Program Transforms Science Ph.D. Experience

Katherine Friedrich

Over 60 percent of the science and math graduate students who were surveyed during an intensive teaching and learning program at Texas A&M University reported that the program made them better scientists. The graduate students achieved greater understanding of study design, and strengthened their research skills by applying them in the classroom.

“The most surprising and significant result… was the self-reported data stating that the graduate students felt that [the program] improved their scientific or engineering research,” commented geology and geophysics professor and CIRTL leader Bruce Herbert.

The Information Technology in Science Center for Teaching and Learning brought together science and education faculty and graduate students with K-12 teachers to create and evaluate learning experiences in high school and college classes.

Each participating graduate student developed a learning experience that included both inquiry-based teaching and information technology. Inquiry-based teaching gives students the opportunity to make decisions and solve problems more independently than they can in traditional science courses.

The program was organized into two-year-long sections. During the first year of the program, the graduate students created learning experiences for undergraduates and high school students. During the second year, they measured the effectiveness of their innovations.   

One of the graduates of the program, Karen McNeal, found that teaching and learning research shaped her academic career. McNeal is now an assistant professor in the department of geosciences at Mississippi State University. She integrated the project that she designed into her dissertation. The product she created was a computer model which helps students understand eutrophication, the process of plant growth which can transform lakes into marshes.

McNeal also coauthored a research poster on the outcomes of the teaching and learning program. She studied the impact of the program on its science and math graduate students.

“The center seemed to be most highly impacting the science grad students,” McNeal said. “The way they thought about education, the way they thought about their own research.”

McNeal and her colleagues found that students reported professional gains in many areas. The most dramatic results showed up in students’ self-reported ability to evaluate their own teaching. Students also learned to identify quality research references, to design studies, to develop research questions, to select appropriate technology, to understand student learning, and to apply learning theory. Many of these skills are also crucial in scientific research.

“I have a better understanding of how to conduct scientific inquiry in my own research,” a graduate student participant reported. “I’ve discovered that the research process can be transferred between science education and science disciplines.”

Another student reported a different, but valuable learning experience. “I’m not certain it has made me a better science researcher. If anything, I do think that I am better able to explain what I do. So yes, from a communication perspective, it’s made me better.”

The most successful students were those whose advisors were supportive, who integrated their projects into their other graduate activities, and whose funding was connected to the program. This suggests that advisors can assist their students in achieving optimal results in teaching and learning programs. Financial support may also be helpful.  

3/25/2008

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