AGENDA ITEM: Welcome and Introductions

DR. ORLAND: I want to welcome you to this Workshop on Education Research Positions in STEM Disciplinary Departments.

I want to. also express my gratitude to the National Science Foundation, to DUE in particular and Susan Hixson who was instrumental in shaping this event.

The relationship we have with the National Science Foundation is reflected I think as well in this activity. What we try to do is bring together expertise and focus on a critical emerging issue in science education. I think it was over a year ago now, Susan when you first came to us with interest in this area and so we have engaged in a collaborative venture basically with the National Science Foundation to bring this knowledge to bear on this important topic. In this way we feel we at the National Research Council can add value to NSF and to the larger policy and research community on questions such as these. I want to, also, thank Susan and NSF for allowing us to focus on this question, and identify this as an emerging issue which I am sure you who have been as fascinated with the materials in the briefing book will agree is one that is really ripe for investigation and further insights.

I, also, want to thank the Steering Committee including our Chair Joan Ferrini-Mundy, an old colleague. Who else is on the Steering Committee? I lost my place. As I was joking with Dean, it is worse when it is a home game. I would love to be here for the whole time. That won't be possible, but I will try to be here for as much of this as I can, and hopefully learn as much as I can from your insights.

At this point I want to turn it over to Susan Hixson who will talk more about the goals for the meeting. She will then pass the baton over to Dan and then to Joan Ferrini-Mundy.

Thank you.

DR. HIXSON: Thanks, Marty, and we want to thank everyone for coming. It promises to be an exciting day. So, we appreciate everyone getting here and thank you for all the work that people have done in advance.

In the Division of Undergraduate Education we actually started talking about this whole area and the idea of doing a workshop. It has been almost 2 years now when we began thinking about looking into this area and I think many of you know that the goal of the Division of Undergraduate Education is to improve undergraduate STEM education and traditionally that has meant that we have often given grants that focused on curriculum development and technically PIs find a problem at their institution with their curriculum, with labs, whatever and propose, you know, identify the problem and propose what they would like to do as a solution and a lot of that is very practically oriented but we have been noting over the last decade or so that more and more PI's who started out thinking in very practical curriculum development terms would end up starting to think about the research base that was underneath their project. We think some of that happened as the NSF began to ask people to do meaningful evaluations and therefore PIs figured out that things they were doing either did or did not improve student learning and therefore they became intrigued as to why or why not there were changes in student learning and that brought that into the research base a little bit but then somewhat apart from that we, also had the impression that more and more faculty were being hired into institutions, into the STEM discipline departments with the idea that they would do right from the beginning, their scholarship would research into teaching and learning and so we became interested to know whether this was really on the increase and if so what is happening with those positions, what the departments and the institutions are thinking about why they are creating those positions because all of that is important to us as we are trying to devise our programs and to know what kind of capacity is out there in the field and so for this workshop we actually came up with a number of questions that we are interested in having explored and then the Steering Committee and again we want to thank Joan Ferrini-Mundy and Karl Smith and Dean Zollman for looking at our questions and turning them into something that was a lot more elegant and they produced the talking points that you see here. So, we owe them a lot and also their help in identifying people who might attend the workshop and who could contribute and we, also, want to thank Margaret Hilton who has done all of the work for the Center for Education. I guess all of you know her at least by e-mail. She has done the important work of getting everybody here and our Division now has an Acting Division Director as of a month ago maybe, Dan Litynski. So, we want you to be able to meet him and hear a few words from him.

DR. LITYNSKI: Thanks, Susan. Thanks, also, for coming. We appreciate you all taking the time out of busy schedules to be here. I think Susan has talked a lot about the goals and purposes of the workshop.

I would just like to make a couple of comments. Who was the best teacher you ever had? Who was the worst teacher you ever had and why do you put them in those categories? What is the first thing you ever remember learning? One of the earliest things I remember learning was when I walked under the kitchen table in our home and hit my head for the first time. I was actively engaged and I had a purpose to remember that. So, I never walked under the table without ducking again. It was also painful. Some of the things we remember are associated with joy, sorrow, pain, whatever, but part of what we are all about here is really looking at learning of course and the ultimate goal is more effective learning, quality learning and how do we bring that about and what we are really focusing on today are great teachers and the learning environment that will do that and how do we promote that.

So, history is replete with great teachers that we remember. There are probably a bunch we don't because their students didn't learn a lot and they didn't remember and pass it on. So, how do we bring about that effective learning, and how do we get professionals in the field who can grow, can do research and continue to add to the body of knowledge?

So, again, thanks for coming. We will get a chance to talk a little bit more I am sure, but thanks for your time.

Joan?

DR. FERRINI-MUNDY: Thanks, Dan. I would, also, like to add my welcome to everyone. I look forward to actually getting to know more about your institutions and your work and your thoughts on the issues that are the topics of this discussion for today. I, also, should say that we were a very low key Steering Committee and that Margaret has just been brilliant in getting you all here but moreover in helping to frame this design and to think about the agenda for the day.

All I wanted to do here is to point out what the structure of the day will be like and how this is designed. It is meant to be a very interactive discussion, a small group purposely because we really want to try to get as deeply as we can into issues really on four different fronts and the agenda has been structured in a way that will let us have discussion in a couple of ways.

First of all the four different areas where we will focus through the day are actually designed to help us get to the three main questions of the workshop.

So, we will open the discussion with a look at motivations and purposes, why do STEM departments choose to initiate positions and have a focus on educational research and we would like to hear about that from a variety of perspectives. It has actually been fascinating to me the responses to the survey. I think that would be lively and the other is to point in the view of both the faculty who are in those positions and in the departments and administrative structures that support them what is the view of the need for STEM education research and why have those kinds of positions been formed.

The second topic which will flow naturally out of that is institutional arrangements; how is this organized in different institutions across the country; what issues arise relative to organization; what kinds of challenges and benefits are there to different sort of organizational schemes?

Now, the way this works is that there is a sort of kick-off panel to discuss the idea and to make sure that we get the points out on the table followed then by a longer discussion to further interact in the breakout sessions. So, we have the two morning topics, motivations and purpose and then institutional arrangements followed by breakouts on those to go more deeply in the afternoon and then the last two sessions will focus on opportunities, challenges and lessons. That is sort of a summary synthesis, an attempt for us to take stock of what we have discussed thus far in the day and the next steps session coming last where I am particularly interested in the question about what research would actually be helpful in better understanding this kind of institutional shift in direction. We have heard that the NSF has been curious about how widely this notion of STEM educational research development in disciplinary departments is happening around the country but it would be very interesting to talk at the end of the day about what we might all like to know collectively about how this is working, how it is evolving, what its implications might be and so forth.

So, the idea of the day is to interact very freely and openly, to have a rich discussion of these ideas and then toward the end to see if we can kind of synthesize and take stock of where we are and talk about what next steps will be.

So, with that I am not sure what the plan is but could we take a very brief to do a quick round of introductions so that people -- I know you have had a chance to learn a little bit about each other but maybe just a quick thing about your connection to STEM education research in the discipline or in the university infrastructure.

DR. LITYNSKI: For the last almost 20 years while at West Point on the faculty I held various position including the Chair of Electrical Engineering Computer Science, more than 9 years, when from there to be the Dean of Engineering at Western Michigan University and was provost and interim president for a while and then came here.

I have been very interested of course in teaching and learning and active learning over the past 10 to 20 years, have as I have shared with Susan have been provost and have had some positions in some departments where we did have people who were specifically looking at educational research in STEM discipline departments. So, I have a passionate interest in this.

DR. SMITH: I am Karl Smith, a member of the Steering Committee and I have been engaged in this type of work for over 30 years and I am going to orchestrate the first round of stories and I will begin with trying to set an example with my story.

DR. COOPER: I am Melanie Cooper. I am a professor of chemistry at Clemson University and I have been in this position, well, started in the system and moved through the ranks since 1987, and we have a PhD program in chemical education.

DR. IMBRIE: My name is P. K. Imbrie. I am assistant professor at Purdue University in what is now an almost year old Department of Engineering Education. So, I came there before. I have been there for 6 years now, and it is very exciting for us to go through the transformation of A, how do you create a department and B, how do you start developing your infrastructure.

DR. LIBARKIN: I am July Libarkin. I am in geological sciences at Ohio University and I am in a geoscience education faculty position. It is one of maybe a dozen that exist in the country and I was traditionally teaching geology and then I had a postdoctoral assignment within science education from NSF and I have been doing science education research for the past 7 years.

DR. ASTRACHAN: I am Owen Astrachan. I am a professor of computer science at Duke. I will tell you more about that kind of position later. I have been teaching for 27 years.

DR. RASMUSSEN: Chris Rasmussen, Department of Mathematics, San Diego State University. My training has actually been in mathematics education.

DR.TANNER: My name is Kimberly Tanner and I am from San Francisco State University. I was trained as a neurobiologist just down the road at University of California at San Francisco and then I did a postdoctoral fellowship in science and math education for 2 years and then I worked at a place called the Science and Health Education Partnership not in a faculty position and just 2 years ago was hired as an educator at San Francisco State University which is the first ever kind of position like that in the College of Science.

DR. WITTMANN: My name is Michael Wittmann. I am now at the University of Maine. I got my PhD from Jill Reddish in 1998. So, that is some years ago. I was hired at the University of Maine to restart their physics education research laboratory and so we started with just me and then a couple of grad students and right now we have 10 PhDs and about 20 master's students floating about in various ways especially because we have a new center for science and mathematics education research that is interdisciplinary and very large.

DR. BORREGO: I am Maura Borrego. I am from the Engineering Education Department at Virginia Tech. My postdoc was working for about a year in the engineering dean's office.

DR. GLASGOW: I am Bob Glasgow and I am from Southwest Baptist University in Missouri and I am a math educator in the Mathematics Department and I am here mainly because my research has been on graduates of doctoral programs of mathematics education, where the go, what they do.

DR. ASHMANN: I am Scott Ashmann. I am an assistant professor of science education at the University of Wisconsin, Green Bay. I am in a teacher preparation program. When I did my PhD at Michigan State I was part of a research project that looked partially at the supply and demand of math education and science education PhD students or PhD graduates and so I will be presenting some of the findings from that work.

DR. MC CRONE: I am Sharon McCrone. I am an associate professor at Illinois State University and I have degrees in mathematics education. I am currently teaching in mathematics education and mathematics in the Mathematics Department.

DR. LEWIS: My name is Jennifer Lewis. I am in the Chemical Education position in the Chemistry Department at the University of South Florida. I also, started on this path through an NSF postdoc although it was with the systemic change initiative. I am the only person who had this kind of position in the College of Arts and Science and the Chair of Biology refers to me as Mike -- my chair is named Mike, Mike's little experiment.

DR. GUZDIAL: My name is Mark Guzdial. I am from Georgia Tech. I am a professor in the College of Computing. My PhD is from the University of Michigan. It was a joint degree in education and computer science in 1993, and I am one of the core members this year of the first international computing educational research workshop.

DR.FOX: Louis Fox. I am from the University of W Washington at Seattle. I am Vice Provost for our partnerships in technology and a professor at the Information School and I teach computer science and I have worked with most of the science, math and engineering education groups and tried to support them from central administration over the course of the last seven provosts or presidents.

DR.HEPPERT: I am Joe Heppert from the University of Kansas. I am a chemistry faculty member. My research background is in organometallochemistry I have been involved in chemical education research for probably about the last 10 years. So, compared to many I am kind of a newcomer.

I direct the Center for Science Education which is a highly interdisciplinary group of scientists and educational researchers on campus and I am the Chair of the Chemistry Department.

DR. SIMMONS: I am Elizabeth Simmons from Michigan State University. I am a professor of physics and my scholarship is in theoretical critical physics. I am the Director of the Lyman Briggs School of Science which is an undergraduate academic unit and consists of faculty from all of the sciences and also theology and philosophy of science. Among my faculty are those who do scholarship in biology education, chemistry education and physics education, math education and HPS education to cut it short. So, we have got a lot of different things going on.

DR. GOULD: I am Chris Gould. I am a former head of the Physics Department North Carolina State University. I am now an Associate Dean for Administration. We have an active physics education research program. When I apply for jobs I put it down as one of the things I think I have encouraged. So, I am delighted that you have organized this meeting and looking forward to it.

DR.HILTON: I am Margaret Hilton and I want to say one word. We recently finished a study of laboratories and that was a new field to me and I realize how difficult it is for STEM disciplines and I think there is a great need for further research and also discipline-specific research. In our study we did come up with general principles of instruction design that we thought would help learning in any discipline but there is still a great need for discipline-specific research.

DR.ZOLLMAN: I am Dean Zollman. I was appointed in the physics education position in 1972. I think some people probably weren't born then and I have been promoted all the way up the ranks for my work in physics education. That makes me a little unique among the older folks in physics education these days but then they demoted me to department head a couple of years ago and we can probably talk more about some of these things later. That is probably good enough for now.

DR. ORLAND: Marty Orland again, Director of the Center for Education. It is evident how you have come from all parts of the country and I am glad you were all able to make it. If you heard the weather forecast I can make no guarantees about your ability to get home, however. But we will continue to pay attention to those forecasts and alert you to the latest developments.

DR. HIXSON: I am from the Division of Undergraduate Education. I was a faculty member at a college for 20 years.

DR. BERGEN: I am Kathleen Bergin with the Math Science Partnership at NSF and if you know anything about that we call for STEM disciplinary faculty to be engaged with K-12 schools and in that work a number of places are looking into this educational research with disciplinary faculty. I am interested in that. I am a former classroom teacher of physics, chemistry, biology, a former curriculum director at a school district level, a former state science coordinator, a former state curriculum director and I retired about 2 years ago from the Georgia Institute of Technology where I worked in the center that worked with faculty and reached out to K-12.

DR. PIMMEL: I am Ross Pimmel. I am an engineer in the Division of Undergraduate Education and my other job is to lead the CCLI program. I have taught for over 30 years.

DR. WOODIN: I am Terry Woodin. I am in the Division of Undergraduate Education.

DR. BOYLAN: I am Myles Boylan. I am in the Division of Undergraduate Education as well as the Division of Graduate Education. I am also interested in this question graduate education as part of this notion of broadening the education of PhD students. In the past I was also in the student achievement program which has now been merged into another giant program.

DR. MC BRIDE: I am Duncan McBride, also, from the Division of Undergraduate Education. I am a physicist who was a faculty member for 15 years before coming to NSF doing a variety of programs within DUE.

DR. PARSON: Kathleen Parson. I am in my second year on leave from Macalester College in Minnesota, working with Susan. I am a biochemist by training.

DR. BURGE: Mark Burge and I am a computer scientist. I work in the CCLI at the university level. I work in the AT program.

DR. BURKETT: Susan Burkett, also, the Division of Undergraduate Education. I am a rotator, rotating from my home institution which is the University of Arkansas. I am an electrical engineer.

DR. WATFORD; Bev Watford. I am also a rotator in the Division of Undergraduate Education. I am I guess a former Associate Dean at Virginia Tech and a professor of engineering education.

DR. HIXSON: I think with that we should turn to Karl.