What is Science? Science is not a collection of facts, nor is it - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Transforming science in the 21st century

Inspire – through transformative research/teaching Support – scientists as they seek to learn Innovate – new partnerships for success Advance – via positive/negative

results of high-risk/reward research

What is Science?

“Science is not a collection of facts, nor is it something that happens in a laboratory. Science happens in the head; it is a flight of imagination beyond the constraints of

• rdinary perception”

The real purpose of the scientific method is to make sure Nature hasn’t misled us into thinking that we know something we don’t actually know. Perhaps that is the main reasoning why scientific and mechanical information sounds so dull and so cautious.

STEM Education Priorities

• Approaching half a century of education

priorities

– Elementary and Secondary Education Act 1965 / No Child Left Behind 2001 – Higher Education Act 1965 / Higher Education Opportunity Act 2008 – Rising Above the Gathering Storm (2007)

STEM Vitality K-12 and Beyond

• Robust teacher training and support for K-12

STEM

• Ecological change of how STEM is fostered,

encouraged, and optimized at post-secondary institutions

• Attracting, retaining, and preparing students

for their future in a STEM-savvy workforce

Where is Science Going?

• Problem centered on issues that transcend

disciplinary boundaries

• Mother nature is winning (i.e., she does not have

academic departmental structural constraints to what she offers the world)

• Tools of science transcend disciplines
• Even more information will accrue within

traditional areas of study

• Moral and ethical issues will abound
• New knowledge in science is exploding

Who Are Our Students?

Science is a Team Sport !

No College College

Physics Geology Math Comp Sci Eng. Biochem Chem Nursing Biology

Science Non Science

The Universe The Universe of Science Majors The Universe of All College Students The Real Universe of Education

The Dawn Of Education 2.0

• In the shift from an intellectual economy of push, to
• ne of pull
• the evolving participatory media are making their

impact felt

• It is no longer enough to pump out information like

gasoline and expect authentic learning to take place

• the new generation of learners demand to be

engaged, active and part of a collaborative knowledge building community.

Here’s Why

• ''The online MySpace community has

ballooned to more than 160 million members in just a few years.

• The social networking site of choice for most

students is Facebook.com, which describes itself as a social utility that helps people better understand the world around them.''

Why Continued…….

• The generation weaned on television may have been happy

to sit back and passively consume information fed to them from above, but those days are over.

• Armed with a set of tools that make always-on collaboration,

ideas-sharing, personal expression and information gathering an engaging, socially-driven experience today's learners have high expectations.

• Now that students can network with contacts through sites

like MySpace, broadcast their presence to the world with Twitter, and create and remix media with YouTube and Jumpcut, it's unlikely that they are going to be content to sit through a lecture delivered in the one-way, top-down tradition of old media.

• the content should be scientific
• the classroom should reflect the process of

science

• the classroom should capture the rigor,

iterative nature, and spirit of discovery of science at its best

• the approach to teaching should be scientific

Handelsman et al., 2004 Science 304:521-522.

Scientific Teaching

Educational Challenges Universities

Comprehensive, Fast (4 years), Cheap

• If it is Fast and Cheap it will be hard to make it

Comprehensive

• If it is Comprehensive and Fast it will not be Cheap
• If it is Good and Cheap it will not be

Comprehensive