Tomorrow's Research
Folks:
The article below reports on the call for devoting much greater
national resources to fundamental research on teaching and learning
at the college and university level. It is taken from The Scientist
- The News Journal of the Life Scientist,
[http://www.the-scientist.com/homepage.htm], 15[6]:32, March 19, 2001
? Copyright 2001, The Scientist, Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted
with permission.
Regards,
Rick Reis
reis@stanford.edu
UP NEXT: Reform From Within: Lessons For Academic Administrators
Tomorrow's Research
--------------- 570 words ----------------
PUSH FOR RESEARCH ON HIGHER EDUCATION
By Kate Devine
Courtesy of University of Michigan
To ensure a competitive global position, the United States must
invest in more research into how people learn and how people are
taught, according to James J. Duderstadt, president emeritus and
professor of science and engineering at the University of Michigan in
Ann Arbor. He made that argument as a symposium panel member at last
month's American Association for the Advancement of Science annual
meeting in San Francisco.
Duderstadt told The Scientist that federal support of R&D tends to
track national priorities over time--military security in the 1950s
to 1980s, health care in the 1990s and today. "It seems increasingly
clear that a knowledge-driven economy will place a premium on
intellectual capital, hence, on significantly increasing the learning
skills of our workforce," he said, adding that rapid increases are
needed in investments that focus on understanding how people learn
and how learning institutions are designed. "If the education sector
functioned like the rest of our economy, then we should be investing
about 3 percent a year on R&D," explained Duderstadt. "And 3 percent
of the $665 billion we spent last year on education is about $20
billion, the size of the [National Institutes of Health] budget.
Hence, our investments do not seem well aligned with our priorities."
The National Academy of Science's Committee on Science, Engineering
and Public Policy, of which Duderstadt is a member, is assessing ways
to promote education research. COSEPUP recently discussed strategies
with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, whose purpose
historically is to focus appropriate talent on defense research. A
suggested model based on DARPA's activity concerns approaching the
top scientific talent in the nation and providing flexible, long-term
support to work on basic research related to national priorities.
Other suggested models include a major expansion of an interagency
initiative, or asking NSF to accept a much stronger leadership role
for research on "the science of education."
Duderstadt envisions a multidisciplinary effort that fills in the
void of understanding how best to help future generations learn. He
says this is the science of education issue in which the nation's top
scientific talent would be persuaded and funded to work in areas
related to learning and education, particularly in critical areas
such as math and science.
According to Duderstadt, testimony from those working at the grass
roots level in teacher preparation and math and science education,
suggests that the translation from fundamental research into practice
is limited. Little of the significant research of the past decade in
areas such as cognitive science, neurosciences, and organizational
theory is making it into education in the United States--whether it
is schools, colleges, or universities. "Indeed, we may almost have a
situation comparable to manufacturing in the 1960s, when the Japanese
and others took our research and used it to accelerate past us in
areas like automobiles and electronics," he said. "It was only when
we learned ourselves how to better transfer research into the
marketplace that we became competitive once again. The same may be
happening in education."
The AAAS panel, organized by Eamon Kelly of the National Science
Board and Tulane University and Marta Cehelsky of NSF, focused on
appropriate use of federal resources to support national innovative
capacity. Other panelists included Erich Bloch of the Washington
Advisory Group, Enrique Iglesia of the Inter-American Development
Bank, Jane Lubchenco of Oregon State University, and. Norine Noonan,
formerly of the Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Research
and Development.
Kate Devine can be contacted at kdevine@the-scientist.com
