Gaining Real World Experience in Research and Teaching

Saturday May 16, 1:00 pm

Research Experiences Group

What is the range of opportunities currently provided for students to gain teaching or research experience?

Field Experiences

• Field geology
• Shipboard

Part of Classwork

• Student investigations in field
• Community-based questions
• Proposal-writing
• Designing/implementing projects
• Lesson-plan development

Teaming Student-Researcher

• 2-semester sequences with faculty
• Scientist + inservice + pre-service - internship (in community)
• Beginning teacher focus; year long
• Summer internships "drop ins" and more

Other

• Real research experience required for certification for science teachers
• 3-6 credit research experience, which might be an internship

Why do we think these experiences are important?

• Increasing emphasis on science inquiry
• Earth as an integrated system
• Sapce-age perspective -- how to infuse into class
• Strengthen community interest and see how collaborations can be developed. See value of student work.
• Really want school children to understand what science is by having teachers who have experienced it

What is the evidence? What is their impact?

• Educational research necessary to help to evaluate effectiveness of these research experiences
• Highly mixed reviews about laboratory research experience
• Teacher professional continuum. Don't really know what elements of research experiences are most transformative
• Great opportunity for geosciences to compete for research dollars
• What evidence for LACK of research evidence is bad?

What are critical aspects of such experiences?

• More than just a "task" as part of research
• What kind of activity is in best interest of the student
• Present results to peers or at conference
• Synthesizing element and integrating element
• Research experience should include full cycle of research
• Developmental experience
• Brokering appropriate matches/teams/collaborations
• Creativity!
• Science as a human endeavor

What are conditions for success?

• Deal with different learning styles
• Define the various goals
• Better defining expectation, outcomes
• Experiences take time and take something else out of the curriculum
• How to convince of its value? It's more than "feels good" -- the impact!
• Publishing results -- what projects work and generate

What are new models that could be tried?

• Guided discovery leading to open exploration
• More faculty trying to offer research experiences early in the student career
• Different types of research; scientific research experience that is used as the study for action research (educational) research