Presenter: Brian Reiser
The session will discuss how the NRC Science Education Framework and Next Generation Science Standards call for changes in science teaching and curriculum materials. The Framework and NGSS emphasize scientific and engineering practices, and learning around core explanatory ideas. Why practices and not inquiry? What do these practices mean for science teaching? We consider needed changes in teaching and curriculum materials to support science learning that engages in scientific practices to develop core explanatory ideas.
About the Presenter:
Brian J. Reiser, Professor, Learning Sciences, SESP, Northwestern University
Reiser’s research examines how to make scientific practices, such as argumentation, explanation, and modeling, meaningful and effective for classroom teachers and students. This design research investigates the cognitive and social interaction elements of learning environments supporting scientific practices and design principles for technology-infused curricula that embed science learning in investigations of contextualized data-rich problems. He leads the MoDeLS project (Modeling Designs for Learning Science) to develop an empirically based learning progression for the practice of scientific modeling, and BGuILE (Biology Guided Inquiry Learning Environments), developing software tools for supporting students in analyzing biological data and constructing explanations. Reiser is also on the leadership team for IQWST (Investigating and Questioning our World through Science and Technology), a collaboration with the University of Michigan developing a middle school project-based science curriculum. Reiser was a founding member of the first graduate program in learning sciences, created at Northwestern, and chaired the program from 1993, shortly after its inception, until 2001. He was co-principal investigator in the NSF Center for Curriculum Materials in Science, exploring the design and enactment of science curriculum materials, and served on the National Research Council’s panel authoring the report Taking Science to School and the editorial boards of Science Education and The Journal of the Learning Sciences. Reiser holds a BA in Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania, an MA in Psychology from New York University, and a PhD in Cognitive Science from Yale University.
