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7:30 pm, Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Fairmont Lounge, St. John's College
Science Education in the 21st Century: Using the tools of science to
teach science
Carl Wieman
Nobel Laureate, 2001
University of British Columbia
Guided by experimental tests of theory and practice, science has advanced
rapidly in the past 500 years. Guided primarily by tradition and dogma,
science education meanwhile has remained largely medieval. Research on
how people learn is now revealing how many teachers badly misinterpret
what students are thinking and learning from traditional science classes
and exams. However, research is also providing insights on how to do much
better. The combination of this research with modern information
technology is setting the stage for a new approach that can provide the
relevant and effective science education for all students that is needed
for the 21st century. I will discuss the failures of traditional
educational practices, even as used by "very good" teachers,
and the
successes of some new practices and technology that characterize this more
effective approach, and how these results are highly consistent with
findings from cognitive science.
Find out more
by visiting the Carl Wieman Science Education
Initiative.
Additional resources for this talk:
slides
with animation and slides
(pdf), video.
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