature of DASH necessitated a multidimensional assessment that included both quantitative and qualitative research techniques. Ongoing development of the DASH program in the research setting of a university laboratory school permits ever deeper connections with emerging curriculum theory and curriculum practice, and allows new linkages as ideas are tested in research classrooms.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.758-773
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• 2004

This paper advances the thesis that the barrier separating curriculum theorists and practitioners is more than a difference in experiential and methodological orientation and is in part a product of a lack of appreciation of the complexities involved in curriculum development and dissemination. Discussed here is the possible use of engineering theory to facilitate meaningful communication and understanding about products and development. This work is an extension of the observation that curriculum development and dissemination can be characterized as an engineering process and shows how engineering theory provides connectivity between the multiple embedded domains of theory and of practice. To illustrate the thesis this paper offers an analysis of the Developmental Approaches in Science, Health, and Technology (DASH) program that has employed engineering theory in curriculum construction and dissemination. In this study, the role and place of engineering theory as applied to the DASH program is discussed to show how the components were designed and assembled into a fully functional curriculum and dissemination system. Engineering theory is presented as an interfacing organizer with the potential to facilitate meaningful communication between theorists and practitioners.