Bats

The Open Science* project centers on the development of five "open" approaches to the teaching of science.

1. Open-source materials are those that are freely shared. This is not only efficient, but it creates a culture of peer review of educational materials.

2. Open-network is an organizational model that encourages the participation of new members who are able to find ways to effectively engage in the development of scientific curriculum materials, as well as to participate in the use and evaluation of these materials. This model encourages participation of individuals regardless of their level of experience, geographic location, or academic stature.

3. Open-culture approaches the development and use of curriculum materials in ways that honor the cultural knowledge of all participants. In particular, this approach recognizes the special concerns of minority faculty and students who often see science as something alien to their heritage.

4. Open-classroom exploits the many opportunities to teach science in the home and community, rather than confining it to a formal classroom. This includes the use of homework exercise and self-guided field trips. It also extends to the formation of social networks and collaborative projects.

5. Open-technology is based on the adaptation and use of the latest technology that is typically found in the hands of students well before it becomes a formal part of the classroom. Many students are already experimenting with their devices, such as cell phones, digital cameras, digital video cameras, GPS navigation and tracking systems, mini game devices, PDAs, etc., changing them from their intended functions. Increasingly, cameras and cell phones are being developed with an open architecture that facilitates creative manipulation of the device so that it can be made to do new tasks.

* This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0840946.  Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

The following discussion lends clarity to the open concept model of curriculum development. 

Will McClatchey:

Philosophically, the open model for curriculum development relies upon two essential evolutionary elements: unconstrained development followed by critical selection of developed elements that are effective. These may be expressed within an ethnobotanical analogy: A farmer growing an orchard of trees may elect to manage them in two different ways. 1) The farmer may fertilize and water the trees and then prune whatever happens to grow, encouraging the good growth and cutting away the less desirable growth. Using this system the arborist is able to allow nature to freely experiment and generate diversity that is unexpected, sometimes undesirable, but sometimes very interesting and unique. This is more or less a version of natural selection involving humans as described by Darwin. Alternatively, a farmer may 2) selectively introduce into the orchard specific cuttings that are desired. The farmer will trim back most growth on the trees and graft on the cuttings, only promoting growth of the known desirable traits that are already known. This technique produces known results and is effective for producing a uniform, predictable crop.

If this project were about promotion of existing ideas, then the analogy that we would follow would be the later, we would use grafts that are known to work. However, this is a research network, so our analogy is to experiment with the wild growth and to invest our efforts in pruning rather than grafting. The roles of the PIs and other participants will be to “prune”/manage the unpredictable growth that happens within the network curriculum elements rather than to “graft” in content that we already know works. While we will be seeding the system with the content that we have already developed and plan to continue to develop in our on-going roles as educators, our roles in the network will be as pruning arborists.

 

Question:  The project describes products that "evolve without control by any one person or unit" which raises the concern that curation will be minimal or absent. A  lack of expert curation may lead to inaccurate information being passed to students who perceive it as accurate, and this can have long lasting and negative effects. How is expert curation incorporated into this open model?

 

Expert curation will be implemented in two fundamental ways. First, the initial course content that is loaded into the network will be that of the initial network participants. This currently includes faculty members from a variety of leading institutions in North America and these courses and instructors will set the initial standard. While we do not expect to develop a set of “gate keepers” that will regulate the posting of new materials, we do expect that as new content is loaded into the site that is below standard, that the members of the network will “prune it” out of the system through critique, improvement and marginalization via not interconnecting (not making connections to weak curriculum and pointing out in the discussion forum why it is weak.) Second, expert curation will take place as instructors attempt to use the curriculum that is in the network and provide evaluative feedback on its efficacy. Although the evaluations will be organized by instructors, the effectiveness will really be measured by students and instructors together what is actually being measured is the combination of the delivery-receipt of information.

 

The spirit of Open Source software lies not so much in the free availability of the software but the possibility of any programmer to freely improve on the software. Highly useful software will attract both users and developers. It is this synergistic combination of users and developers that feeds the momentum of the production wheel which then leads to further development and improvement of the software. In our proposed network, science curricula will be developed and distributed very much in the same style. The development process must remain transparent to network members and the public. In essence, the responsibility of overseeing the network must not rest solely on one or a few individuals but the collective effort of all members. New members joining the network need to have the sense that their participation is incrementally as important as members already in the network in order for them to have an incentive to participate. This will be possible through the system we are implementing because each and every participant who registers and therefore becomes a participant in the network is then able to make changes but is also then trackable and responsible for any changes that are made. The PIs, acting as police looking for “bad behavior” among the participants will remove privledges from any participant who becomes destructive in the network but will not block honest academic, scientific and related disagreements that are important for the advancement of knowledge.

Question: Who will be providing content? Will it be the PIs, educators, or students with cell phones? Or will it be all of the above?

The fact that digital information is now so readily available to anyone clearly signals a need to provide an avenue where information can be freely distributed and evaluated at the same time. Content providers can essentially become content reviewers and vice-versa. In the context of the current information explosion, there is a pressing need for educators to teach students to evaluate and filter inaccurate information. What better way to instruct these students on this important skill than having the students serve as content providers together with educators and researcher? Technically, ALL content are subject to critical review by anyone in the community. We should not assume that a text book is accurate because it was written by an “authority.” We should not assume that an instructor is correct because they are “an authority.” The sooner that students learn how to evaluate information and how to check it against a variety of other sources the better off that they will be. The rigor of passing critical reviews serves to remind students that they must exact the same high standard when evaluating information that are put out by other people on the internet. Most importantly, students are therefore taught that anyone can provide information on the internet but not everyone can provide accurate and meaningful information. For example, most students today use Wikipedia as a source of information. Only a few of them realize that they can go into Wikipedia and CHANGE the information that is displayed quite easily. Once they learn this fact it is shocking to them. Once they see that changes that they make are often cleaned up by other site users within a matter of hours, then they learn about the process of how modern information consensus is compiled. By looking behind the Wikipedia model and examining the history of a page, students can learn the role of experts and non-experts in wrestling with sometimes complicated and controversial issues.

 

Curriculum Development Overview

 

How is this different?

With this open science model, we’re creating a new paradigm of education for tomorrow’s students.  The purpose of this project is to create new curriculum and new ways of development that will keep the learning fresh, innovative and engaging to each generation of students.  The innovative piece to this project is the open philosophy that encourages everyone to contribute and uses an open-group evaluation model that continues to develop educational resources as they are used and shared through the network.

 

How might this work?

Two stages of content distribution:

Primary level- content ready to use; it has been evaluated and meets standards

Secondary level – new content uploaded into the system that needs to be evaluated

 

Two stages of curriculum development:

Curriculum modules – provide a standard for submission of lesson plans, references, integration of technology and assessment

Module evaluations – develop rubrics and other assessment tools to evaluate the effectiveness of the network system

 

How might you help?

Eight development teams are responsible for one aspect of the network function. Please find the team that best suits your interests and skills. Everyone is needed to help with evaluating the curriculum.

 

·         Primary information distribution:  Primary information is content that is well-organized and has been evaluated.  This team will organize mechanisms for using the Internet to distribute the content within the Network and deliver curriculum resources.

·         Primary information distribution evaluation: This team will evaluate effectiveness of the Internet system for delivery of content to various types of users and make recommendations for improvements.

 

·         Secondary information distribution: Secondary information is content and curricula that are considered “work in progress.”  This team will organize a confidential weblog structure and other mechanisms for distribution of lessons learned and reported by individual users of the Network.  This team will also develop tools for the use of educators where confidentiality is required by users of curriculum.

·         Secondary information evaluation: A team will evaluate the process by which the weblog and other mechanisms that are developed are functioning.

 

·         Curriculum module production: A team will organize curriculum already developed by the participants and prioritize which elements should be developed into new on-line learning modules.

·         Curriculum module evaluation: A team will evaluate the delivery of the on-line modules, the content, and the creativity but not the effectiveness.

 

·         Module evaluation production: A team will organize learning and teaching success rubrics for each learning module to serve as measures of success. A variety of pre- and post- measures should be developed beyond examinations that reflect the creativity of ethnobiology (cultural and biological diversity).

·         Module evaluation evaluation: The term ‘evaluation evaluation’ literally means assessment of the evaluation system. A team will evaluate rubrics and measures of outcomes in order to improve learning and teaching success.

 

What’s your charge?

            Each team is responsible for being creative, OPEN minded and forward thinking            as you create a self perpetuating system that will thrive beyond the duration of          this grant.

            Specifically, teams need to:

-         establish objectives

-         set up division of responsibilities

-         action plan

-         timetable

 

Who’s leading the teams?

 

Primary Information distribution:

1) system developmentKim Bridges

2) system evaluation                  Rainer Bussmann

 

Secondary Information Distribution

1) system developmentWill McClatchey

2) system evaluation                  Rick Stepp

 

Curriculum module development

1) module production                Sunshine Brosi

2) module evaluation                 Gail Wagner

 

Module Evaluation

1) evaluation production            Jeanine Pfeiffer

2) evaluation evaluationOutside source