Materials Science and Technology: A Model for Achieving National Education Goals

In April 1991, President Bush unveiled “America 2000,” a national strategy for improving the overall performance of students in America's school system. He and the nation's governors developed the strategy as a result of the historical Charlottesville Summit, held in Virginia in 1989.America 2000 focuses on six national education goals, three directly related to mathematics and science education. Goal 4, in particular, states that “by the year 2000, US. students will be first in the world in science and mathematics achievement.” By the Year 2000, the report of the Federal Coordinating Council for Science, Engineering, and Technology (FCCSET) Committee on Education and Human Resources (CEHR) details the federal government's strategic objectives for meeting this goal.The primary objectives outlined in the report focus on (1) improving student performance, (2) providing a strong precollege work force, (3) ensuring an adequate pipeline for the science and engineering work force, including increased participation of underrepresented groups, and (4) improving public science literacy. I'll discuss later how a revolutionary materials science and technology curriculum developed by Pacific Northwest Laboratory (PNL) and Northwest teachers has proved to be a model for meeting these objectives.The FCCSET/CEHR report identified precollege as the educational level receiving the highest priority. At this level, the strategy for achieving the objectives is structured around (1) improving teacher preparation and enhancement, (2) reforming curricula, (3) organizing systemic reform, and (4) providing student incentives and opportunities.

Download Full-text

Assessment of Information Literacy and Its Relationship With Learning Outcomes

Global Implications of Emerging Technology Trends - Advances in IT Standards and Standardization Research ◽

10.4018/978-1-5225-4944-4.ch001 ◽

2018 ◽

pp. 1-18

Author(s):

Fernando Martínez-Abad ◽

Patricia Torrijos-Fincias ◽

Adriana Gamazo ◽

María José Rodríguez Conde

Keyword(s):

Student Performance ◽

Information Literacy ◽

Large Scale ◽

Knowledge Society ◽

Global Integration ◽

National Education ◽

National Education Systems ◽

Common Framework ◽

Key Competences ◽

And Mathematics

The global integration of competence-based education and training systems and the search for a generalized common framework for the incorporation of key competences in the curriculums of national education systems have generated a growing need for information literacy as a way of advancing to the awaited knowledge society. Large-scale assessments of student performance present criterion variables such as language, mathematics, or science, but it is noticeable how these assessments leave aside contents from other key competences such as information literacy. This chapter shows a theoretical approach to the subject and an example of an empirical study that aims to shed some light to the topic of information literacy by analysing the relationship between the level of information literacy shown by a student and their academic performance in subjects such as language and mathematics. The results suggest that it is possible to develop an instrument for the assessment of the complex information literacy competence, and which is also easy to administer in the classroom.

Download Full-text

Materials Science and Technology: A curriculum that works

MRS Proceedings ◽

10.1557/proc-861-pp1.2 ◽

2004 ◽

Vol 861 ◽

Author(s):

Thomas G. Stoebe ◽

John M. Rusin

Keyword(s):

High School ◽

Pacific Northwest ◽

High School Teachers ◽

Teaching Methods ◽

Student Involvement ◽

Materials Science ◽

Science And Technology ◽

Student Interest ◽

School Teachers ◽

Hands On

Materials Science and Technology is a curriculum developed at Battelle Pacific Northwest National Laboratories, which emphasizes hands-on, minds-on studies of materials science and technology. This curriculum has been taught to over 1000 middle and high school teachers nationwide in a series of week-long institute programs, and is used in classrooms in 16 states. Evaluations have shown that the curriculum is highly effective in getting students interested in science and technology, and in encouraging them to study more science.This paper presents the basics of the curriculum and its approach, along with venues used for promoting the curriculum and the teaching methods used. Full evaluation results are discussed, including the assessment of increased student interest and increased student involvement their own learning. Means of adapting the program to a local situation are also presented.

Download Full-text

Does Platinum Bend? Standards under Stress

Learning in the Fast Lane ◽

10.23943/princeton/9780691178721.003.0010 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 155-169

Author(s):

Chester E. Finn ◽

Andrew E. Scanlan

Keyword(s):

High School Students ◽

Advanced Placement ◽

Academic Standards ◽

National Council ◽

School Students ◽

Education Standards ◽

Quarter Century ◽

National Education ◽

Education Goals ◽

Year 2000

This chapter argues that the greatest asset of the Advanced Placement (AP) program over nearly seven decades has been its capacity to set and maintain lofty academic standards for high school students and to sustain those standards during times when many forces push to relax them. That is an extraordinary accomplishment, considering all that has happened in American education during this period. Academic standards of various kinds have become a big deal, a growth industry, and an endless source of controversy, especially when accompanied—as they usually are—by student tests. Advanced Placement's nongovernmental character is rare in the world of education standards, at least since 1989. That was the year that state governors and President George H. W. Bush convened in Charlottesville, Virginia, and emerged from their “summit” with an ambitious set of national education goals for the year 2000. Congress created the National Council on Education Standards and Testing to “explore the desirability and feasibility of establishing national education standards and a method to assess their attainment” and a National Education Goals Panel to monitor and report on how the country was doing in pursuit of the summit targets. Many complications, modifications, and pushbacks followed. Ultimately, the entire quarter-century sequence left many hostile both to governmental micromanagement of schooling and, especially, to anything that smacked of government-prescribed standards, curricula, and tests. With just a few exceptions and caveats, the AP program has been immune to this suspicion, rancor, and resistance.

Download Full-text