Plenty of Challenges for All
Pamela J. Hines, Jeffrey Mervis, Melissa Mccartney, Brad Wible
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News & Views item - May 2013 |
Science 19April 2013 Contains a 33-page Special Section on Education. (May 15, 2013)
The hard copy of the April 19, 2013 issue of Science hit TFW's mailbox a couple of days ago with the cover feature "Grand Challenges in Science Education".
Here we reprint the introduction to the ten articles, as well as Bruce Alberts' editorial, that make up the section followed by thumbnails linking to each of them.
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Pamela J. Hines, Jeffrey Mervis, Melissa Mccartney, Brad Wible
Why should anyone who is not a scientist care about science education?
Professional scientists and educators may find the question insulting. Every
culture has struggled to find the most effective ways to teach the uninitiated
and translate that learning into productive skills. But if students and parents
around the world don't see the need for a high-quality education in science,
technology, engineering, and mathematics (the so-called STEM fields), or
mistakenly think that they are already receiving satisfactory teaching in those
areas, then calls from the scientific community to improve STEM education will
fall on deaf ears.
In this special issue of Science, we have invited experts to tell us what they
think are the most important challenges facing science education. Through a
mixture of News, Reviews, Perspectives, Education Forums, and an Editorial, we
explore the obstacles to progress, be they within the classroom, across the
school system, or in the larger social arena. We also offer substantive
suggestions on how to proceed. For example, distance education, online
simulations as educational aids, and social networking tools are already part of
science education. Many university faculty members are working to upgrade
centuries-old approaches to instruction. And, with a new emphasis on the
practice of science, promising assessment tools are being developed to improve
learning.
The challenges covered in this special issue will be familiar to those who have
devoted their lives and livelihoods to improving education. There is a huge and
expanding literature on these topics and many others not covered in these pages.
Yet convincing the public of the importance of STEM education will require more
than explaining what the research shows or finding ways to scale up best
practices to reach the billions of students who are entitled to a high-quality
education. For scientists, advances in science and technology arrive at such a
rapid clip that last year's knowledge barely scratches the surface of what is
needed next year. At the same time, larger and more diverse student populations
clamor for access to knowledge. Not only will the scientific workforce for the
21st century need skills and knowledge we haven't even heard of yet, but all
global citizens, whether in their doctor's office or in a polling booth, need to
be better informed. Turning the fire of the natural curiosity of students into
effective, flexible, and well-grounded outcomes will take a concerted effort by
many different actors. Among them, scientists must play a central role.
This is another grand challenge, and one that the scientific community ignores
at its peril.
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