Highlights
Recent Highlights:
Dr. Susan R Singer presenting at the Science Education Colloquium:
Promising Practices in Undergraduate Science and Engineering Education: Why Don't We Implement Them?
Friday, October 26
2:30pm
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Wipro LLT awards $3.3 million to UMass Boston to create a Math and Science Partnership (MSP) with select teachers in the Boston and New York City areas.
Chancellor J. Keith Motley signed the Wipro Science Education Fellowship Agreement with Anurag Behar, chief sustainability officer for Wipro Ltd., during an August 29 ceremony.
Over the next three years, administrators of the new program will choose 120 teachers in kindergarten through Grade 12 to become “science education fellows.” The teachers will be asked to work closely with colleagues and integrate their lessons.
Read more in the Press Release:
WIPRO Press Release // UMass Press Release
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NSF awards COSMIC 2.5 million with PD-Wrap Grant
COSMIC has teamed up with College Board to analyze the effectiveness of various types of Professional Development vehicles during the Advanced Placement Science Redesign.
Detailed Information
This proposal leverages the re-design of the Advanced Placement (AP) curricula currently under way to study the impact of teacher professional development on student achievement in a natural experiment at scale. Researchers from the University of Massachusetts Boston, Harvard University, the University of Michigan, and the Education Development Center, Inc are conducting a quasi-experimental research study to examine the professional development experienced by AP Biology, Chemistry and Physics teachers to determines 1) the relationship between teacher and school characteristics and the professional development patterns that teachers choose; 2) the relationship between the professional development patterns that various types of teachers choose and their students' outcomes; and 3) the challenges encountered in delivering various forms of professional development at this level of scale. In addition to supporting the improvement of professional development of AP teachers by the College Board, the findings contribute to a better understanding of the relationship between professional development and student achievement more generally.
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Arthur Eisenkraft featured in Science Magazine 6/1/2012!
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Recent Highlights:
Arthur Eisenkraft recently presented his invited paper: Active Physics and the NGSS (Next Generation Science Standards) at AAPT
Kristen Wendell, PhD presented at the 2012 National Association for Research in Science Teaching (NARST) Annual International Conference
March 25, 2012:
“A Mixed Methods Approach to Measuring Learning Through Engineering” as part of a thematic session entitled “Examining Student Learning of Science through Engineering and Engineering Design.” The co-author is Merredith Portsmore of Tufts University.
March 28, 2012:
Presented in the symposium “Re-imagining Context: Student-Generated Representations as Tools for Reasoning in Science” with colleagues Joshua Danish and Asmalina Saleh of Indiana University, Christopher Wright of TERC, and Bhaskar Upadhyay of University of Minnesota. Within this symposium, Kristen Wendell focused on “Viewing Three-Dimensional Constructions as Representations of Science Ideas.”
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COSMIC Staff had a strong presence at the 2012 National Science Teacher's Association (NSTA) Annual Conference.
From March 28, 2012 to April 1, 2012 various members of COSMIC's directors, faculty and staff presented in over 26 sessions at the JW Marriott and Indiana Convention Center. Presenters included: Arthur Eisenkraft, Bob Chen, Bala Sundaram, Allison Scheff, Kristen Cacciatore, Pam Pelletier, Jessica Neville, Haven Ripley Daniels, Jamaica O'Brien and more!
Information, Handouts and Presentations from the conference are coming soon - please check back!
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Boston Biology Conference
The Boston Science Partnership hosted a two-day event, the Boston Biology Conference, on February 9-11, 2012. Teachers, professors, school administrators, non-profit collaborators and others joined BPS teachers as they examined the changes to the College Board’s AP Biology Exam. The new exam creates a sea-change in the way that advanced biology is taught with ripple effects across the K-16 years.
Click here for the Keynote event program
Click here for the PowerPoint by Keynote Speaker, Dr. Gordon Uno
Click here for the agenda for the AP Biology Teacher Planning Retreat
Click here for more information about the AP Biology redesign
On March 2nd, COSMIC hosted a delegation of Russian school principals and school leaders for a day of discussion. Their trip, Empowering Schools through Innovative Management, was sponsored by the US Department of State. The principals met with COSMIC program staff, professors from CEHD and CSM, and were welcomed by Dean Grosovsky of CSM. The American and Russian educators exchanged their experiences on the topics of high level STEM teaching, sustaining interest in STEM among diverse students and forming productive partnerships, among other topics of mutual concern.
Click here to see a photo (Coming soon)
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THE FUTURE OF SCIENCE EDUCATION with Dr. Bruce Alberts
Professor Emeritus of Biochemistry and Biophysics, UCSF
Editor-in-chief, Science magazine
United States Science Envoy
Thursday, May 5, 2011
CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION
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COSMIC staff and associates recently returned from the 2011 NSTA National Conference in San Francisco.
See Workshops tab for presentations from the NSTA Conference.
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Urban America’s Science Report Card
UMass Boston – February 24th, 2011
Press Conference and Live Webcase
The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is the only nationally representative measure of student achievement. The NAEP 2009 Science assessment measures what students know and can do in physical science, life science and Earth and space sciences. Visit http://nagb.org/science2009/tuda/ for more information.
The program included Q &A from the national audience. The Speakers are:
· UMB Professor and Director of COSMIC, Arthur Eisenkraft
· Superintendent of Boston Public Schools, Dr. Carol R. Johnson
· Director of the NY Hall of Science, Dr. Alan J. Friedman
· Chancellor of National Assessment of Educational Progress, Jack Buckley
· Provost Winston Langley will welcome the national audience to the UMB Campus.
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