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This document reports on a workshop entitled "Articulation, Equity, and Literacy Issues" hosted by the College Level One (CL-1) project of the National Institute for Science Education (NISE). CL-1 identifies important issues in undergraduate education and determines the best strategies for addressing them. Workshop discussions examine curriculum content and delivery practices within disciplines and explore the cross-cutting themes of articulation, equity, and literacy. The CL-1 team answers the following questions: (1) What are the most strategically valuable research questions?; (2) What are the most appropriate research methodologies?; (3) What is the original mix of research expertise?; and (4) What other considerations might there be? (Author/KHR)

Teacher preparation in science and mathematics will be best served by improvements both in the pedagogy and content of the undergraduate science and mathematics courses required of future teachers and in the reform of required science and mathematics methods courses. In a review of the history and politics of teacher education, the paper underscores the twin goals of achieving program coherence and higher standards. It compares the place of mathematics education in mathematics departments with that of science education in science departments and recommends the replacement of bare bones methods courses with those combining pedagogy and content. (Contains 23 references.) (Author/YDS)

This book explains why so few efforts at reforming science education are successful, and why it is that the 300 studies on the subject published over the past decade have done little more than add to a growing body of literature. The book describes programs which are successful in terms of faculty accomplishments, students graduated and entering advanced study or professional workplace, and showing evidence of high morale among both faculty and undergraduates. Common elements in many of these programs are abandonment of an almost exclusive emphasis on problem solving and modification of the lecture format to permit teaching of underlying concepts. Other variations in traditional introductory physics and chemistry courses are aimed at persuading those simply fulfilling graduation requirements to major in science; at bringing minority students into the fold; or at combining physics or various sub-fields of chemistry in different ways to promote better understanding. Harvard's "chem-phys," is provided as an example of such a combination, but also as a case study of how innovation can be stymied by a lack of university-wide change. The author uses methods of ethnography in reporting what makes individual programs interesting, what their faculty are doing, and what program participants are thinking. (PR)

Argues that education reform cannot be limited to what goes on in the classroom. Contends that innovation does not inevitably lead to change until and unless the innovators take back control over factors exogenous to the classroom, factors such as pre-college selection, outside testing, accreditation requirements, and class size. (Author/WRM)

Discusses innovations in testing methods in college-level science. Highlights previous efforts at reform, new thinking, new practices, and computer-generated exams and scoring systems. Reports on focus group interviews that explore student recollections of in-class examinations in college-level science. (24 references) (JRH)

The predicted shortage of new scientists and engineers and the actual situation are compared, and the need to make changes in the training and flow of appropriately trained graduates is discussed. The scientific community is urged to reexamine how what it does fits into the complex of current and future social needs. (MSE)

To solve the twin problems of a projected shortfall of science workers and general science illiteracy in the United States, many educators have proposed a massive restructuring of the curriculum and pedagogy of elementary and secondary school science. This resarch suggests that science eudcators focus on such issues as course design, teaching and curriculum as well as on recruitment, rewards, and opportunities in science. The goal would be to attract that group of able students who can do science, but select other options dubbed the "second tier." By getting to know these students and finding ways to reverse their migration from science to other disciplines, it should be possible to stem the massive loss of potential science workers that occurs during the college years. To explain reasons for this "second tier" students, six nonscience graduate students and one professor were paid to seriously audit for one semester an introductory physics or chemistry course. Each participant kept a record of his or her reactions to the course (e.g., comments about an instructor's approach, content of course, etc.). To determine if these accounts were typical, data from the "Concentration Choice Study 1978-1983" of 300 Harvard-Radcliffe students were studied. The study focused particularly on male-female differences and science-nonscience predictors. Analysis of the interview data revealed that for both men and women, enjoying a science course more than all other freshmen courses was a significant predictor of their decision to major in science. A final synthesis of the research findings of these studies is provided. (CW)