Mathieu's Congressional Testimony

Last Thursday, Feb 4, Bob Mathieu provided testimony on Strengthening Undergraduate and Graduate STEM Education to the House Subcommittee on Research and Science Education. His testimony is available at http://science.house.gov/publications/Testimony.aspx?TID=15330.

Mathieu spoke to a need for increased teacher preparation in STEM higher education that would help strengthen STEM literacy in the national citizenry; increase student retention in STEM fields in higher educations, particularly amongst minorities and women; and build a globally competitive 21st century STEM workforce. Despite significant pedagogical understandings brought about by education research, too often STEM education is not based in contemporary best practices of teaching and learning.

The causes of these pedagogical shortcomings, he testified, rest not in commitment of faculty to the learning of their students but in insufficient training opportunities and a broad scientific culture that rewards research over teaching and sees the two endeavors as "fundamentally orthogonal."

Mathieu provided an overview of the CIRTL program, its goals and history. He pointed to the practice of Teaching-as-Research as a way to integrate research and teaching. He lifted up CIRTL's efforts to develop a national STEM faculty who model and promote the equitable and respectful learning environments by capitalizing on the resources of a diverse student body in CIRTL's Learning-through-Diversity pillar.

The history and development of DELTA as a CIRTL program prototype was addressed in detail. Mathieu discussed the interdisciplinary graduate courses, intergenerational (graduate students, post-docs, faculty) learning groups, and Teaching-as-Research internships as well as the emerging research mentor training initiatives. He outlined several measures of success of the DELTA program and held up the model of institutionalization and an ultimate goal for this work. Other programs, such as Michigan State University's PREP program similarly have been developing at other research universities and are also transforming future national STEM faculty.

Mathieu ended with some reflections on the role of US federal agencies, particularly the National Science Foundation, on the integration of research, teaching and learning. Particularly critical has been the NSF's call for, and adherence to, the requirement for addressing broader impact criteria on every research proposal.

Testimony given by the other witnesses Dr. Joan Ferrini-Mundy, Mr. Rick Stephens and CIRTL colleagues, Dr. Noah Finkelstein, and Dr. Karen Klomparens is available at http://science.house.gov/publications/hearings_markups_details.aspx?NewsID=2723