Striving for some actionable insights

1. I get a little impatient as I guess you do with all the big reports with overarching conclusions stated as broad generalizations about what should be. A mixture of cynicism and interest, admiration and distain. Fortunately, we don't have to revise US science education policy, we just have to create a decent online curriculum that works for many but not necessarily all kids. But as a practical matter, what are the reports and our experience/common sense telling us that's usefu....

2. INTEREST/MOTIVATION/ENGAGEMENT. Kids learn best when their curiousity and excitement are engaged.

3. SCIENTIFIC CITIZENS? I think educating to create scientifically literate voters who make analytical science-based policy judgments is a little idealistic and silly. The majority of people will vote their emotions and prejudices. Issues will remain too complex and people too busy for most citizens to give serious scientific analysis to policy issues. Some people will naturally love and others will naturally hate and ignore science. We will always have a big population of the scientifically engaged/literate and the scientifically disinterested/illiterate.

4. CREATING OPPORTUNITY. On the other hand, making sure that all kids have the opportunity to get good at science (if they are so inclined temperamentally/intellectually) seems like a sensible and feasible goal. Otherwise stated, forget kids that don't like science, let's make sure that kids that like science aren't blocked by race, background or lousy teachers/schools/environment.

5. NURTURING EXCELLENCE FOR US COMPETITIVENESS. This is a second realistic, feasible, important goal. For kids that like science, we should have the mechanisms to make them the world's best and our country the world's best at science and technology. Science has to be cool and respected. Science Education has to be (a) available (b) high quality and (c) with fast and far advancement possible.

6. STIMULATION, CONTENT, INQUIRY & DEBATE/DISCUSSION/COMMUNICATION. These four items are my quick initial stab at the pillars of good science education. STIMULATION is kind of my own thing. The other 3 things are paraphrasing what I think your "motherlode" (lode/load homonym!) NRC blue-ribbon committee report is saying. They are saying that yes, experiments are important [i.e., INQUIRY] but not the only thing. You have to get kids involved in COMMUNICATING (reading/writing) in an interactive way [DEBATE/DISCUSSION] so they are using and understanding scientific reasoning, vocabulary, synthesis. And so they are absorbing and forming scientific explanations of the world and comparing that they think with what their friends think and their teachers say and the books says and their preacher says.

7. THE SCIENCE CYCLE. To restate what I just said, here's my sparkling theory. Learning science is about wondering (how something works, why something is as it is), observing, making your own theories, hearing others' theories, making a mental model of others' theories, comparing/contrasting it with your theories and observations. Maybe you could say Scientific Learning = Observations (mine and others) * Mental Representations (mine and others), where...

Learning is roughly the same as understanding and developing.
Observations is roughly the same as noticing, gathering/analyzing data.
Mental Representations is roughly the same as theories, hypothesies, explanations, principles.

Here's a third way of saying about the same thing.
A. MOTIVATION: I wonder (or am induced to wonder) how things work.
B. SCIENTIFIC PROCESS(ING): Once motivated, I engage in the process of going back and forth comparing OBSERVATIONS (that I make or am given) with EXPLANATIONS (that i make up or am given).
C. RESOLUTION:
(1) I am satisfied and feel accomplished when I arrive at a set of observations and explanations that make sense to me.
(2) I pass the test when I can move back and forth between the official observations and explanations that I am being taught.

8. THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD IS B.S. Another part of the discussion I find a little silly, is the stuff about understanding the scientific method and defining, inculcating and glorifying it. For people who are logical, linear, analytical thinkers it is second nature, a big Duh! if you try to teach it. (You don't have to teach it. You just model it and use it and they will absorb it.) And for people whose minds don't work scientifically, science will be difficult and possibly a turnoff. If you get the motivation thing going and the ping-pong game between observation and explanation is being played vigorously, the scientific process/method just happens naturally and comes along for the ride.

9. INTUITION, IMAGINATION & CREATIVITY matter. This is another reason why I think expounding on scientific method is a waste of time. It's not just scientific method that makes science progress. In fact, the progress, breakthroughs, ahas, inventions, discoveries come primarilyt from I, I and C. Scientific method is the tool, not the craftsmanship. Wonder, beauty and curiousity are also part of the non-scientific methods that are key to scientific motivation and progress.

10. HOW DO YOU (students) THINK THIS WORKS??? From my recent reading, esp. the recent "Uncovering Student Ideas in Science: New Formative Assessment Probes" series of 4 books from NSTA, I think this can be a key to a good curriculum. Ask the class (your homeschooler) why the sky is blue, how people got here, what causes day and night, what made the Grand Canyon, why is it sunny one day and rainy the next? If you get them engaged in explaining, exploring, wondering or best of all arguing about why? and how?...then the rest will be much easier.


ADDENDA:

1. I don't literally mean "forget students that aren't inclined toward science". I think we need mechanisms in high school and college (perhaps earlier) to feed their scientific curiousity and knowledge without turning them off and discouraging them with a lot of math, memorization and competition. Example, my young "R" is interested in science but thinks she's bad at it and hates math. She just took Astronomy for Poets (in college), enjoyed it, learned a lot and got an A. That's a success for doing the right thing with a scientifically-interested non-scientist. Bravo for the college and the teacher.

2. Just to restate the bit about "I pass the test when I can go back and forth well between the observations and explanations I have been given" above. An example: Exam gives a word problem. I know the formula (and hopefully what it means). I plug the data given into the formula and calculate the answer. I've just gone from given data to formula to answer data. In otherwords, from given observation to explanation to calculated observation. Capiche? Second Example: Exams asks why does the sky look blue? I answer with the theory about how the red and other wavelengths get filtered out by the atmostphere and blue light is what's left. OK, I just went from observation to theory on the exam. Last example: Exam asks what happens if you drop Calcium (Ca) in water? I say you get Ca(OH)2. I went from explanation (theory or principal about how Ca reacts (donates two electrons) with how OH reacts (want to accept one electron) to data. (Explanation to expected observation.) Just dancing back and forth between facts and principles and vice versa.