Volume IV: What works, what matters, what lasts

Books & Publications

Content Types

• How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School
  Bransford, John et al. National Academy Press, Washington DC 1999
  (This seminal NRC report explores "how learning actually changes the physical structure of the brain, how existing knowledge affects what people notice and how they learn; ...and the relationship of classroom learning and everyday settings of community and workplace.")

• PKAL Volume I- What works: Building natural science communities
  Undergraduate research experiences

• PKAL 2002 Report on Reports: Recommendations for Action in support of Undergraduate Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics
  Investing in Human Potential: Science and Engineering at the Crossroads
  See pages 6 & 7 of the Report on Reports.
  (We gain perspective by reading reports on reform efforts of the past decades. These visions and recommendations provide a firm foundation for future efforts to increase the diversity of STEM students. Institutions and departments should examine the concrete recommendations given here.)

• PKAL F21 reports and perspectives:
  Teaching demands versus research productivity
  – Keith Howard, Associate Professor of Biology, Department of Biology– Morehouse College
  – Monir H. Sharobeam, Associate Professor of Engineering Science, Department of Natural Sciences and Mathematics– Richard Stockton College of New Jersey
  From the Journal of College Science Teaching. May 2002. pp. 436-441.

• Thirty years of advising undergraduates in research
  From the Council on Undergraduate Research Quarterly. December 2003. pp. 85-87.
  (The Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR) is designed to encourage scholarly undergraduate research through meaningful student-faculty collaborations. CUR believes faculty must be active researchers in order to remain relevant in today's ever-changing world and retain students' attention in the classroom.)

• 2003 PKAL Assembly- Motivating students to pursue STEM careers:
  Preparing faculty members in the principles and practices of assessment of student learning
  – Janice E. Thornton, Associate Professor of Neuroscience and Biology- Oberlin College
  – Patricia Ann deWinstanley, Associate Professor of Psychology- Oberlin College
  Oberlin College institutionalized mechanisms for evaluating curricular innovations using a multi-faceted strategy, including: an assessment workshop, a student questionnaire, a faculty survey and an experimental study on how research experiences benefit students.

• Applying the Science of Learning to University Teaching and Beyond
  – Diane F. Halpern, Professor of Psychology & Director, Berger Institute for Work, Family & Children- Claremont McKenna College
  – Milton D. Hakel, Scholar in Industrial and Organizational Psychology- Bowling Green State University
  The editors begin, "It is sadly true that most of the way we teach and learn is uninformed by laboratory findings in human cognition." This book addresses the need for faculty to reform pedagogy based on recent findings in how students learn effectively. As a whole, the scientific community needs to reform higher education to maintain validity with today's students. For faculty and administrators interested in long-lasting pedagogical reform this is a must-read.

• Bio2010: Transforming Undergraduate Education for Future Research Biologists
  This National Research Council publication outlines the rationale for and approaches to transforming undergraduate biology departments to more directly reflect changes in how science is practiced.

• What works - A site for faculty thoughts
  Tomorrow's Professor
  This site provides a forum for today's faculty to explore thoughts on "tomorrow's academy," "tomorrow's graduate students," "tomorrow's academic careers," "tomorrow's teaching and learning," and "tomorrow's research." In addition, this site provides links to relevant articles.

• Evaluating, and Improving Undergraduate Teaching in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics offers a vision for systematic evaluation of teaching practices and academic programs, with recommendations to the various stakeholders in higher education about how to achieve change.
  

• What matters: A PKAL essay
  Creating something new: a leader's perspective
  - Adapted from PKAL’s Volume III - Structures for Science: A Handbook for Planning Facilities for Undergraduate Natural Science Communities, 1995.
  It is not individuals who determine curriculum or the institutional structure, it is the faculty and administrators as a whole community. When reforms are one-person projects, change is not sustainable.

• What matters: A PKAL essay
  Guidelines for effective collaborations
  - Adapted from PKAL’s Volume III - Structures for Science: A Handbook for Planning Facilities for Undergraduate Natural Science Communities, 1995.
  It is important when committees are established to tackle critical issues, there are common expectations within the group as to how the committee will function.

• What matters: A resource
  The essence of leadership in one minute's reading
  - A excerpt from an article published in The Minneapolis Star Tribune, June 30, 1987.
  The essence of leadership is distilled into eight attitudes that are indispensible to the management of complexity.

• What works - A PKAL essay
  Success in transforming the undergraduate learning environment
  - Jeanne L. Narum, Director - Project Kaleidoscope

• What makes a difference: Intelligence, Creativity, and Wisdom
  From: Robert J. Sternberg, "WICS: A Model of Leadership in Organizations," Academy of Management Learning and Education, December, 2003.
  

• Mapping the inventive mind
  Excerpted from a presentation by David Perkins, Professor of Cognitive Science- Harvard University at the National Academy of Sciences, April 23, 2004.
  

• Journal of Undergraduate Neuroscience Education – JUNE
  "JUNE is a new online journal for undergraduate neuroscience faculty that publishes peer-reviewed reports of innovations in undergraduate neuroscience education. JUNE serves as a mechanism for faculty to exchange information regarding topics such as laboratory exercises, funding opportunities, new media, curricular considerations, and teaching methods."

• Complex Environmental Systems - Synthesis for Earth, Life, and Society in the 21st Century, A 10-Year Outlook for the National Science Foundation
  "The report presents a ten-year outlook for environmental research and education and argues that we need to develop environmental synthesis to frame integrated interdisciplinary research questions and activities to merge data, approaches, and ideas across spatial, temporal, and societal scales."

• Bio2010 - Transforming Undergraduate Education for Future Research Biologists
  "Biological concepts and models are becoming more quantitative, and biological research has become critically dependent on concepts and methods drawn from other scientific disciplines. The connections between the biological sciences and the physical sciences, mathematics, and computer science are rapidly becoming deeper and more extensive. The ways that scientists communicate, interact, and collaborate are undergoing equally rapid and dramatic transformations..."