This monograph, the final report of the 21st Century Literacy Summit held in April 2005, presents an action plan for this emerging field applicable to higher education, K-12 education, policy makers, media & the arts, and research, and details the strategic priorities and specific recommendations for these sectors that were the summit's major outcomes.
This research study reports on the evaluation of the outcome and impact of learning as a result of the implementation of Education Programme Delivery Plans in 69 museums in the nine regional museum hubs in England during September, October and November 2005. This is the second study of the impact of learning achieved through museum school services which have been funded through the Renaissance in the Regions programme, which provides central government funding to museums in the English regions. The first study 'What did you learn at the museum today?' was carried out in 2003. The findings of
DATE:
TEAM MEMBERS:
Eilean Hooper-GreenhillJocelyn DoddLisanne GibsonMartin PhillipsCeri JonesEmma Sullivan
The Decapoda - shrimp, lobsters, and crabs - are an economically important, diverse group of animals whose geologic history extends back 400 million years. Living representatives, numbering over 15,000 species, are global in distribution and nearly ubiquitous in oceanic and non-oceanic environments. They exert a major impact on ecosystems; understanding the dynamics of their fossil record will illuminate their historical impact on ecosystems. We will test the hypothesis that decapods are arrayed in a series of discrete evolutionary faunas; remarkably, the vast array of living and fossil decapods in diverse interrelated groups have exploited four basic body plans repeatedly. Other hypotheses to be tested are that the Decapoda have repeatedly adopted a limited number of baupläne, or generalized architectures, throughout their history; that they have experienced explosive evolutionary radiations followed by periods of no determinable change; and that they are generally resistant to mass extinction events. These hypotheses will be tested using a unique dataset compiled and assessed by the Principle Investigators: a compilation of all fossil decapod species, arrayed in a classification scheme including fossil and living taxa, with geologic and geographic ranges of all species, including a phylogeny (i.e. "family tree") for many sub-groups within the Decapoda. The dataset will be expanded to include ecological data for each taxon and will be entered into the Paleobiology Database, an NSF-supported vehicle for analyzing the fossil record. Employing its methodology, patterns of diversity and macroevolution of the decapods will be generated at levels ranging from the entire Order to species level. This will result in a comprehensive analysis of macroevolutionary patterns of this major group for the first time. Available paleoecological data derived from field studies and published records will be used to determine the effects of various environmental factors such as seafloor conditions, reef development, water depth, and temperature on morphology, extinction survivorship, and diversity. Because decapods have a remarkable range of morphological variation preservable in the fossil record, the diversity of the groups of decapods can be assessed in relation to their morphological characteristics. Defining the history of taxa with specialized morphology will permit recognition of body plans that have been exploited by different decapod groups throughout the history of the clade.
Intellectual merit. This study will provide the most comprehensive analysis of macroevolution of the Decapoda yet conducted, all based upon a unique dataset that is internally consistent by virtue of its having been developed entirely by the investigators. It will document the significance of employing a high resolution, species-level database for interpretation of diversity. The hypotheses and conclusions derived here will provide a model and the foundation for future work on Decapoda, Arthropoda, and macroevolution of well-constrained groups. It will provide a test for the efficacy of PBDB data versus a constrained dataset assessed by specialist systematists.
Broader impacts. The work will introduce undergraduate students at Kent State at Stark, an undergraduate campus, and Kent State at Kent, to research that involves paleoecological, paleogeographical, and functional morphological elements which, in turn, will be communicated to other students. Because decapods are known to virtually everyone, they form an excellent group to use to inform the public about ancient patterns of diversity and the relationship between the morphology of organisms, variations in their environmental requirements, and their adaptability to different physical conditions. This will be conveyed in a professionally constructed display which has the potential to be exhibited in museums and universities around the country. Small kits designed for use in elementary and middle schools will be available to allow students to make their own observations about the adaptations of decapods to their environment and its effect on diversity. Published papers and presentations on results of research at meetings will be prepared throughout the course of the research. Because the study of modern biodiversity is a concern of the general public, presentations to broader audiences as well as geology classes will provide a broad historical context for understanding modern patterns of diversity. Data entered into Paleobiology Database and Ohio Data Resource Commons will be openly available to other researchers and the general public. Combined, the databases will assure archival storage and public access, following a proprietary period.
This paper presents a summary of each of 10 evaluations conducted of NASA educational programs. The paper begins with a table outlining the titles of the evaluations and who conducted them, the date of the report, the evaluation questions, the evaluation design or methods and brief comments on the quality of each report. After the table each report is considered in more depth through an overview of what the evaluation included as well as a critique of the evaluation questions, methods and findings. The paper concludes with an overall commentary on the set of evaluations.
The purpose of this paper is to explore and discuss the role of practical work in the teaching and learning of science at school level. It emphasizes practical work as a means for students to learn about the nature of science.
Reports from the NSF, NRC, AAAS, and others urge over and over that we must teach "science as science is done," that "science is a way of knowing," that our goal should be to impart "scientific habits of mind," and that learning must be learner-centered and oriented toward process. Fine. But what does this really mean for science education, and especially laboratory education?
The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of laboratory-based science from a perspective that synthesizes developments in (1) science studies, e.g., history, philosophy and sociology of science and (2) the learning sciences, e.g., cognitive science, philosophy of mind, educational psychology, social psychology, computer sciences, linguistics, and (3) educational research focusing on the design of learning environments that promote dynamic assessments. Taken together these three domains have reshaped our thinking about the role inquiry, and in turn the laboratory, has in science
The goal of this article is to provide an integrative review of research that has been conducted on the development of children's scientific reasoning. Scientific reasoning (SR), broadly defined, includes the thinking skills involved in inquiry, experimentation, evidence evaluation, inference and argumentation that are done in the service of conceptual change or scientific understanding. Therefore, the focus is on the thinking and reasoning skills that support the formation and modification of concepts and theories about the natural and social world. Major empirical findings are discussed
The purpose of this paper is to review what is known about informal science learning and to recommend areas for further research. The review is intended to support an examination of how children's science learning experiences in designed informal environments like science museums and zoos relate to science learning activities in K-8 schools.
To begin, this paper describes the climate in science education in the United States, and describes and defines formative assessment. Next, Black & Wiliam’s review and two other important empirical studies will be summarized. Then, a framework characterizing different forms of formative assessment is presented. Non-empirical studies are organized according to this continuum. Finally, the paper describes limitations in the implementation of formative assessment in K-8 science, and summarizes assessment practices that show promise for improving student learning. The important contribution of the
In 2006, the National Research Council initiated a study on Learning Science in Informal Environments. The purpose of the study is to synthesize a range of relevant literatures and recommend strategic directions for future research in the area. In the course of working on this study the Committee has found one of its challenges to be the identification and assessment of evaluation studies of informal science programs, in particular those which have probed science learning outcomes. To that end they commissioned the Institute for Learning Innovation to produce a paper that would help them
This paper lays out a theory of (re-)generative learning to explain how families and communities socialize young learners into thinking like scientists and mathematicians. Cultural communities and their families orient their young in varied ways toward the language, behaviors, and self-theories about the future presupposed in the learning of science and mathematics. Certain socialization processes and norms correspond closely with those that scientists and artists use in laboratories, studios, and rehearsals. Certain norms of politeness and patterns of language differ significantly from habits