It’s not who you know, but what you know

• "Companies are asking for young adults who have applied skills in communication, leadership, teamwork, and problem solving.” Graham Cochran, keblog.osu.edu

• “. . . Today’s high-performance job market requires graduates to be proficient in such cross-functional skills and attributes as leadership, team-work, problem solving, and communications.” Building a Nation of Learners (Business-Higher Education Forum, 2003)

• It’s easy to educate for the routine and hard to educate for the novel.” Jonathan Rosenberg, Senior VP, Product Management, Google (Google Blog, 2008)

• It’s not who you know, but what you know.

• But are you prepared?

• U.S. 17th in science, 25th in math– Program for International Student

Assessment, 2006 (Washington Post, 2007)

• We teach as we were taught, not as we were taught to teach.

Fear and Loathing in Classrooms

Use technology to support, expand, transform

Inform

Scaffold

Practice

Simulations can be used to generate and test hypotheses

Who Needs Five Years in Trinidad?

Or Tens of Thousands of Dollars of Equipment?

Order matters (Akan, 2002). Simulations effective prior to

instruction

Focus on Theory

Not a Crutch

Major in Learning

--Jonathan Rosenberg, Google, 2008

Resources and References• Simulations:

– Virtual dragons: (1998) www.genscope.concord.org– Owl pellets: (2004) www.kidwings.com/owlpellets– Evolution: (2001) www.pbs.org/evolution– Package Drop: (1994) dept.physics.upenn.edu/courses/gladney/mathphys

• References:– Akpan, J. (2002). Which comes first: Computer simulation of dissection or a traditional laboratory

practical method of dissection, Electronic Journal of Science Education, 6.– Downes, S. (2005). Understanding PISA. Turkish Online Journal of Distance Education, 6.– Glod, M. (2007). U.S. teens trail peers around world on math-science test, The Washington Post,

pA07.– Gokhale, A. (1996). Effectiveness of computer simulation for enchancing higher order thinking, JITE,

33(4).– Jarrett, O. S. (1999). Science interest and confidence among preservice elementary teachers.

Journal of Elementary Science Education, 11(1), 47-57.– Kelly, J. (2000). Rethinking the elementary science methods course: A case for content, pedagogy,

and informal science education. International Journal of Science Education, 22(7), 755-777– Rosenberg, J. (2008). Our googley advice to students: Major in learning, Official Google Blog,

retrieved from http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/07/our-googley-advice-to-students-major-in.html– Sahin, S. (2006). Computer simulations in science education: Implications for distance education.

Turkish Online Journal of Distance Education, 7.– http://users.hal-pc.org/~clement/Exploration.html