- To provide a workshop model that can be repeated, evolve in response to evaluations, and adapted by participants.
Spring 2010 Workshop II
"Problem- and case-based learning about biology-in-society"
The topic and the processes of this workshop are designed to attract a diverse group of scientists, science educators, and scholars from the various areas of science and technology studies interested in the life sciences and pedagogical innovation. With an eye to training "interdisciplinarians" the workshop will include graduate students (who can get course credit) as well as more experienced scholars.Applicants should: a) submit as soon as possible [deadline extended] a written account of your innovations (or planned innovations) in research, teaching, and wider outreach in response to the thought-piece below; b) be prepared to lead an activity during the workshop that helps other participants develop knowledge, skills, and interest in these innovations. (The organizer will consult with participants in February or March to help plan such activities.)
Both the products and the processes of the workshop will be documented on the web. The pre-submitted innovations in research, teaching, and wider outreach, supplemented by a record of the accompanying activities at the workshop made by a participant-evaluator, will be assembled for a special edition of a journal.
There is no charge for the workshop*, but applicants are expected to make every effort to secure support for travel to Woods Hole and accommodation. Limited funds are available to support participants who are unable to find others sources of funding, with priority to students and independent scholars. (*A deposit will be required to secure your accommodation.)
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Thought-piece, 11 October '09:"Speaking to skeptics of Problem-based learning"
Problem-based learning (PBL) aims to engage students in self-directed inquiry on real world scenarios, which elicit students' curiosity and require them to find and use appropriate learning resources. PBL takes a variety of forms; working cooperatively in groups is often, but not always, involved.
Skeptics about PBL can raise a range of concerns: How can instructors be sure to cover the required subject matter when students decide their own focus of inquiry? How can it be shown that PBL students have developed critical thinking and hypothesis-generating skills that scientists need? What evidence is there that shows that the wider social and historical context brought into many PBL scenarios is conducive of subsequent discipline-based studies and scientific inquiry? How can instructors be moved to invest time and take risks to shift from teaching approaches that are familiar and comfortable? How can senior colleagues who do not use PBL understand how to evaluate PBL teachers in promotion reviews?
Imagine then that you are invited to join a panel to counteract skepticism about PBL using materials related to the life and environmental sciences. You might have strategies, forms of evaluation and evidence-keeping, exemplars, and so on to contribute, or experiments that invite input from other panel members before being exposed to PBL skeptics. How the panel presents the materials it assembles remains to be determined when the panel meets at Woods Hole in April.
Location: Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL), Woods Hole MA, USA
Dates: April 22 (Thurs, 9am)-25 (Sun, 2pm), 2010 (arriving Wednesday evening)
Organizer & Lead Facilitator: Peter J. Taylor, University of Massachusetts Boston, Programs in Science, Technology and Values and Critical and Creative Thinking.
(applications details & arrangements)
Sections to follow (or to be added in due course) and associated links
(Much of the working, "in progress" material is developed on a wiki, and only the final products and reports are posted here. Thus some of these links are placeholders for material not yet available.)-
Adjustments relative to previous workshops
Profiles of participants and their publications
Program with links to associated materials
Photos and other images
New educational or outreach activities that participants submit to the expanding compilation of Online Resources for Science-in-Society Education and Outreach
Evaluations by participants
Adjustments relative to previous workshops
List of participants, short profiles, and webpages
Douglas AllchinUniversity of Minnesota
History and philosophy (HP) of biology research on cases of error and disagreement in science. Teaching history of science to science teachers and guiding them in preparing HP of Science-oriented materials.
Barry DeCoster
Philosophy, Worcester State College
healthcare ethics, geneticization of disease, explanation theory in philosophy of science
Pam DiBona
New England Aquarium.
Has taken three graduate-level problem-based learning courses. Multiple activities (volunteer and professional) relative to science and social change: managing education efforts for multiple audiences regarding climate change; legislative lobbying for the Environmental League of Massachusetts; Board of Directors of the Mass. Environmental Voters Education Fund; reporter on environmental and public health issues for the Somerville Community News
Cara DiEnno
Warner College of Natural Resources, Colorado State University
Working with high school students and knowledge, attitudes and engagement of a unit on invasive plant species on Colorado's Front Range
Tom Flanagan
Director, SouthCoast Community Collaborative Design Studio; Board President, Institute for 21st Century Agoras; Consultant for large group collaborative learning and action planning workshops.
Recent Publication: The Talking Point: Creating an environment for exploring complex meaning
Nina Greenwald (guest for Friday 23rd)
promoting thinking and problem solving in science for the Massachusetts Society for Medical Research, The National Institute of Health, The American Medical Association,The New England Aquarium, and NOVA. Her book, Science in Progress, contains authentic issues and dilemmas in biomedical science, and a PBL model for guiding students in the use of this material.
Sandra McCollin
UMass Boston
Graduate student in Critical & Creative Thinking/ Science in a Changing World graduate program
JoAnn Oravec
University of Wisconsin-Whitewater
Public outreach in science policy and information sciences with an emphasis on social and ethical approaches to advanced technology
Ethel Stanley
Beloit College
Director, BioQUEST, http://bioquest.org
Emphasizing Investigative Case-Based Learning, bioquest.org/icbl
Peter Taylor (organizer)
UMass Boston
Having worked for many years on ecology and environmental research (Unruly Complexity, U. Chicago 2005), I am now taking my interests in heterogeneous complexities in new directions through engagement with various social epidemiological approaches that address the intersections of environment, health, and development.
Margaret Waterman
Southeast Missouri State University
Collaborator on BioQuest's Investigative Case-Based Learning, bioquest.org/icbl
Fangfang Wen
Boston College
Genetic testing and disability discrimination in China
Chris Young
Alverno College
wiki version of program
Last update 7 May 2010