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Feature From the National Academies Effective Practices in Undergraduate STEM Education Part 1: Examining the Evidence Jay B. Labov,* Susan R. Singer,† Melvin D. George,‡ Heidi A. Schweingruber,* and Margaret L. Hilton* *Center for Education, National Research Council, Washington, DC 20001; †Department of Biology, Carleton College, Northfield, MN 55057; and ‡President’s Office, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211 INTRODUCTION Since the publication of reports in the late 1990s by the National Science Foundation (NSF; 1996), the National Re-search Council (NRC; 1996, 1999), and the Boyer Commis-sion on Educating Undergraduates in the Research Univer-sity (1998) on the importance of improving undergraduate education in science, technology, engineering, and mathe-matics (STEM), at least 13 other federal civilian departments and agencies have spent billions of dollars on more than 200 programs to realize this goal. Most of that spending has come from the NSF and the National Institutes of Health (Government Accounting Office, 2005). Many private foun-dations also have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in efforts to improve undergraduate STEM education. For ex-ample, since 1988 the Howard Hughes Medical Institute has awarded more than $1.5 billion in grants to improve science education at the precollege and college levels.1 As a result of this financial support and commitment from the public and private sectors, research into and implemen-tation of numerous and varied promising practices for teach-ing, learning, assessment, and institutional organization of undergraduate STEM education have been developed in recent years. These promising practices range from improve-ments in teaching in individual classrooms to changes in departments.2 They include increased prominence of cam-pus and national centers for teaching excellence, profes-sional development for faculty members (e.g., National Academies Summer Institute on Undergraduate Education in Biology,3 On the Cutting Edge: Professional Develop-ment for Geoscience Faculty4, First II5), and large outreach and dissemination efforts (e.g., Project Kaleidoscope,6 SENCER7). Virtually all of the new promising practices have focused on student-centered, inquiry-based approaches to teaching (summarized in Handelsman et al., 2007) or alter-native assessments of student learning (e.g., see references in Deeds and Callen, 2006), compared with more traditional approaches to teaching that emphasize lecturing and multi-ple- choice or short-answer examinations. Some of these new approaches, such as Peer-Led Team Learning8 and Just in Time Teaching,9 have gained national recognition and prominence. Over the past decade, new practices have been imple-mented in vastly different grain sizes. Some have been tar-geted at specific classrooms, whereas others have focused on restructuring entire curricula. Still others have emphasized the role of assessment and evaluation of learning to improve teaching effectiveness (e.g., NRC, 2003a,b). Moreover, virtu-ally all of these practices were developed independently from one another and have emphasized somewhat different goals. In addition, communications across the STEM disci-plines and within their subdisciplines is often lacking. Thus, despite many years of effort and significant finan-cial expenditure, surprisingly little is known about the col-lective impact of these approaches on the academic success of individuals and of different populations of students. For example, do more students who experience these new ap-proaches to learning become sufficiently interested in these subject areas to want to take additional STEM courses com- DOI: 10.1187/cbe.09–06–0038 Address correspondence to: Jay B. Labov (jlabov@nas.edu). 1 For additional information, see www.hhmi.org/about/sci_ed/ index.html. 2 For additional information, see http://nsf.gov/div/index.jsp?div DUE; U.S. Department of Education’s Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education/Comprehensive Program. For additional in-formation, see www.ed.gov/programs/fipsecomp/index.html. 3 For additional information, see www.academiessummerinstitute.org. Also see Pfund et al. (2009). 4 For additional information, see http://serc.carleton.edu/ NAGTWorkshops/index.html. 5 Faculty Institutes for Reforming Science Teaching Project. For additional information, see http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/ first/ goalsof.htm. 6 For additional information, see http://pkal.org. 7 Science Education for New Civic Engagements and Responsibili-ties. For additional information, see http://sencer.net. 8 For additional information, see www.pltl.org. 9 For additional information, see http://jittdl.physics.iupui.edu/ jitt. CBE—Life Sciences Education Vol. 8, 157–161, Fall 2009 © 2009 by The American Society for Cell Biology 157
Object Description
Collection Title | Scholarly Publications by Carleton Faculty and Staff |
Journal Title | CBE Life Science Education |
Article Title | Effective Practices in Undergraduate STEM Education Part 1: Examining the Evidence |
Article Author |
Singer, Susan Labov, Jay George, Melvin Schweingruber, Heidi Hilton, Margaret |
Carleton Author |
Singer, Susan |
Department | Biology |
Field | Science and Mathematics |
Year | 2009 |
Volume | 8 |
Publisher | American Society for Cell Biology |
File Name | 050_Singer-Susan_EffectivePracticesInUndergraduateStemEducation.pdf; 050_Singer-Susan_EffectivePracticesInUndergraduateStemEducation.pdf |
Rights Management | This document is authorized for self-archiving and distribution online by the author(s) and is free for use by researchers. |
RoMEO Color | RoMEO_Color_Green |
Preprint Archiving | Yes |
Postprint Archiving | No |
Publisher PDF Archiving | Yes |
Paid OA Option | No_Value |
Contributing Organization | Carleton College |
Type | Text |
Format | application/pdf |
Language | English |
Description
Article Title | Page 1 |
FullText | Feature From the National Academies Effective Practices in Undergraduate STEM Education Part 1: Examining the Evidence Jay B. Labov,* Susan R. Singer,† Melvin D. George,‡ Heidi A. Schweingruber,* and Margaret L. Hilton* *Center for Education, National Research Council, Washington, DC 20001; †Department of Biology, Carleton College, Northfield, MN 55057; and ‡President’s Office, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211 INTRODUCTION Since the publication of reports in the late 1990s by the National Science Foundation (NSF; 1996), the National Re-search Council (NRC; 1996, 1999), and the Boyer Commis-sion on Educating Undergraduates in the Research Univer-sity (1998) on the importance of improving undergraduate education in science, technology, engineering, and mathe-matics (STEM), at least 13 other federal civilian departments and agencies have spent billions of dollars on more than 200 programs to realize this goal. Most of that spending has come from the NSF and the National Institutes of Health (Government Accounting Office, 2005). Many private foun-dations also have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in efforts to improve undergraduate STEM education. For ex-ample, since 1988 the Howard Hughes Medical Institute has awarded more than $1.5 billion in grants to improve science education at the precollege and college levels.1 As a result of this financial support and commitment from the public and private sectors, research into and implemen-tation of numerous and varied promising practices for teach-ing, learning, assessment, and institutional organization of undergraduate STEM education have been developed in recent years. These promising practices range from improve-ments in teaching in individual classrooms to changes in departments.2 They include increased prominence of cam-pus and national centers for teaching excellence, profes-sional development for faculty members (e.g., National Academies Summer Institute on Undergraduate Education in Biology,3 On the Cutting Edge: Professional Develop-ment for Geoscience Faculty4, First II5), and large outreach and dissemination efforts (e.g., Project Kaleidoscope,6 SENCER7). Virtually all of the new promising practices have focused on student-centered, inquiry-based approaches to teaching (summarized in Handelsman et al., 2007) or alter-native assessments of student learning (e.g., see references in Deeds and Callen, 2006), compared with more traditional approaches to teaching that emphasize lecturing and multi-ple- choice or short-answer examinations. Some of these new approaches, such as Peer-Led Team Learning8 and Just in Time Teaching,9 have gained national recognition and prominence. Over the past decade, new practices have been imple-mented in vastly different grain sizes. Some have been tar-geted at specific classrooms, whereas others have focused on restructuring entire curricula. Still others have emphasized the role of assessment and evaluation of learning to improve teaching effectiveness (e.g., NRC, 2003a,b). Moreover, virtu-ally all of these practices were developed independently from one another and have emphasized somewhat different goals. In addition, communications across the STEM disci-plines and within their subdisciplines is often lacking. Thus, despite many years of effort and significant finan-cial expenditure, surprisingly little is known about the col-lective impact of these approaches on the academic success of individuals and of different populations of students. For example, do more students who experience these new ap-proaches to learning become sufficiently interested in these subject areas to want to take additional STEM courses com- DOI: 10.1187/cbe.09–06–0038 Address correspondence to: Jay B. Labov (jlabov@nas.edu). 1 For additional information, see www.hhmi.org/about/sci_ed/ index.html. 2 For additional information, see http://nsf.gov/div/index.jsp?div DUE; U.S. Department of Education’s Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education/Comprehensive Program. For additional in-formation, see www.ed.gov/programs/fipsecomp/index.html. 3 For additional information, see www.academiessummerinstitute.org. Also see Pfund et al. (2009). 4 For additional information, see http://serc.carleton.edu/ NAGTWorkshops/index.html. 5 Faculty Institutes for Reforming Science Teaching Project. For additional information, see http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/ first/ goalsof.htm. 6 For additional information, see http://pkal.org. 7 Science Education for New Civic Engagements and Responsibili-ties. For additional information, see http://sencer.net. 8 For additional information, see www.pltl.org. 9 For additional information, see http://jittdl.physics.iupui.edu/ jitt. CBE—Life Sciences Education Vol. 8, 157–161, Fall 2009 © 2009 by The American Society for Cell Biology 157 |