Transforming Agricultural Education for a Changing World (2009) / Chapter Skim
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Appendix D Rethinking Undergraduate Science Education: Concepts and Practicalities - A Traditional Curriculum in aChanged World
Appendix D Rethinking Undergraduate Science Education: Concepts and Practicalities - A Traditional Curriculum in aChanged World
Pages 169-178
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From page 169... ...
, it was found that students that received degrees in the sciences were similar in abilities to those that had switched majors. Major reasons given for dropping out of the sciences were the poor quality of the teaching, the sheer boredom of the courses, 169
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From page 170... ...
For nonminority students, using their education and skills in a culturally heterogeneous and constantly changing global economy is also a journey without maps. The change of an existing STEM curriculum into a "Virtual Workplace" requires us to consider three educational elements: content/process, skills, work environment.
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From page 171... ...
Skills: The classroom environment should provide an opportunity for s tudents to learn and practice certain fundamental skills, e.g., critical thinking, teamwork, peer review, experimental manipulations, computer use, scientific writing, and oral presentations. Work environment: The tasks assigned in class should mimic those in the workplace, e.g., a paper describing a project should approximate the format of a scientific publication or a grant proposal, class work should be organized around student teams, a project might yield more than one technical solution or that solution might be an imperfect one though an improvement on previous knowledge.
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From page 172... ...
This section describes a case study that involves microbiology courses at the University of Maryland, College Park, with the participation of roughly 10 faculty members over a period of 15 years. The overall scheme allows for the development of different courses for various student populations.
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From page 173... ...
While the objective is to come up with a number of constructs that are applicable to all of these courses, we have found that large-scale introductory lecture/laboratory courses represent a major challenge of their own. For example, the honors seminars are highly effective in their use of student-developed case studies, the use of mixed student teams, and role playing; in a seminar on Traditional Chinese Medicine as a Complementary Approach to Modern Western Medicine, teams may examine the process of scientific and clinical validation as applied to acupuncture for pain management or the use of specific herbal formulations for chronic conditions such as arthritis or dermatitis.
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From page 174... ...
It is generally accepted that knowledge of various laboratory manipulations and familiarity with scientific equipment are an important component of STEM education. There are other skill sets that are equally important and should be built into the courses such as experimental design, team work, computer skills, communications (oral and written)
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From page 175... ...
In the large introductory course, we have used teaching teams composed of faculty who are responsible for lectures, teaching materials, exams, and overall grading; graduate TAs who deal with the labs and grading of quizzes and exams, and most importantly, undergraduate TAs who act as facilitators and resource persons (most often in relation to questions arising from the modules and case studies)
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From page 176... ...
One significant national effort has been a summer institute organized by the National Research Council and the University of Wisconsin–Madison and supported by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. The purpose of this five-day institute is to bring together faculty teams from various universities to learn new pedagogical approaches to undergraduate STEM teaching.
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From page 177... ...
Neither the National Science Foundation nor the Department of Education has undergraduate STEM education as a principal component of its portfolio. The absence of a national system does not preclude the creation of a systemic organization for STEM reform that includes its major stakeholders such as educational institutions, government, and industry (both high-tech employers and those that play an important role in education such as publishing, media, and software)
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From page 178... ...
, and Spencer Benson and James Greenberg (director and f ormer director of the Center for Teaching Excellence, respectively)
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