NISE: an ombudsman for SMET education
by John L. Roeder
"Writing reports about the reform of education and actually reforming education are two very different activities," wrote Rodger Bybee in Redesigning the Science Curriculum, which the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study (BSCS) published in 1995 (see article in our Winter 1997 issue), based on the first of two conferences they have convened on development and implementation of the National Science Education Standards. "The former requires that a small group agree on a set of ideas and express these ideas clearly and with adequate justification. The latter requires that millions of school personnel in thousands of autonomous school districts change their school science program, instructional practices, and assessment."
The same year that BSCS published Redesigning the Science Curriculum and held the second of its two conferences, the University of Wisconsin-Madison received a $10 million dollar grant from the National Science Foundation to establish the National Institute for Science Education (NISE) "to improve K-College SMET [science, mathematics, engineering, and technical] education by providing research-based knowledge to organizations and individuals . . . ." Indeed, according to its 1 July 1997 "OVERVIEW" of "Year 2 Accomplishments and Year 3 Activities," NISE recognizes this very problem: "While the standards embody a worthy and even inspiring vision of mathematics and science education, their generality and their large 'grain size,' as well as their comprehsnsive scope, leave enormous discretion at the local level about curriculum coverage and pedagogy. . . . the same broad generality of the standards that was functional in achieving consensus and giving broad guidance is not functional as a basis for detailed implementation." (p. 14)
This is only one of many problem identifications NISE has made in fulfillment of its mission "to determine what has been learned and what we need to know about systemic reform in SMET education" and "to get practical and useful products and guides to the many people who are contributing to SMET reform." NISE's "OVERVIEW" divides its programs into three categories: research, dissemination, and organizational process. Among its research programs are two types of evaluation and policy studies -- Policy Analysis of Systemic Reform (PASR) and Strategies for Evaluating Systemic Reform (SESR) -- plus Professional Development (PD) and College Level One (CL-1). The dissemination programs embrace Interacting with Professional Audiences (IPA) and Communicating with Mass Audiences (CMA). The organizational process programs include Cognitive Studies of Interdisciplinary Collaboration and Formative Evaluation.
Research Programs
In addition to the aforementioned problem generality poses for the implementation of standards, Michael Knapp of NISE's PASR Team has concluded -- in a monograph, "Between Systemic Reforms and the Mathematics and Science Classroom: The Dynamics of Innovation, Implementation, and Professional Learning" -- "that systemic reform has stimulated widespread planning among policymakers and produced incremental changes in classroom teaching, but has fallen short of producing the kind of major upgrading of the implemented curriculum that is the ultimate aim of standards-based reform. The major reason for limited change is that most schools and teachers take pieces and parts of reform models and merge these with existing practice, producing a layering of old and new" (p. 13) NISE's definition of "systemic change" is "change in teaching and learning . . . that leads to corresponding changes in student achievement on a scale that is both deep and broad" (p. 14), and Knapp's monograph is addressed to "which approaches to systemic reform might produce 'wholesale replacement' as opposed to 'selective replacement' of pieces of the curriculum."
Knapp's monograph was only one of nine papers written on equity and the implementation of systemic reform and national standards by the PASR Team as a result of their "broad survey of the major research issues in mathematics and science systemic reform" (p. 13). Other problems identified and addressed in PASR research papers are the tensions between practical problem solving and formal analysis, between existing knowledge valued by existing power structures and that valued by curriculum reform, and between specific curricula and assessments. In the area of equity, which cuts across all of NISE's programs, future research will be directed to "avoiding the twin perils of elitism and watering-down" (p. 19). "The PASR Team has shown that systemic change is fraught with tensions between deep learning and skill learning, between raising academic standards and serving all students equitably, and between public goals and educators' goals." (p. 20)
The work of the SESR Team follows upon that of the PASR Team. Using, the National Science Education Standards the Project 1061's Benchmarks for Science Literacy, NISE Fellow Okhee Lee of the University of Miami (Coral Gables, FL) has "synthesized the current views of science learning to develop an aggregated framework that can be used to structure assessment of science learning within a system" (p. 24). Future work of the SESR Team includes a book and a booklet based on "work completed in the first two years to design models for doing systemic evaluations" (p. 26).
An important question addressed by the PD Team is "How does professional development contribute to systemic reform in science and mathematics teaching and learning?" (p. 29) In addressing this question, they found what they refer to as a "disconnect" between preservice and inservice professional development. They attributed this "disconnect" to a tradition in which colleges provide preservice development and the schools provide inservice development and "little reason for colleges and schools to interact beyond the interfaces through which schools provided students for colleges and colleges provided teachers to schools" (p. 35). The PD Team concluded, however, that "preservice teacher education can no longer be regarded as a complete program" (p. 35) and advocated "more coherent relationships between schools and colleges" in which "professional education of science and mathematics teachers has been seen as the joint responsibility of colleges and schools" (p. 36).
The last category of NISE's research programs, College Level One, "was created in recognition of the importance of first-year postsecondary SMET courses as curriculum 'pressure points' that greatly influence student career trajectories and science literacy" (p. 38). In addition to addressing the cross-cutting theme of equity, the CL-1 Team has shared the interest of the PD team in Teacher Preparation. Mindful that "college courses . . . have not been designed to provide the kinds of tools and perspectives that [teachers] will require to become effective agents for enhancing SMET literacy in their own classrooms" (p. 40) and that "the research base for higher education SMET teaching and learning is modest compared to what is available at the precollege level" (p. 38), the CL-1 Team has "created a searchable database for postsecondary SMET research" (p. 38) and has investigated the role of cooperative learning, "because it appears to be a rapidly growing pedagogical approach employed in CL-1 SMET courses, yet relatively little is known about its effectiveness" (p. 38). Already, from a meta-analysis of the research in their database, they have found that "cooperative learning is more effective than traditional instruction in promoting academic achievement in science and mathematics, as reflected in a 0.54 mean effect size" (p. 39).
Dissemination Programs
NISE reports astounding success in both its dissemination programs. Its Interaction with Professional Audiences has centered on annual Forums (on Professional Development in 1996, and Systemic Reform in 1997, to be followed by College Level One in 1998), which have been so well attended that not all who applied to come could be accommodated. The centerpiece of their Communicating with Mass Audiences, The Why Files, has been "named one of the Top 100 sites on the World Wide Web" by PC Magazine. The basic Why Files "formula" is to "present SMET-related issues with skillfully and humorously written text, eye-catching graphics, time news photos, and strategic hot links to other Web sites, definitions and references" (p. 48). A new issue is added every two weeks, and HotWired says that "The Why Files explains the science behind the news with way more personality and punch than you'd dare hope for from a government-funded project." (p. 49) The URL for the Why Files is .
Organizational Process Programs
The organizational process programs relate more closely to other NISE programs than stand alone on their own, but their presence reflects the care with which NISE has sought to carry out its mission. Its Cognitive Studies of Interdisciplinary Collaboration have thus far focused on such collaboration within NISE, but plans are underway to extend these studies outside of NISE. The Formative Evaluation program is based on "organizational research . . . that participation in formative evalutation can significantly enhance the effectiveness with which an organization performs" (p. 57). The FE Team is also producing the Proceedings of the Second NISE Forum and will do the same for the Third Forum.
Although NISE's "OVERVIEW," unlike its Why Files, is NOT written "with more personality and punch than you'd dare hope for from a government-funded project" and in fact is quite littered with acronyms (see box), it appears that NISE is performing many useful functions toward implementing systemic reform of "SMET" teaching and learning -- in a role not unlike that of an ombudsman. In fact, if you have an information void in your plan to implement reforms in "SMET" education, they'll probably be able to help you. Contact them at NISE, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1025 West Johnson Street, Madison, WI 53706, (608)-263-9250, FAX: (608)-262-7428, e-mail niseinfo@macc.wisc.edu, URL: .
NISE Acronyms
NISE = National Institute for Science Education
SMET = Science, Mathematics, Engineering, and Technical
PASR = Policy Analysis of Systemic Reform
SESR = Strategies for Evaluating Systemic Reform
PD = Professional Development
CL-1 = College Level One
IPA = Interacting with Professional Audiences
CMA = Communicating with Mass Audiences
CSIC = Cognitive Studies of Interdisciplinary Collaboration
FE = Formative Evaluation
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