The Victorian State curriculum calls for the teaching of scientific literacy, inquiry and thinking in science (VCAA, 2013). These goals are articulated in common State standards, which guide local school curriculum planning and implementation. However, teachers prioritize particular student performances in classroom instruction and assessment and these may or may not align with the goals specified in state standards (Porter, 2002). This presentation reports findings from our study into student performances prioritized (thereby valued) in science classrooms in two Melbourne secondary schools. A comparative case study approach illuminated similarities and differences in the teachers’ enacted practices. Methods included lesson observations (video), interviews and a teacher questionnaire. Curriculum documents, teaching materials and student work samples were also collected. We adapted Porter’s performance categories (cognitive demands) to guide our analysis (see Porter & Smithson, 2001). These categories were: Knowing, Performing Procedures, Communicating, Scientific Reasoning, Non-routine Problem Solving/Designing/Investigating and Making Connections. We focused our analysis on year 9 science instruction. In both schools, we found that science questions enacted in lesson activities matched closely those from formal school test items with respect to cognitive demand. These valued performances heavily emphasized the less complex cognitive demands of Knowing and Performing Procedures. Specifically, science questions and assessment items focused on the students’ development of factual recall and procedural knowledge. However, we also identified several science tasks that emphasized more complex cognitive demands. This finding was more evident in one particular school. Such valued performances were elicited through tasks like peer assessment and concept mapping that targeted Scientific Reasoning and Making Connections. To further our understanding of the differences in the enacted practices, we investigated the rationale for the teacher’s curricular decisions. The findings suggest that the two science teachers studied in the two schools held very different beliefs about the learning needs of their students and they referenced their instruction to meet these perceived student needs (cf. Sztajn, 2003). One teacher believed that her year 9 students should be challenged with thinking in science, inquiry and literacy skills besides maintaining good academic performance. The other teacher believed that his year 9 students should have an engaging curriculum where they can also develop work habits and acquire basic science knowledge and skills. The resultant differences between both the discourse and the forms of scientific practice in the two science classrooms raise questions about teacher curricular decision-making and the performative realization of a standards-based curriculum.

Porter, A. C. (2002). Measuring the Content of Instruction: Uses in research and practice. Educational Researcher, 31 (7), 3 – 14. Porter, A. C., & Smithson, J. L. (2001). Defining, Developing, and Using Curriculum Indicators. Consortium for Policy Research in Education, University of Pennsylvania. Sztajn, P. (2003). Adapting reform ideas in different mathematics classrooms: Beliefs beyond mathematics. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 6(1), 53-75. VCAA. (2013). Foundation – 10 Curriculum, Accessed Jun 2013, from http://www.vcaa.vic.edu.au/Pages/foundation10/f10index.aspx Xu, L. H., Kang, Y., & Clarke, D. J. (2012). Comparisions of Valued Performances in Mathematics Curriculum Documents in Melbourne, Beijing and Helsinki: Mathematical Literacy. Paper presented at the symposium, “Curricular Interpretation and Alignment in Melbourne, Beijing and Helsinki: Mathematics and Science” at The Joint Australian Association for Research in Education and Asia-Pacific Education Research Association (AARE-APERA) conference, Sydney, Australia.