Molecular Biology of the Cell Vol. 3, 1195-1197, November 1992
Essay
Science Education Reform: Broadening the Agenda Sheila Tobias* About five years ago, in the wake of a growing recognition that fewer and fewer American students were willing (or able) to undertake the rigorous requirements of degree programs in the natural sciences, and a prediction (now in dispute) that, given the changing demographics of the work force, the nation would experience a "shortfall" of science workers by the year 2010, the country's science educators and its funders geared up for a second wave of science education "reform." I say "second" because many of us are old enough to remember the shock to the system of the Soviets' launching of an orbiting spacecraft-Sputnik-in 1957. To the extent the response to Sputnik was successful and, in the short run, it seems to have been-it was because of a broader-range attack on the problem than is being promoted today. Elementary curricula were reformed; secondary teachers were reinvigorated in laboratory-rich summer programs; colleges and universities invested in their undergraduate science programs; NDEA fellowships for graduate students became available; and, perhaps most important, the nation developed a well-funded research agenda, and not just for defense. By 1987, many of these benefits had receded for lack of funding and nurturing. The National Science Foundation's annual budget for science and engineering education was all but zeroed out in the first of a series of science-hostile actions by the Federal government in the early 1980s. While the biomedical arena remained somewhat protected, as much as 70% of federal money for research was earmarked during that last decade of the Cold War for weapons research and other defenserelated services. Pure research was inevitably shortchanged. In addition, a generation of the kind of bright young people who used.to find science interesting and important could not help but be dazzled by the fast bucks being made on Wall Street. Not surprisingly, lawyering, finance, and the clinical practice of medicine became the growth industries of the 1980s. Indeed, be* Sheila Tobias is not a scientist but a student (and critic) of science education policy. She teaches part-time in the political science department at the University of California-San Diego, and is on a longterm assignment for the Research Corporation, a foundation for the advancement of science, to study "neglected issues in science education." She is the author of Overcoming Math Anxiety, W.W. Norton (1978, new edition, in press); Succeed with Math, The College Board, New York (1987); They're not Dumb, They're Different: Stalking the Second Tier (1990); and Revitalizing Undergraduate Science: Why Some Things Work and Most Don't (1992), The Research Corporation, Tucson, AZ; and, with physicist Carl T. Tomizuka, Breaking the Science Barrier (intended for college students), The College Board, New York 1992.
© 1992 by The American Society for Cell Biology
tween 1966 and 1988, the proportion of college freshmen planning to major in science and mathematics fell by one-half, from 11.5% to 5.8% of the undergraduate population (Green, 1989).
SCIENTISTS' "ELSEWHERE" FOCUS Scientists at first paid scant attention to these developments. After all, the quality of their graduate programs and of the students selecting careers in research remained strong. That fewer undergraduates were opting for science altogether and fewer still for teaching science, that the nation's children were falling farther behind internationally in science and mathematics achievement, were disquieting but easy to posit "elsewhere": in the antiscientism of popular culture, in the stresses of the inner city, and the loss-to secondary education in particular-of very able women who, thanks to "women's liberation," had wider professional choices. But, I would argue, this "elsewhere focus" created a skewed target for reform: the younger child. Indeed, of the National Science Foundation's $600 million annual outlays for Education and Human Resources support, all but $70 million are spent on precollege science and mathematics, and by far the bulk of this money on curriculum and teacher enhancement for kindergarten through sixth grade. Favored are experiments to provide "hands-on" activities at the elementary school level, compensatory training and information to teachers already in the field, and to fund a rush of research into cognitive issues that may (or may not) explain the failure of the system to attract new recruits to science. TURN THEM INTO YOUNGER VERSIONS Of "US," AND THEY WILL BEHAVE LIKE US The focus on the curriculum and pedagogy of the early school years is linked, as I read the strategy, to two assumptions: first, that interest, ability, and even commitment to science will show up early if at all; second, that once "hooked," a youngster will be a self-starter, virtually teacher-and curriculum-proof, and immune to the charms of other disciplines. "I am much more concerned about the quality of science and math teaching at the elementary and high-school levels" than at the undergraduate level, says D. Allan Bromley, director of the federal Office of Science and Technology Policy and science advisor to President Bush, in an interview with The Scientist. "Students in colleges and universities are 1195
S. Tobias
much more able to cope with less-than-superb teaching, and if they have been taught at all well, they should be doing a remarkable amount on their own." What Bromley seems to be saying, without saying so directly, is that if we turn them into younger versions of "us," they will behave like us. FOCUSING ON SCIENCE EDUCATION AT COLLEGE With unlimited resources, we could do it all: change student attitudes and improve their performance at all levels of schooling. But policy is not made the way science is done. Given limited resources, we will have to focus our attention and trade-off an innovation here with an improvement there. My view, as a political scientist, is that the effort to effect change at the hands of one million elementary school teachers, laboring in 16,000 locally administered school districts, for the 4.3 million school children in every age cohort, is unlikely to succeed in the near or middle term. Better, it seems to me, to target an important and so far semi-invisible population of young people: the vast majority of the 500,000 young Americans, who survive their early school science with some interest in and talent for the subject intact. Who are these students? Freshmen and sophomores at college currently enrolled in their first college science courses, courses which could-unless the experience is made to be a very positive one, both intellectually and in terms of increased self-esteem-be their last. The bare facts are these: among the fewer and fewer students who declare science majors on admission to college, one-third to one-half leave the fold, often well into the major and sometimes after completing a science degree. Worse yet, hardly any college students switch from other declared majors into science. In recent months, attention has finally been brought to bear on first-year introductory college courses in science, the ones that are unabashedly intended to weed out the "unfit" (Tobias, 1990; Hewitt and Seymour, 1991). The least welcoming are those in the physical sciences. But at least two courses in chemistry are corequisites for the life sciences major plus often one course in physics. Therefore, the barriers that these courses erect and the impression they give of science serve to discourage life science majors as well.' THE SPECIAL NEEDS OF POTENTIAL LIFE SCIENCE MAJORS First-year courses are only part of the problem for undergraduates in the life sciences. Like the rest of us, ' See the author's They're not dumb they're different: stalking the second tier, Research Corporation, 1990, for a key-hole view of how typical introductory courses appear to able, but not yet "hooked," young people.
1196
students will suffer poorly taught courses, i.e., postpone gratification, if they see promise and possibilities ahead. Unfortunately, that's not usually the case. Elma Gonzalez, a professor in the department of biology at U.C.L.A., points to a dearth of realistic career advising in her field. Few undergraduates bring any knowledge with them to college of the great range of careers to which they can aspire with a life sciences major. "Whether intended or not, our faculty communicates an elitism." This means, on the one hand, they do not have much interest in students not intending (as they did) to pursue the Ph.D., and on the other hand, even for those who do, there is little encouragement to "follow in our footsteps" because, as some professors believe, "jobs are hard to find." The "jobs" these wellmeaning people have in mind are professorships at research universities (U.C.L.A., 1991). Recruitment and advising are closely linked. While students need an overview of the field and some reassurance early on that their interests and aspirations can be satisfied in science, they don't get to meet working scientists personally or to get their many questions answered until they've made the choice of a major. Fortyseven percent of admitted students in a typical large state university like U.C.L.A. are "undeclared." This means no department accepts the responsibility for counseling these students about majors, areas of concentration, or career paths. Unless students are exposed to the intellectual richness and the benefits of science, the science major can seem less appealing than others. Science majors are typically "high unit" majors, depending on rigid course sequencing, making them costly for students who want to shop around. Students who might opt for science after the first year have to face the possibility that their graduation will be delayed. Curricular structure and timing are also important, says Gonzalez. The excitement of getting involved with a live organism is one source of student interest in the life sciences; early and continuous exposure to its cutting edge is another. But most American high school students will have taken biology only once, in the tenth grade, four to five years before they will be qualified to take upper division life science courses. "In the absence of reassurance about the rightness of their choice, it is a wonder that students maintain their interest in biology at all." THE NEW STRATEGY: COURSES THAT NURTURE, CAREER ADVISING, AND SUPPORT Departments have all they can manage to keep their committed majors on track. How can the sciences assume responsibility for more? One strategy would be to reclaim some of the many "quasi-instructional" budget and personnel lines that, over the past several decades, have been arrogated by central administraMolecular Biology of the Cell
Science Education Reform
tions. Typically, such resources are entirely consumed by campus-wide offices of student services, academic support, career placement, institutional research, and tutoring. One result of this displacement of responsibility is that student contact with faculty members at the time they are making commitments to arduous career paths is virtually eliminated. Recently, Sidney Simpson, chairman of the department of biology at the University of Illinois-Chicago, took steps to bring undergraduate counseling back into the faculty's realm. He created one full-time position out of half a faculty line and some Howard Hughes funds to work exclusively on undergraduate affairs. The new staff member, who holds an undergraduate minor in biology and has six years counseling experience at the college level, occupies an office in biology, and sees majors, prospective majors, even students outside of biology who, for one reason or another, are enrolled in biology courses at this large, urban institution. The staff member signs program cards, controls drop and add petitions, and does proactive advising, calling in students who are not doing well, and setting up appointments with faculty for students who might not do this on their own. In addition, she conducts surveys, and investigates issues that individual instructors or the department itself want researched. From such conversations and investigations, this staff member is able to provide ongoing feedback and advice to faculty about particular courses, and to the department chair about the biology program as a whole. The adviser is doing more than advising. According to the chair, she has become a valued participant in meetings concerning the quality of instruction overall, and retention in biology is now the highest in the College of Science (Simpson, personal communication). My contention is that the position is effective precisely because the department defines the job, and it is to the department that the staff member reports.
CONCLUSION If the department is to be the locus of student recruitment and retention, the department is going to have to be the locus of control. This will inevitably involve
Vol. 3, November 1992
wrenching resources from other units in the university. But wrenching resources is an exercise in power, which scientists may not have either the skills or the stomach to endure. As others have noted before me, college faculty in all fields, not just in the sciences, tend to confuse autonomy with power. They are grateful that, once they shut their classroom door, they can do more or less what they please. But in fact, as my recent study of college and university science programs confirms, many of the constraints on instructional improvement-not to mention instruction itself-are not within their control: the kind and number of students who enroll in their classes; the course credit allocated for the work they require; room size; the quality of their T.A.'s; grading assistance and support (Tobias, 1992). My conclusion is this: if instruction in all its aspects is to become again the responsibility of the science department, then the means to do the job must be taken, and not just from add-on resources or specially funded projects, but from the very heart of the college or university budget itself. There is no "quick fix" for the nation's underenrollment and underachievement in science and no time to wait for elementary school science to do the job. Unless college and university scientists find ways locally to increase college students' enthusiasm for science, we are unlikely to see much change, and we can expect to see yet another campaign for science education reform a decade hence. REFERENCES Green, K.C. (1989). A profile of undergraduates in the sciences. American Scientist 77, 475. Nancy Hewitt and Elaine Seymour, "Factors contributing to high attrition rates among science, mathematics, and engineering undergraduate majors," Report to the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, April 26, 1991. Sheila Tobias (1990). They're not dumb, they're different: stalking the second tier, Tucson, AZ, Research Corporation. Sheila Tobias (1992). Revitalizing undergraduate science: why some things work and most don't, Tucson, AZ, Research Corporation. U.C.L.A. (1991). Office of Academic Planning and Budget and the Student Affairs Information and Research Office, "Choosing and changing majors; results of five student focus groups."
1197
Essay
Science Education Reform: Broadening the Agenda Sheila Tobias* About five years ago, in the wake of a growing recognition that fewer and fewer American students were willing (or able) to undertake the rigorous requirements of degree programs in the natural sciences, and a prediction (now in dispute) that, given the changing demographics of the work force, the nation would experience a "shortfall" of science workers by the year 2010, the country's science educators and its funders geared up for a second wave of science education "reform." I say "second" because many of us are old enough to remember the shock to the system of the Soviets' launching of an orbiting spacecraft-Sputnik-in 1957. To the extent the response to Sputnik was successful and, in the short run, it seems to have been-it was because of a broader-range attack on the problem than is being promoted today. Elementary curricula were reformed; secondary teachers were reinvigorated in laboratory-rich summer programs; colleges and universities invested in their undergraduate science programs; NDEA fellowships for graduate students became available; and, perhaps most important, the nation developed a well-funded research agenda, and not just for defense. By 1987, many of these benefits had receded for lack of funding and nurturing. The National Science Foundation's annual budget for science and engineering education was all but zeroed out in the first of a series of science-hostile actions by the Federal government in the early 1980s. While the biomedical arena remained somewhat protected, as much as 70% of federal money for research was earmarked during that last decade of the Cold War for weapons research and other defenserelated services. Pure research was inevitably shortchanged. In addition, a generation of the kind of bright young people who used.to find science interesting and important could not help but be dazzled by the fast bucks being made on Wall Street. Not surprisingly, lawyering, finance, and the clinical practice of medicine became the growth industries of the 1980s. Indeed, be* Sheila Tobias is not a scientist but a student (and critic) of science education policy. She teaches part-time in the political science department at the University of California-San Diego, and is on a longterm assignment for the Research Corporation, a foundation for the advancement of science, to study "neglected issues in science education." She is the author of Overcoming Math Anxiety, W.W. Norton (1978, new edition, in press); Succeed with Math, The College Board, New York (1987); They're not Dumb, They're Different: Stalking the Second Tier (1990); and Revitalizing Undergraduate Science: Why Some Things Work and Most Don't (1992), The Research Corporation, Tucson, AZ; and, with physicist Carl T. Tomizuka, Breaking the Science Barrier (intended for college students), The College Board, New York 1992.
© 1992 by The American Society for Cell Biology
tween 1966 and 1988, the proportion of college freshmen planning to major in science and mathematics fell by one-half, from 11.5% to 5.8% of the undergraduate population (Green, 1989).
SCIENTISTS' "ELSEWHERE" FOCUS Scientists at first paid scant attention to these developments. After all, the quality of their graduate programs and of the students selecting careers in research remained strong. That fewer undergraduates were opting for science altogether and fewer still for teaching science, that the nation's children were falling farther behind internationally in science and mathematics achievement, were disquieting but easy to posit "elsewhere": in the antiscientism of popular culture, in the stresses of the inner city, and the loss-to secondary education in particular-of very able women who, thanks to "women's liberation," had wider professional choices. But, I would argue, this "elsewhere focus" created a skewed target for reform: the younger child. Indeed, of the National Science Foundation's $600 million annual outlays for Education and Human Resources support, all but $70 million are spent on precollege science and mathematics, and by far the bulk of this money on curriculum and teacher enhancement for kindergarten through sixth grade. Favored are experiments to provide "hands-on" activities at the elementary school level, compensatory training and information to teachers already in the field, and to fund a rush of research into cognitive issues that may (or may not) explain the failure of the system to attract new recruits to science. TURN THEM INTO YOUNGER VERSIONS Of "US," AND THEY WILL BEHAVE LIKE US The focus on the curriculum and pedagogy of the early school years is linked, as I read the strategy, to two assumptions: first, that interest, ability, and even commitment to science will show up early if at all; second, that once "hooked," a youngster will be a self-starter, virtually teacher-and curriculum-proof, and immune to the charms of other disciplines. "I am much more concerned about the quality of science and math teaching at the elementary and high-school levels" than at the undergraduate level, says D. Allan Bromley, director of the federal Office of Science and Technology Policy and science advisor to President Bush, in an interview with The Scientist. "Students in colleges and universities are 1195
S. Tobias
much more able to cope with less-than-superb teaching, and if they have been taught at all well, they should be doing a remarkable amount on their own." What Bromley seems to be saying, without saying so directly, is that if we turn them into younger versions of "us," they will behave like us. FOCUSING ON SCIENCE EDUCATION AT COLLEGE With unlimited resources, we could do it all: change student attitudes and improve their performance at all levels of schooling. But policy is not made the way science is done. Given limited resources, we will have to focus our attention and trade-off an innovation here with an improvement there. My view, as a political scientist, is that the effort to effect change at the hands of one million elementary school teachers, laboring in 16,000 locally administered school districts, for the 4.3 million school children in every age cohort, is unlikely to succeed in the near or middle term. Better, it seems to me, to target an important and so far semi-invisible population of young people: the vast majority of the 500,000 young Americans, who survive their early school science with some interest in and talent for the subject intact. Who are these students? Freshmen and sophomores at college currently enrolled in their first college science courses, courses which could-unless the experience is made to be a very positive one, both intellectually and in terms of increased self-esteem-be their last. The bare facts are these: among the fewer and fewer students who declare science majors on admission to college, one-third to one-half leave the fold, often well into the major and sometimes after completing a science degree. Worse yet, hardly any college students switch from other declared majors into science. In recent months, attention has finally been brought to bear on first-year introductory college courses in science, the ones that are unabashedly intended to weed out the "unfit" (Tobias, 1990; Hewitt and Seymour, 1991). The least welcoming are those in the physical sciences. But at least two courses in chemistry are corequisites for the life sciences major plus often one course in physics. Therefore, the barriers that these courses erect and the impression they give of science serve to discourage life science majors as well.' THE SPECIAL NEEDS OF POTENTIAL LIFE SCIENCE MAJORS First-year courses are only part of the problem for undergraduates in the life sciences. Like the rest of us, ' See the author's They're not dumb they're different: stalking the second tier, Research Corporation, 1990, for a key-hole view of how typical introductory courses appear to able, but not yet "hooked," young people.
1196
students will suffer poorly taught courses, i.e., postpone gratification, if they see promise and possibilities ahead. Unfortunately, that's not usually the case. Elma Gonzalez, a professor in the department of biology at U.C.L.A., points to a dearth of realistic career advising in her field. Few undergraduates bring any knowledge with them to college of the great range of careers to which they can aspire with a life sciences major. "Whether intended or not, our faculty communicates an elitism." This means, on the one hand, they do not have much interest in students not intending (as they did) to pursue the Ph.D., and on the other hand, even for those who do, there is little encouragement to "follow in our footsteps" because, as some professors believe, "jobs are hard to find." The "jobs" these wellmeaning people have in mind are professorships at research universities (U.C.L.A., 1991). Recruitment and advising are closely linked. While students need an overview of the field and some reassurance early on that their interests and aspirations can be satisfied in science, they don't get to meet working scientists personally or to get their many questions answered until they've made the choice of a major. Fortyseven percent of admitted students in a typical large state university like U.C.L.A. are "undeclared." This means no department accepts the responsibility for counseling these students about majors, areas of concentration, or career paths. Unless students are exposed to the intellectual richness and the benefits of science, the science major can seem less appealing than others. Science majors are typically "high unit" majors, depending on rigid course sequencing, making them costly for students who want to shop around. Students who might opt for science after the first year have to face the possibility that their graduation will be delayed. Curricular structure and timing are also important, says Gonzalez. The excitement of getting involved with a live organism is one source of student interest in the life sciences; early and continuous exposure to its cutting edge is another. But most American high school students will have taken biology only once, in the tenth grade, four to five years before they will be qualified to take upper division life science courses. "In the absence of reassurance about the rightness of their choice, it is a wonder that students maintain their interest in biology at all." THE NEW STRATEGY: COURSES THAT NURTURE, CAREER ADVISING, AND SUPPORT Departments have all they can manage to keep their committed majors on track. How can the sciences assume responsibility for more? One strategy would be to reclaim some of the many "quasi-instructional" budget and personnel lines that, over the past several decades, have been arrogated by central administraMolecular Biology of the Cell
Science Education Reform
tions. Typically, such resources are entirely consumed by campus-wide offices of student services, academic support, career placement, institutional research, and tutoring. One result of this displacement of responsibility is that student contact with faculty members at the time they are making commitments to arduous career paths is virtually eliminated. Recently, Sidney Simpson, chairman of the department of biology at the University of Illinois-Chicago, took steps to bring undergraduate counseling back into the faculty's realm. He created one full-time position out of half a faculty line and some Howard Hughes funds to work exclusively on undergraduate affairs. The new staff member, who holds an undergraduate minor in biology and has six years counseling experience at the college level, occupies an office in biology, and sees majors, prospective majors, even students outside of biology who, for one reason or another, are enrolled in biology courses at this large, urban institution. The staff member signs program cards, controls drop and add petitions, and does proactive advising, calling in students who are not doing well, and setting up appointments with faculty for students who might not do this on their own. In addition, she conducts surveys, and investigates issues that individual instructors or the department itself want researched. From such conversations and investigations, this staff member is able to provide ongoing feedback and advice to faculty about particular courses, and to the department chair about the biology program as a whole. The adviser is doing more than advising. According to the chair, she has become a valued participant in meetings concerning the quality of instruction overall, and retention in biology is now the highest in the College of Science (Simpson, personal communication). My contention is that the position is effective precisely because the department defines the job, and it is to the department that the staff member reports.
CONCLUSION If the department is to be the locus of student recruitment and retention, the department is going to have to be the locus of control. This will inevitably involve
Vol. 3, November 1992
wrenching resources from other units in the university. But wrenching resources is an exercise in power, which scientists may not have either the skills or the stomach to endure. As others have noted before me, college faculty in all fields, not just in the sciences, tend to confuse autonomy with power. They are grateful that, once they shut their classroom door, they can do more or less what they please. But in fact, as my recent study of college and university science programs confirms, many of the constraints on instructional improvement-not to mention instruction itself-are not within their control: the kind and number of students who enroll in their classes; the course credit allocated for the work they require; room size; the quality of their T.A.'s; grading assistance and support (Tobias, 1992). My conclusion is this: if instruction in all its aspects is to become again the responsibility of the science department, then the means to do the job must be taken, and not just from add-on resources or specially funded projects, but from the very heart of the college or university budget itself. There is no "quick fix" for the nation's underenrollment and underachievement in science and no time to wait for elementary school science to do the job. Unless college and university scientists find ways locally to increase college students' enthusiasm for science, we are unlikely to see much change, and we can expect to see yet another campaign for science education reform a decade hence. REFERENCES Green, K.C. (1989). A profile of undergraduates in the sciences. American Scientist 77, 475. Nancy Hewitt and Elaine Seymour, "Factors contributing to high attrition rates among science, mathematics, and engineering undergraduate majors," Report to the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, April 26, 1991. Sheila Tobias (1990). They're not dumb, they're different: stalking the second tier, Tucson, AZ, Research Corporation. Sheila Tobias (1992). Revitalizing undergraduate science: why some things work and most don't, Tucson, AZ, Research Corporation. U.C.L.A. (1991). Office of Academic Planning and Budget and the Student Affairs Information and Research Office, "Choosing and changing majors; results of five student focus groups."
1197
