Workshop on the Nature and Practices of Science to Support Educator Guides for *Science* in the Classroom

American Association For The Advancement Of Science, Washington DC

Investigators

Abstract

This project will offer a workshop that will enhance the impact of the ongoing "*Science* in the Classroom (SitC)" project (NSF Awards DUE-1043998, DUE-1224661, and DUE-1525596). SitC is developing a collection of new educational resources -- richly annotated versions of research articles from the journal *Science* -- along with methods and guides to help undergraduate STEM educators use these resources effectively in their classrooms. This approach uses leading-edge research both to teach STEM concepts and to excite students about the frontiers of science. Through the workshop, the SitC project team will provide a foundation for teaching the nature and practices of science, in the context of SitC resources, to college and university faculty, pre-service teachers, graduate students, postdocs, and other STEM professionals, and the workshop will allow the SitC project to leverage the expertise of the participants to develop educator guides for SitC resources. The workshop will have three primary benefits: (1) Participants will learn how to develop high-quality educator guides focusing on the nature of science and scientific practices, a skill that is useful for STEM education but is also transferable to a wide variety of STEM careers. (2) Through the new educator guides, which will be freely available on the Web, the workshop will increase the accessibility of annotated primary literature resources that have been vetted by educational experts. (3) Focusing on the nature and practices of science in a teaching context has been shown to contribute to the improvement of essential research skills. Therefore, participants in the workshop may improve their own research skills and become better scientists. The project will encourage adoption of education research in the practice of teaching in the STEM disciplines. This adoption will take place at two levels. First, members of the undergraduate STEM education community will be provided a professional development opportunity in using primary literature to teach the nature and practices of science. Successful completion of the workshop should result in greater understanding of the benefits of teaching the nature and practices of science. Recent research has shown that when teaching in the context of inquiry-based thinking rooted in the nature of science, graduate students and postdocs reinforced their own learning and, by extension, became better researchers. Therefore, providing the undergraduate STEM education community with a foundation for teaching the nature and practices of science will also improve the quality of the research training and science careers participants are involved in. The second level of adoption will result from the educator guides that participants will produce as part of the workshop. These guides will accompany SitC resources and will be freely available to STEM educators via the Web.