SSI 2012 Goals, Cross-Cutting Themes,

and Leadership

 

Goals

The SENCER Summer Institute (SSI) 2012 is one component of SENCER's national dissemination and faculty development program designed to improve undergraduate education and undergraduate science education, especially in the STEM disciplines, and to stimulate civic engagement through the design and development of courses and programs that teach "to" basic science "through" complex, capacious, and unsolved public issues. To further the development of institutional capacities, the SSI 2012 program will:

  • - Explore, explain, and elucidate the SENCER approach,

  • - Encourage development and refinement of SENCER models, and

  • - Engage participants in a series of on-going collaborations designed to scale-up and sustain undergraduate science education reform.

The program will feature specially designed work sessions for newcomers to focus on course design, assessment, pedagogy, what civic engagement means, and available resources to promote reforms on campus. Work sessions for alumni will take advantage of their expertise and experience, encouraging discussions on advanced levels of civic engagement, areas of new work, policy and pedagogy, and assessment.

Following participation in SSI 2012, participants should be better positioned to help their institutions achieve a variety of outcomes, including:

  • - Improving science education (with an increase in both student interest and capacity),
  • - Organizing interdisciplinary studies (while respecting the strengths and limitations of single disciplinary perspectives),
  • - Stimulating critical thinking and civic engagement,
  • - Increasing participation of underrepresented individuals in science education,
  • - Connecting science education and professional education (notably pre-service teacher education),
  • - Assessing student learning in ways that are both rigorous and supportive of innovation, and
  • - Focusing institutional attention on some of the most difficult problems of our time.

Please visit our Institute Archives Page for more information on institutions that participated in SSI 2001- 2011.  Please see the SENCER Models for examples of courses and course modules featured by the SENCER project.

Cross-Cutting Themes

This year, in addition to addressing traditional SENCER areas, we will pay special attention to developing a competent, science literate workforce, community colleges, pre-service teacher education, and assessment. Distinguished leaders in the STEM and education fields will give plenary talks that address these topics.

Aligning undergraduate STEM education with new demands in workforce development, competitiveness, and civic engagement, with a focus on

  • - Strengthening the concept of science literacy and its applications, especially in courses for STEM majors,

  • - Encouraging both earlier and increased enrollment in STEM courses, and
  • - Planning for student achievement.

Recognizing and promoting the role of community colleges in STEM education, with a focus on

  • - Improving articulation with four-year institutions,

  • - Creating shared and collaborative courses, and

  • - Cultivating student talent.

Encouraging students to become capable and confident K-12 teachers, with a focus on

    - Extending the SENCER approach to elementary and secondary education,
  • - Promoting the development of SENCER courses for pre-service teacher education, and

  • - Strengthening collaborations between science and education faculty.

Gathering evidence of the effectiveness of the SENCER approach, with a focus on

    - Increasing attention to course planning, goal setting, and appropriate measurement of outcomes,
  • - Applying the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning to assessing how science is learned and how that learning is transferred to new intellectual challenges, and

  • - Organizing the learning experience so as to promote student success.

Exploring the relationship of formal science education to informal science education, with a focus on

  • - Developing a theoretical model to facilitate self-directed learning,

  • - Promoting students as informed intermediaries, and

  • - Supporting the vital work of community-based organizations.

Mobilizing assets to focus on critical regional challenges, with a focus on

  • - Establishing regional networks,

  • - Linking community-based service organizations with two and four-year institutions, and

  • - Creating potential vocational opportunities for students (such as the GLISTEN stewardship liaisons).

Realizing the potential that students have for stimulating important educational reform, with a focus on

  • - Students as leaders in SENCER program recruitment and promotion,

  • - Students as partners in course and program development, and

  • - Students as valuable contributors to Institute discussions.

Overcoming the stumbling block of STEM education to successful college completion, with a focus on

  • - Getting students to take these courses early,

  • - Designing and assessing student gains effectively, and

  • - Inventing strategies to enable students to take these courses despite barriers to entry.

Institite Leadership

We treat all participants as leaders and learners. Those of us who are planning SSI 2012 are learners as well. We hope to cultivate our capacities as natural scientists and to use our observations and what we learn from working together to shape and re-shape what we do. We will have some special help in this work from invited scholars and leaders, including several SENCER fellows and senior associates, who have served as "faculty" for our previous SENCER Summer Institutes. Past Institute schedules and faculty biographies are available in the Institute Archives.

 

 

More Information

 

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Photograph of poster session reception during SSI 2011 (Butler University Library)