November 2007
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Judi Sandler Assumes a New Role at EDC
In June of 2007, the long-time director of EDC’s Center for Science Education, Judith Opert Sandler, assumed a new role as senior advisor to EDC.
Throughout her career as CSE director, Judi recruited talented staff from many different disciplines in order to bring together the best thinking about science education, and to design and implement the most comprehensive programs. She provided leadership for the development of inquiry-based curricula at the elementary and high school levels, and continued EDC’s legacy as a premier science curriculum development organization. Judi also recognized the significance for developing strong science curricula for after-school and informal organizations.
Early on, Judi was articulate that curriculum alone could not change instruction; she was in the forefront of national initiatives that became known as “systemic change.” She knew the importance of high-quality professional development, sound district policies, appropriate fiscal support, and the alignment of standards to curriculum, instruction, and assessment. She played an important role in building a strong research group in CSE, again understanding the increasing importance of research-based practice and materials, and the need for data-based decision making among state and school administrators, policy makers, and funders.
Throughout her tenure at CSE, Judi’s personal and professional commitments came together through serving the needs of urban and rural students, those who have been largely denied high-quality science education.
Judi has been a tireless education advocate. She has been a part of putting science education on the national agenda and continues to work hard to ensure that the current interest in science education yields effective programs so all children learn science and scientific thinking. Judi’s new role as senior advisor to EDC will allow her more time to concentrate on STEM education policy.
CSE will miss Judi’s daily presence, but we are thrilled that her new role will keep her relatively close by.
New CSE Leadership
Barbara Brauner Berns has been appointed acting director of CSE. She had served as associate/deputy center director for the past seven years, where she had center management responsibilities in addition to serving as principal investigator for several large projects. At CSE for 12 years, she has spearheaded new development, enhanced internal and external collaborations and partnerships, and increased the visibility of the center through publications, conferences, and outreach. Currently, she leads work with the National Science Foundation and the Department of Defense Education Activity. She is particularly interested in nurturing the next generation of science education leaders, and in guaranteeing that all students of all backgrounds have the opportunity to receive a high-quality science education.
Prior to coming to EDC, Barbara was director of planning, research, and evaluation for the Massachusetts Department of Education; grants coordinator for the Brookline, Mass., Public Schools; and planner for the University of Rhode Island Urban Field Center. For several years, she was project director of a major evaluation on middle school reform for the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation. Barbara brings to CSE leadership a combination of organization, planning, and policy skills in the science education field.
CSE Welcomes New Staff
Lisa Marco is a CSE research assistant currently working on a wide variety of formal and informal science education projects. Prior to joining CSE, Lisa taught middle school science for three years. She is a Teach for America alumnus and a former teacher at a KIPP school in Houston, Texas. Lisa holds a B.A. in biology and anthropology from Williams College and an Ed.M. in education policy and management from Harvard Graduate School of Education. Her academic experience, coupled with recent teaching experience, is a welcomed addition to CSE.
Reginald Tucker-Seeley is a research associate/data analyst working with CSE on the Lesson Study for Accessible Science (LSAS) project, providing data management and data analysis support. Reginald received a B.S. in business administration from the University of Tulsa, an M.A. (research) in human development counseling from St. Louis University, and an M.S. in Health and Social Behavior from the Harvard School of Public Health. He is currently working on an S.D. (doctor of science) in health and social policy from the Harvard School of Public Health. His quantitative skills make a significant contribution to CSE.
Inaugural DR-K12 PI Meeting
CSE, under a grant from the National Science Foundation, organized the Inaugural PI Meeting for DR-K12 in Arlington, Va., from September 9–11, 2007. An estimated 300 principal investigators and key staff participated in the meeting, which brought together PIs from what had been the Teacher Professional Continuum (TPC) and Instructional Materials Development (IMD) programs, and also from the new DR-K12 program. The meeting was designed to stimulate thinking and discussion about future directions for the PI’s work and the work of the DR-K12 community. In fact, the theme was Transition to the Future.
PIs had the opportunity to hear from new leaders at NSF: Joan Ferrini-Mundy, director, Division of Research on Learning in Formal and Informal Settings, and Cora Marrett, assistant director, Directorate for Education and Human Resources. In an effort to move outside the DR-K12 community, the meeting’s plenary speakers addressed the future from very unique perspectives: Monica Martinez from KnowledgeWorks Foundation talked about the Map of the Future Forces Affecting Education and its implications for STEM; Keith Sawyer from Washington University, St. Louis, shared his views on the importance of creativity in today’s global innovation society; and Don Williams, Microsoft Education Products Group, presented on research trends, opportunities, and challenges from a corporate perspective.
PIs led a lively set of concurrent sessions, which were interspersed with presentations from the field. Special presentations were given by selected members of the DR-K12 community: Jere Confrey, distinguished professor of education, North Carolina State University; Bob Tinker, president, Concord Consortia; and Rodger Bybee, executive director, Emeritus, BSCS.
Two CSE staffers, Zach Hallinan and Erica Jablonski, were among a select team of “beginning researchers” invited to attend the meeting, where they were asked to offer their perspectives to NSF as it identified future directions of K–12 science research and development. These two staff members were among 30 nationwide who were nominated to participate in the meeting.
Highpoints of the meeting were two evening poster sessions and a compelling closing address by Congressman Brian Baird, Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Research and Science Education.
For more information about the meeting, please see http://cse.edc.org/dr-k12/, where you can also find the meeting agenda and abstracts of many of the funded projects along with a searchable database. Coming soon to the Web site are videotapes from sessions with Joan Ferrini-Mundy and Cora Marrett, and proceedings from the meeting.
A Mentoring Guide for Middle Grades
CSE is announcing our recent publication Making Science Mentors: A 10-Session Guide for Middle Grades. This guide targets those who will be preparing and supporting middle school science teachers through use of an inquiry-based approach to teaching and learning. Developed under a grant from the National Science Foundation, the principles behind this guide’s procedures and materials were field tested with 50 mentors and new teachers in a variety of middle schools. Making Science Mentors includes 10 session-by-session lesson plans; a planning and observation protocol to guide mentor-mentee interaction, both in conferences and during classroom observation; handouts and transparencies (on paper and on CD) for use in preparing mentors; and video clips on DVD that show middle-grades science classrooms and teacher mentoring.
This guide is ideal if you have state, district, or school-based teacher preparation programs and don’t want to start from scratch when setting up a research-based mentoring system.
For a copy of thepublication, you can contact NSTA Press at http://www.nsta.org/.
For more information on the mentoring program, see http://cse.edc.org/profdev/services/.
For consultation on mentoring or mentor preparation by CSE, contact Marian Pasquale at mpasquale@edc.org
Current and Upcoming Field Tests
CSE currently has a couple of large ongoing curriculum development projects: Foundation Science and Bioethics Curriculum for High School.
Foundation Science, one of only two projects funded by NSF to create comprehensive and “exemplary 21st century science curriculum,” is currently field testing in schools across the country the first semesters of three courses: physics, chemistry, and biology. In the spring of 2008, the second semesters of these same courses will be field tested. The teachers who take part in the field testing communicate with the developers those aspects of the curriculum that work well and where they feel improvements could be made. All of these comments are taken into consideration when revising. This curriculum has several special features, including that it articulates learning among all four high school science disciplines, and it exemplifies “educative curriculum” (the embedding of professional development within the instructional program itself). For more information about this project, contact Jackie Miller at jsmiller@edc.org or visit http://cse.edc.org/foundationscience/.
The Bioethics Curriculum for High School project will begin field testing modules during the spring 2008 semester. CSE and the Center for Applied Ethics and Professional Practice (CAEPP) at EDC have received this contract from the National Institutes of Health to develop a supplemental curriculum in bioethics to be used in high school biology courses. Compelling bioethical topics will motivate students to develop critical-thinking skills and to relate their learning in biology to societal issues.
For more information about this project, contact Erica Jablonski at ejablonski@edc.org or visit http://cse.edc.org/curriculum/bioethics/.
New Work
CSE is pleased to announce our newest endeavors.
Research and Evaluation
Broad Institute Outreach Program Evaluation
CSE is conducting an evaluation of the Educational Outreach programs at the Broad Institute, Cambridge, Mass. The outreach programs are targeted at area high school students and include summer internships, semester-long projects, and class field trips to the Broad Institute. Evaluation activities include surveys and interviews with students, mentors, and other program staff and has both formative and summative components.
For more information, contact Amie Mansfield at amansfield@edc.org.
Mass-TEC Evaluation
Quinsigamond Community College in Worcester, Mass., has contracted with CSE to conduct the preliminary research for and the evaluation of its new Massachusetts Technician Education Collaboration (Mass-TEC). Mass-TEC, a three-year project funded by the National Science Foundation’s Advanced Technological Education program, intends to increase the number of skilled technicians in central Massachusetts to support regional employers’ high-end engineering and manufacturing operations.
The initial research includes conducting focus groups with career advisors and families in English, Spanish, and Vietnamese; and surveying high school teachers. The data collected through this research will then inform the design and implementation of the targeted public awareness campaign. In the subsequent years of the project, CSE will evaluate the impact of the project’s public awareness campaign on these three groups, as well as contribute to the project’s long-term sustainability through the compilation of materials, and collaborate with Mass-TEC partners to build local capacity for ongoing data collection and impact assessment.
For more information, contact Abigail Jurist Levy at alevy@edc.org
Instructional Materials
Collaborative Research: Universal Design of Inquiry-Based Middle and High School Science Curriculum
CSE has been awarded a new Universal Design for Learning grant from the National Science Foundation, in which we partner with UMichigan and CAST (Center for Applied Special Technology). This new project will allow us to do highly innovative work. We will create a sophisticated software system that publishers, curriculum developers, and teachers can use to customize digitized curricula to meet numerous and varied learning needs of diverse populations. In short, the system will allow the user to expediently author particular features (e.g., scaffolds to aid in comprehension, memorization, and organization) and then “turn on” particular features that meet students’ individual learning needs.
For more information, contact June Foster at jfoster@edc.org.
Enhancing Informal Explorations of Living Phenomena Through Digital Images
CSE is developing activity materials for informal science educators who work with middle school youth in extended investigations of living phenomena. This three-year project, funded by the National Science Foundation, will involve both the development of activities and controlled applied research, studying the role of different modes of visual representations as well as the impact of the units themselves on the preparation for future learning and attitudes of participating youth. CSE will collaborate on this project with Campbell-Kibler Associates, Inc., Boston Nature Center, and University of New Hampshire 4-H.
For more information, contact Bernie Zubrowski at bzubrowski@edc.org.
Customized Services
Surveying Directors of Science Materials Centers
CSE is developing a survey to collect information of operations and best practices of science materials centers nationwide. The survey has been revised based on recommendations from two focus groups held at the recent Next Steps Institute. This is the first phase of a larger initiative to design a suite of Web-based resources to be highlighted by the Association of Science Materials Centers (ASMC).
For more information, contact Zach Hallinan at zhallinan@edc.org.
Inquiry-Based Learning
CSE is working with the Massachusetts State Science and Engineering Fair to help design and develop a sustainable, scalable model of teacher professional development in inquiry-based learning. The goal of the one-week course is to enable middle and high school teachers to imbue their science curricula with inquiry-based activities that will help students develop science literacy, prepare them for college majors in science and technology, show high achievement on MCAS science tests, and acquire workplace skills such as critical thinking, communication, teamwork, and perseverance. CSE staff is evaluating and revising the existing course, Curious Minds I, with the Curious Minds Team, a group of middle and high school teachers who have been offering this course for three years.
For more information, contact Marian Pasquale at mpasquale@edc.org.
For information on all of CSE’s current projects, go to http://cse.edc.org/
Cake Chemistry and Baking Soda Balloons
Reprinted from the EDC Update magazine, Fall 2007, available at http://main.edc.org/newsroom/update/fall2007.pdf
Have you ever wondered why a cake rises? How the bubbles get in the soda bottle? What makes a bathtub boat float or sink? If you answered “yes” to any of these, you’re in good company. Educators from around the country recently gathered at the Children’s Museum in Boston to investigate questions like these, part of a national initiative to bring high-quality, hands-on science to thousands of children in afterschool programs around the country.
Why teach science after school? “During school time teachers are under a lot of pressure to teach to the test. Afterschool programs have the time and the flexibility to pursue hands-on, exploratory science projects,” explains Martha Davis, research associate. And the urgency for improving science and engineering instruction has never been greater, with federal testing requirements for science beginning this school year.
Yet most afterschool teachers don’t have the science background or the teaching experience to make science projects work well for children. EDC’s National Partnerships for After-School Science (N-PASS) meets this need with a network of educators who bring hands-on science activities to hundreds of afterschool providers. This three-year initiative is funded by the National Science Foundation.
“We could teach in classrooms all year but we wouldn’t reach the number of children we’re reaching through the leaders at this one training today,” says Davis. “If you teach one teacher you’re reaching 20–30 kids. If you teach one teacher-trainer you’re reaching hundreds of kids.”
“We are giving afterschool educators the skills they need to lead science projects confidently and well,” says Project Manager Charles Hutchison.
Betsy Ononye agrees. She is manager of youth community programs at the Center of Science and Industry in Toledo, Ohio, and she runs monthly trainings for afterschool providers across the region. She’s seen the effect of the training network firsthand.
“Many afterschool providers are afraid of science, but once they do these activities in a class like this, they get fired up about doing science with their kids.”
Learn More: http://cse.edc.org/profdev/N-PASS/
New CSE Article in JSTE
The December issue of the Journal of Science Teacher Education will include an article by CSE’s Bernie Zubrowski entitled “An Observational and Planning Tool for Professional Development in Science Education.” The instrument discussed in the journal is the result of collaboration between CSE and the mentors who participated in the NSF-supported EDC Middle-Grades Science Mentoring Program. In the article, Bernie talks about mentoring with an explicit goal of moving practicing teachers to a higher standard of practice, but recognizes that current tools are not detailed enough for mentors to provide effective feedback to teachers being mentored. As a result, the project developed this observational and planning tool. The article describes specifics of this instrument and highlights categories of pedagogical practice related to an extended inquiry-cycle model.
For more information on the mentoring program, see http://cse.edc.org/profdev/services/.
Celebrating Science Curricula
As EDC approaches its 50th anniversary, we remember that from the beginning, EDC has been synonymous with outstanding science curricula. That legacy continues. Major pieces of CSE curricula are in the preK–12 marketplace. These include, but are not limited to, Insights: An Inquiry-Based Elementary School Science Curriculum; Insights in Biology: Journey of Discovery; In-Depth Investigations of Pond Organisms Through Video, Investigating Pond Organisms: An Exploration of Pond Life and Its Environment (grades 1–3, 5–8); and The Young Scientist Series (ages 3–5 years). For informal and after-school programs, Design It! and Explore It! meet the needs of students aged 7–12.
New curriculum development continues as well, with our Foundation Science and Bioethics Curriculum for High School projects.
For more information on all of our curriculum programs, see http://cse.edc.org/curriculum/.
National Science Teachers Association National Conference Coming to Boston in 2008
CSE is delighted to welcome NSTA to our hometown in March 2008. We have many sessions planned for conference participants.
Professional Development Institutes: 
Wednesday, March 26, 8:00 am–4:00 pm
CSE Pathway Sessions
Also watch for these other sessions
