Shareholders BY SUSAN ROSENBERG


Ten years ago, Nobel-winning physicist Carl Wieman called for “using the tools of science to teach science,” and soon under graduate instruction was being transformed.


A summary in the Journal of Science Education and Technology shows that today’s best science pedagogies focus less on facts imparted by professors and more on students’ critical think- ing about concepts and contexts. By grappling with issues firsthand and from different angles, the study says, students gain “strategic knowledge”—the ability to problem-solve in a variety of situations.


“Skidmore has embraced this new science education,” says Karen Kellogg, environmental scientist and associate dean of the faculty. Rather than doing cookbook lab proj- ects, “students are posing novel questions and exploring them in unique ways,” she says. As President Philip Glotz - bach says, “The boundary between teaching and research is


permeable, and students must be able to work collaboratively with each other and with faculty members,” both in and out of the classroom and lab. “This has led us to understand that we could be so much more effective if we create more syner- gies by bringing every campus department that is engaged in physical or life sciences together in close proximity.” Skidmore’s planned Center for Integrated Sciences recog- nizes, and in fact aims to help lead, the active engagement and interconnection so central to 21st-century science. Nine science programs will make the move into the CIS, but they won’t occupy nine discrete areas. Some professors will set up in labs shared with faculty from other departments. Techni- cians will manage instrument suites for diverse user groups.


Ancillary Course Work Projects


Teaching Lab 1 Prep Lab Teaching Lab 2


18 SCOPE WINTER 2014


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