Engaging Science, Advancing Learning:
General Education, Majors, and the New Global Century
Pre-conference Workshops
Thursday, November 6, 200 – 5:00 p.m.
(separate registration and fee required: $100 members; $125 non-members)
Workshop 1: Designing and Implementing Rich Science Learning Outcomes for All Students
Workshop leaders will facilitate discussion about the kinds of knowledge, skills, and abilities that all students should acquire to effectively evaluate and use scientific information. Participants will address how historical foundations might be balanced with current research findings and how teaching science can change to engage students more deeply along a set of essential outcomes. Workshop participants will consider how to articulate and assess these outcomes and incorporate them across the undergraduate experience of all students.
Donald Deeds, Professor of Biology—Drury University and Barry Stein, Professor of Psychology—Tennessee Technological University
Workshop 2: Designing Collaborative Institutional Supports that Expand Creative Science Learning Opportunities
This workshop will address institutional strategies that support new forms of science learning and strategies for sustaining successful programs in college. The facilitators will discuss in and out of classroom learning experiences that advance science learning including engaging students early in research opportunities and developing research rich curricula. They will also discuss student learning and retention of diverse students in all fields as well as the role undergraduate research plays in graduate and professional school aspirations for diverse students. Participants will examine different models of in and out of classroom programs.
Sandra R. Gregerman, Director, Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program—University of Michigan and James E. Swartz, Professor of Chemistry—Grinnell College
Workshop 3: Integrating Research Activity in the Undergraduate Curriculum
This workshop will share pedagogical practices and principles of teaching science that work across the curriculum. Specifically, the workshop will address how to more effectively integrate research— including course-embedded research projects, independent research projects (during the academic year and the summer), community-based research and early professional research—into the first-year to capstone curriculum. Participants will receive advance reading materials and work in groups comprised of various institutional types to generate different perspectives on challenges and barriers, and ways to overcome them.
Lori Bettison-Varga, Provost and Dean of the Faculty—Whitman College and Doug Hamilton, Associate Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and Professor of Physics—University of Connecticut
Workshop 4: Science for All: Fostering Faculty Efforts and Institutional Transformation
All students, not just science majors, need to develop scientific understanding and a conception of how science is done. In order to engage all students in science, science faculty will need to build collaborations across and beyond their institutions. Workshop participants will consider models for science-rich education and multiple pathways to accomplish it. Facilitators will focus on examples of gaining momentum from the bottom up, starting with small alterations in course design and pedagogy and eventually influencing whole programs, departments, administrations, and communities. Participants will explore examples of what works, including research-proven teaching methods, ways to link humanities and the sciences, faculty incentives and leadership development, learning and teaching centers, publication on the scholarship of teaching and learning, undergraduate research, and ways to surmount institutional barriers.
Beth Weatherby, Provost—Southwest Minnesota State University and Adele J. Wolfson, Associate Dean of the College, Professor of Chemistry—Wellesley College
Workshop 5: Assessing Students’ Science Learning
This workshop will provide models and effective practices for assessing science learning, cross-disciplinary knowledge, and scientific “habits of mind.” Participants will explore several types of assessment strategies and strengthen their ability to both evaluate and create authentic assessment instruments. Participants are encouraged to bring to the workshop examples of assessment instruments that they or their colleagues have used to assess science learning–especially cross-disciplinary knowledge and/or scientific “habits of the mind”–in field experiences, undergraduate research, service learning and other engaged learning practices. During the workshop, participants will have an opportunity to identify and share effective practices gleaned from the assessment instruments that they bring to the workshop.
Rolf Enger, Director of Education—United States Air Force Academy and David Lopatto, Professor of Psychology—Grinnell College
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