Research on Science Education

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Slide 31

Policy Implications

• Enhance supply and professional development of qualified teachers
• Develop focused and sequenced curricula
• Increase graduation requirements in math and science, and provide college entrance incentives
• Align teaching methods with content with science of learning
• Evaluate the effects of standards and of programs

Speaker's notes:

I find the following policy implications for science education in the research I have reviewed:

1. We need to enhance the supply of and professional development of teachers who are content experts in science.
2. Our science curricula and standards showed be revised to include greater focus and more logic and coherence in the sequencing of content.
3. We should increase high school graduation or college entrance requirements in science if we expect more students to take rigorous science courses in high school.
4. We need to align our teaching methods with the actual science content students are expected to learn, and with what we know about learning and teaching from cognitive science.
5. We have to bring science education into the domain of education science by subjecting the content, pedagogies, and standards to which children are exposed to the critical, empirical testing that is the hallmark of any science.

I and my colleagues at the Institute of Education Sciences invite your involvement and collaboration in this important task. If we can build a community of science around science education we will begin to see cumulative, irreversible progress in student achievement. That will be good for our children and extremely important for our nation.