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ARLINGTON, Va.—More than 400 educators -- from small community
colleges such as Itasca Community College in Grand Rapids, Minn.
to academic powerhouses such as Harvard University -- will
participate in a three-day conference showcasing innovations in
science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) that are
revolutionizing how students learn.
The conference, sponsored by the National Science Foundation's
(NSF) Division of Undergraduate Education (DUE) in collaboration
with the American Association for the Advancement of Science
(AAAS), will be held April 16-18 at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in
Crystal City, Va.
NSF is an independent federal agency that supports fundamental
research and education across all fields of science and
engineering, with an annual budget of nearly $5.58 billion. NSF
funds reach all 50 states through grants to nearly 2,000
universities and institutions.
The conference will highlight innovative programs developed as
part of DUE'S Course, Curriculum and Laboratory Improvement
(CCLI) Program. CCLI is designed to improve undergraduate STEM
education through innovations in learning environments, course
content, curriculums, and educational materials and practices.
These programs better prepare students to meet increasingly
technological needs of the workforce, the K-12 classroom,
graduate and professional schools, and to participate as citizens
in our increasingly technological society.
In the five years since its inception, CCLI has funded
approximately 1750 projects at a diverse group of nearly 600
institutions, including community colleges, liberal-arts
colleges, and major research universities. With a total budget of
$240 million over this five-year period, the CCLI program has
involved over 1.4 million undergraduate students and over 25,000
faculty members.
The conference will focus on four overarching themes in
educational innovation: invention, adaptation, assessment, and
impact and will feature a variety of venues, including:
- Poster sessions designed to spark an invigorating
exchange of ideas. These sessions will feature innovative
ideas and tools developed and tested under CCLI grants.
Topics that are explored include enhancing student learning
through materials and activities that take students out of
the classroom and into nature's laboratory or into a
pharmaceutical or forensic research laboratory, engaging
students through case studies and independent research, and
using computer-based resources to "virtually" transport
students anywhere in the world to study the physical and/or
biological characteristics of otherwise unreachable
environments.
- Interactive Topical Sessions that will provide hands-on
experience with a diverse group of successful teaching
materials and methods, including "Just-in-Time Teaching" to
provide web support for students and faculty in active
learning classroom environments, "Concept Inventories" to
discover student misconceptions, "Visual Representations"
to allow students to construct knowledge, and "Calibrated
Peer Review" to probe student understanding through writing
assignments.
- Plenary Sessions that provide keen insight and a
variety of perspectives on innovation in STEM education.
Featured speakers include: David Goldston, chief of staff
of the House Science Committee; Denice Denton, dean of the
University of Washington's College of Engineering; Eric
Mazur, Gordon McKay Professor of Applied Physics at Harvard
University; Frederick Humphries, the president and CEO of
the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher
Education; and Arden Bement, Jr., NSF acting director.
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The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent federal agency that supports fundamental research and education across all fields of science and engineering, with an annual budget of nearly $5.58 billion. NSF funds reach all 50 states through grants to nearly 2,000 universities and institutions. Each year, NSF receives about 40,000 competitive requests for funding, and makes about 11,000 new funding awards. The NSF also awards over $200 million in professional and service contracts yearly.
Receive official NSF news electronically through the e-mail delivery and notification system, Custom News Service. To subscribe, enter the NSF Home Page at: http://www.nsf.gov/home/cns/#new and fill in the information under "new users."
Useful NSF Web Sites:
NSF Home Page: http://www.nsf.gov
News Highlights: http://www.nsf.gov/od/lpa
Newsroom: http://www.nsf.gov/od/lpa/news/media/start.htm
Science Statistics: http://www.nsf.gov/sbe/srs/stats.htm
Awards Searches: http://www.fastlane.nsf.gov/a6/A6Start.htm
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