News & Views item - June 2011

 

US National Academies' Report: Instruction, Not Schools, Key to Successful Science Programs. (June 24, 2011)

In 2009 US Representative Frank Wolff   (Republican-Virginia) asked the National Science Foundation to determine what the nation's maths and science schools do that allows their students to score so highly in national and international maths and science exams.

 

The NSF passed the buck to the nation's National Academies. Yesterday their National Research Council (NRC) released their 38 page report Successful K-12 STEM Education: Identifying Effective Approaches in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics.

 

And their overall conclusion? Any school can adopt the elements needed for a top-quality science program -- sufficient instructional time for well-trained teachers to implement a strong curriculum with effective assessments -- if it allocates the necessary time, money, and effort.

 

The NRC lists the following imperative for "Effective STEM instruction:

The chairman of the panel releasing the report, Adam Gamoran, Department of Sociology and Wisconsin Center for Education Research, University of Wisconsin–Madison commented: "I think that Representative Wolf has raised an important and challenging question. But even if you identify those high-performing schools, you still need to know what they are doing before you can adopt them elsewhere; so we decided to focus on the instructional practices that lead to effective STEM education."

 

And the report notes: "Little research is available that demonstrates the effectiveness of STEM-focused schools in comparison with other schools or that contrasts the relative effectiveness of their different approaches on a variety of student outcomes. As a result, the committee is not able to identify a distinct set of criteria related to STEM-focused schools themselves."

 

In addition Professor Gamoran told Science that he and his committee hope NSF will use its findings, as well as a longer report to be issued later this northern summer describing studies now under way, to shape future research programs that seek answers to Representative Wolf's original questions.