USING INTERACTIVE VIDEODISC TECHNOLOGY TO INCREASE THE QUANTITY AND QUALITY OF SCIENCE INSTRUCTION THROUGH THE INTEGRATION OF SCIENCE IN THE FLES CURRICULUM

THE PRIMARY OBJECTIVE OF THIS PROJECT IS TO DETERMINE THE FEASIBILITY OF INCREASING THE QUANTITY AND QUALITY OF SCIENCE EDUCATION IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS THROUGH UTILIZING SCIENCE EDUCATION AS THE CONTENT OF CHOICE FOR A RELATIVELY NEW ADDITION TO THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL CURRICULUM, FOREIGN LANGUAGE. THE INCLUSION OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE IN THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL, MORE COMMONLY CALLED FLES, IS A RAPIDLY GROWING MOVEMENT WITH 22% OF THE NATION'S ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS ALREADY ENGAGED. FLES LEADERS ADVOCATE CONTENT-BASED INSTRUCTION THROUGH INTEGRATION OF LANGUAGE WITH REGULAR SUBJECT MATTER. FURTHER, FLES LEADERS RECOGNIZE THE STRONG POTENTIAL THAT GOOD SCIENCE EDUCATION OFFERS FOR LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT. UNFORTUNATELY, MOST FLES TEACHERS HAVE WEAK SCIENCE BACKGROUND, SO WITHOUT INTERVENTION, THEIR CONTENT OF CHOICE WILL NOT BE SCIENCE. THIS PROJECT PROPOSES TO RESEARCH THE POTENTIAL OF LEVEL III INTERACTIVE VIDEODISC TECHNOLOGY AS A TEACHER TRAINING MEDIUM TO PREPAREAND ENCOURAGE FLES TEACHERS TO UTILIZE SCIENCE AS THEIR CONTENT, THEREBY REACHING AS MANY AS 800-900 STUDENTS PER WEEK PER FLES TEACHER. FURTHER, WE WILL RESEARCH THE POTENTIAL IMPACT OF THIS SCIENCE INSTRUCTION IN TERMS OF ENCOURAGING THE REGULAR CLASSROOM TEACHER TO TEACH MORE SCIENCE. PHASE I WILL UTILIZE A PROTOTYPE AUTHORED CHECKDISC TO TEST THIS CONCEPT.