Exploring the Intersection of Science Education and 21st Century Skills: A Workshop Summary (2010)

Arthur Eisenkraft (Chair) is distinguished professor of science education and director of the Center of Science and Math in Context (COSMIC) at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. He is the lead author and the project director of Active Chemistry and Active Physics. His current research is associated with developing new models of professional development using distance learning, assessing technological literacy, and how to bring quality science instruction to all students, including those from traditionally underrepresented minorities. A fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, he has received the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science Teaching (1986), the American Association of Physics Teachers’ (AAPT) Distinguished Service Citation for “excellent contributions to the teaching of physics” (1989), Science Teacher of the Year, and the Disney American Teacher Award (1991). In 1999 he was elected president of National Science Teachers Association and was the sole recipient of an award for Excellence in Pre-College Physics teaching from AAPT. At the National Research Council, he has served on numerous panels, resulting in such diverse publications as the National Science Education Standards, How People Learn: Bridging Research and Practice, Tech Tally, America’s Lab Report: Investigations in High School Science, and Attracting Science and Mathematics Ph.D.s to Secondary School Education. He has B.S. and M.S. degrees from Stony Brook University and a Ph.D. from New York University.

William Bonvillian is director of the Washington, DC, office of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Prior to this position, he served for 17 years as legislative director and chief counsel to U.S. Senator Joseph Lieberman. He is also an adjunct assistant professor at Georgetown University. He has written legislation in the areas of science, technology, and economic innovation and has an abiding interest in science and science education. Prior to leaving Senator Lieberman’s office, he worked on legislation that came in direct response to the National Academies report Rising Above the Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future. At the National Academies, he has been invited to speak to many groups about the legislative and policy process at the federal level and is a member of the Board on Science Education. He has a B.A. in history from Columbia University, an M.A.R. in religion from Yale University, and a J.D. from Columbia University School of Law.

Margaret Hilton (Study Director) is a senior program officer of the Board on Science Education. The workshop on science education and 21st century skills built on the workshop on future skill demands, which she directed in 2007. She is currently directing a review of the Occupational Information Network (O*NET). Previously, she has directed a study of high school science laboratories and contributed to workshops and studies of promising practices in undergraduate STEM; the role of state standards in K-12 education; foreign language and international studies in higher education; international labor standards; and the Information Technology workforce. Prior to coming to the NRC, at the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment, she directed studies of workforce training, work reorganization, and international competitiveness. She has a B.A. in geography, with High Honors, from the University of Michigan, a Master of Regional Planning degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and a Master of Human Resource Development degree from the George Washington University.

Marcia C. Linn is professor of development and cognition, specializing in education in mathematics, science, and technology, in the Graduate School of Education at the University of California, Berkeley. She also directs the Technology-Enhanced Learning in Science (TELS) center. She is a member of the National Academy of Education and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Psychological Association, and the Association for Psychological Science. Her board service includes the American Association for the Advancement of Science board, the Graduate Record Examination Board of the Educational Testing Service, the McDonnell Foundation Cognitive Studies in Education Practice board, and the Education and Human Resources Directorate at

the National Science Foundation. She has written several books, including Computers, Teachers, Peers (2000), Internet Environments for Science Education (2004), and Designing Coherent Science Education (2008). She has received awards from the National Association for Research in Science Teaching and the Council of Scientific Society Presidents. At the National Academies, she has served on numerous committees: Support for Thinking Spatially: The Incorporation of Geographic Information Science Across the K-12 Curriculum; IT Fluency and High School Graduation Outcomes; the Board on Behavioral, Cognitive, and Sensory Sciences; and the Project on Information Technology Literacy. She has a B.A. in psychology and statistics and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in educational psychology from Stanford University.

Christine Massey is director of research and education at the Institute for Research in Cognitive Science at the University of Pennsylvania. She is also the director of PENNlincs, an outreach arm of the institute, linking recent theory and research in cognitive science to education efforts in public schools and cultural institutions. She has directed a number of major collaborative research and development projects that combine research investigating students’ learning and conceptual development in science and math with the development and evaluation of new curriculum materials, learning technology, and educational programs for students and teachers. She is also a primary participant in the Metromath Center for Math in America’s Cities, a Center for Learning and Teaching, and the 21st Century Center for Cognition and Science Instruction. She was a Durant scholar and has a B.A. from Wellesley College and a Ph.D. in psychology with a specialization in cognitive development from the University of Pennsylvania. She is an Eisenhower fellow and has also been a fellow in the Spencer Foundation/National Academy of Education’s postdoctoral fellowship program.

Carlo Parravano is executive director of the Merck Institute for Science Education. He is responsible for the planning, development, and implementation of numerous initiatives to improve science education. Previously he was professor of chemistry and chair of the Division of Natural Sciences at the State University of New York (SUNY) at Purchase. He is a fellow of the American Academy for the Advancement of Science and a national associate of the National Academies. He is a recipient of the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching, the National Science Teachers Association’s Distinguished Service to Science Education Award, the Keystone Center’s Leadership in Education Award, and Rutgers University’s Distinguished Leader Award. He is a member of the National Academies’ Board on Science Education (Executive Committee) and is principal investigator for a Mathematics/Science Partnership award from the National Science

Foundation. He has a B.A. in chemistry from Oberlin College and a Ph.D. in physical chemistry from the University of California, Santa Cruz.

William Sandoval is associate professor and head of the Division of Psychological Studies in Education in the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. His teaching interests include the development of scientific reasoning, epistemologies of science and their effects on learning and teaching, technological supports for science inquiry, and technology as a transformative tool for instructional practice. His research interests focus on the development of scientific reasoning and inquiry skills, the design of technology-supported learning environments to support inquiry, and understanding and supporting effective inquiry teaching strategies. He was a key member of the BGuILE project and currently directs the Center for Embedded Networked Sensing Education Infrastructure project. He is a member of the editorial boards of the Journal of the Learning Sciences, Science Education, and Cognition & Instruction. At the National Academies, he was a member of the Committee on High School Science Laboratories. He has a B.S. in computer science from the University of New Mexico and a Ph.D. in learning sciences from Northwestern University.

Eric Anderman is professor of educational psychology at the Ohio State University. His research examines adolescent motivation. He has specifically studied and published about the transition from elementary school to middle school, the relation of motivation to academic cheating, and instructional interventions for HIV/pregnancy prevention for adolescents. He is associate editor of the Journal of Educational Psychology and a fellow of the American Psychological Association. He has a B.S. in psychology and Spanish from Tufts University, an Ed.M. in education from Harvard University, and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in educational psychology from the University of Michigan.

Rodger W. Bybee is director emeritus of Biological Sciences Curriculum Study (BSCS). Previously, he was executive director of the National Research Council’s Center for Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Education. At BSCS, he was principal investigator for four programs: an elementary school program entitled Science for Life and Living: Integrating Science, Technology, and Health; a middle school program entitled Middle School Science and Technology; a high school biology program titled Biological Science: A Human Approach; and a college program titled Biological Perspectives. He has been active in education for more than 30 years,

having taught science at the elementary, junior and senior high school, and college levels. He has B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of Northern Colorado and a Ph.D. in science education and psychology from New York University.

Betty Carvellas is the teacher leader for the Teacher Advisory Council at the National Academies. After teaching science for 39 years at the middle and high school levels, she retired in 2007. Her interests include interdisciplinary teaching, connecting school science to the real world, traveling with students on interdisciplinary field studies, and bringing inquiry into the science classroom. Her professional service includes work at the local, state, and national levels. She served as cochair of the education committee and was a member of the executive board of the Council of Scientific Society Presidents and is a past president of the National Association of Biology Teachers. In 2008, she was designated a national associate of the National Academies. She has a B.A. from Colby College, an M.S. from the State University of New York at Oswego, and a Certificate of Advanced Study from the University of Vermont.

Douglas Clark is assistant professor of science education and educational technology at Arizona State University in Tempe. His research focuses on issues of argumentation and conceptual change, often in the context of computer-enhanced learning environments. He is currently the principal investigator of an exploratory grant investigating physics learning in video games in terms of underlying game design, the design of representations and interfaces within games, and the structuring of social interactions outside games to optimize learning through discourse and argumentation. He recently completed a postdoctoral fellowship from the National Academy of Education and the Spencer Foundation analyzing students’ knowledge structure coherence in physics in the United States, Mexico, China, Turkey, and the Philippines.

Emily S. DeRocco is president of the Manufacturing Institute and senior vice president of the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM). She oversees the education and research arm of the NAM and the design and operations of the new National Center for the American Workforce, which is dedicated to fostering a new generation of manufacturing workers for the 21st century. As assistant secretary of labor during the Bush administration, she was responsible for managing a $10 billion investment in the nation’s workforce. She is a graduate of the Pennsylvania State University and has a J.D. from the Georgetown Law Center.

Bruce A. Fuchs is director of the Office of Science Education (OSE) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). An immunologist who did research

on the interaction between the brain and the immune system, Fuchs was previously a researcher and a teacher on the faculty of the Medical College of Virginia. Currently he is responsible for monitoring a range of science education policy issues and providing advice to NIH leadership. He also directs the creation of the NIH Curriculum Supplement Series, which highlights the medical research findings of NIH and is designed to meet teacher’s educational goals as outlined in the National Science Education Standards. He has a B.S. in biology from the University of Illinois and a Ph.D. in immunology from Indiana State University.

Janis S. Houston is vice president and principal research scientist at Personnel Decisions Research Institutes in Minneapolis. She has directed, codirected, or been the lead research team member on numerous consulting and research projects, in both the public and private sectors, most of which have involved personnel selection or employee development and performance measurement. She has helped clients design their employee development programs and structure their career tracking and planning efforts. She has led projects to develop and validate selection and promotion tools and designed and implemented a number of test administration systems involving test sites across the country and overseas. She has developed a number of programs, such as for training and coaching individuals to conduct selection and promotion interviews. She has an M.A. in industrial psychology from the University of Minnesota.

Kenneth Kay is chief executive officer and cofounder of the e-Luminate Group in Tucson, Arizona. He also serves as president of the Partnership for 21st Century Skills. He has been primarily concerned with defining the potential and promoting the importance of information technology applications in education, health care, electronic commerce, and government services. As executive director of the CEO Forum from 1996 to 2001, he facilitated dialogue between leaders in the business, government, and education fields and led the group through development of the StaR Chart (School Technology & Readiness Guide), used by schools across the country to make better use of technology in the classroom. In 1989-2003, Kay was the founding executive director of the Computer Systems Policy Project, a CEO advocacy group for information technology policy. He has a law degree from the University of Denver and an undergraduate degree from Oberlin College.

Susan Koba is a science education consultant working primarily with the National Science Teachers Association on their e-Learning Center. She recently retired after more than 30 years in the Omaha Public Schools, teaching for over 20 years in middle and high school and then serving as a district mentor and leader. She led the development of an online teacher profes-

sional development environment and coordinated professional development in science and mathematics for 60 schools during her service as project director and professional development coordinator for the district’s Urban Systemic Program. She has published and presented on various topics, including school and teacher change, equity in science, inquiry, and action research. She has a B.S. in biology and secondary education from Doane College, an M.A. in biology from the University of Nebraska–Omaha, and a Ph.D. in science education from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln.

Janet Kolodner is regents’ professor in the College of Computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology. She pioneered the computer reasoning method called case-based reasoning, a way of solving problems based on analogies to past experiences, and her lab emphasized case-based reasoning for situations of real-world complexity. For the past decade, she has focused on using the model to design science curriculum for middle school and more recently has applied it to informal education—after-school programs, museum programs, and museum exhibits. She was the founding director of Georgia Tech’s EduTech Institute, whose mission is to use what is known about cognition to inform the design of educational technology and learning environments. She also served as coordinator of Georgia Tech’s cognitive science program for many years. She has a B.S. in mathematics and computer science from Brandeis University and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in computer science from Yale University.

Joseph S. Krajcik is professor of science education and associate dean for research in the School of Education at the University of Michigan–Ann Arbor. Working with teachers in science classrooms to bring about sustained change, he aims to create classrooms that focus on students collaborating to find solutions to important intellectual questions based on essential learning goals and use new learning technologies as productivity tools. He codirects the Center for Highly Interactive Classrooms, Curriculum and Computing in Education at the University of Michigan and is a coprincipal investigator in the Center for Curriculum Materials in Science and the National Center for Learning and Teaching Nanoscale Science and Engineering. He taught high school chemistry for seven years in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He has a Ph.D. in science education from the University of Iowa.

Maria Araceli Ruiz-Primo is associate professor in the School of Education and Human Development at the University of Colorado, Denver, and also director of the Research Center and director of the Laboratory for Educational Assessment, Research, and Innovation (LEARN). She specializes in educational assessment. Her research work focuses on the development and technical evaluation of innovative science learning assessment

tools—including performance tasks, concept maps, and student science products—and on the development of a conceptual framework of academic achievement. She has conducted research on the instructional sensitivity of assessments and their proximity to the enacted curriculum. She participated in the development of the science teacher certification assessment of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards and in the development and evaluation of teacher enhancement programs for elementary science teachers. She is the first author of the Student Guide, Statistical Reasoning for the Behavioral Sciences.

Christian Schunn is associate professor of psychology with appointments in the Intelligent Systems Program and the Learning Sciences and Policy program at the University of Pittsburgh. He is also a research scientist at the Learning Research and Development Center. His research generally examines the cognitive foundation of intelligent behavior and tools that further support its acquisition and deployment. Specific research areas include engineering innovation, scientific reasoning, and science education. He codirected a large Math Science Partnership from 2003 to 2006, and now codirects the Center for e-Design and the Institute for Education Science’s 21st Century Center for Cognition and Science Education. He has a Ph.D. in psychology from Carnegie Mellon University.

Elena Silva is senior policy analyst at Education Sector in Washington, DC, where she oversees the organization’s teacher quality work and develops and directs mixed-method research projects designed to evaluate education reform efforts at the national, state, and local levels. Her recent publications include Waiting to Be Won Over: Teachers Speak on the Profession, Unions, and Reform (2008) and The Benwood Plan: A Lesson in Comprehensive Teacher Reform (2008). Silva serves as a member of the design team for the National Center for Education Statistics’ Schools and Staffing Survey and the Teacher Follow-Up Survey. Prior to joining Education Sector, Silva was the director of research for the American Association of University Women. She has M.A. and Ph.D. degrees (the latter in education) from the University of California, Berkeley.

Gale M. Sinatra is professor of educational psychology at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas. Her model of conceptual change learning emphasizes the role of motivation in conceptual change. Her book (with Paul Pintrich) Intentional Conceptual Change examines the students’ role in facilitating their own knowledge change. Her recent article, “The Warming Trend in Conceptual Change Research” (2005) describes the new “hot cognition” view of conceptual change inspired by Pintrich’s work. She is currently coprincipal investigator of a grant exploring the challenges of teaching and

learning about biological evolution in the United States, which include emotional and motivational barriers. She has B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in psychology with a minor in educational measurement from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Mark Windschitl is associate professor of science education at the University of Washington–Seattle. He is the head of the Teachers’ Learning Trajectories Initiative, which is currently working on two fronts regarding the early career development of science teaching expertise. One track includes longitudinal studies of science educators who are able take up ambitious, equitable, and effective forms of teaching over time. These investigations are aimed at developing theory around how and why early career educators develop pedagogical expertise across specific learning-to-teach contexts (in university course work, during student teaching, in professional learning communities, and during the first two years in the classroom). The other track of inquiry is a five-year project to develop and study a system of tools and tool-based practices for early career and preservice secondary science teachers that support transitions from novice to expert-like pedagogical reasoning and practice. He has a Ph.D. from Iowa State University.