Ponderings Of Where Science Education Should Go - Chemical ...

Just as a forefront, I don't want to make myself out to be an expert in the educational studies; these are merely my observations and thoughts of where I believe we should be heading with our public elementary and high schools.

A step back from memorization

A key part in education right now is the preparation for standardized tests, to reshape a student to be able to answer predictive questions, selecting students who aren't well rounded, but excel solely in this category, while leaving their creativity behind. This method doesn't teach children to ask questions because they soon realize that there is only one right answer, where in the real world a person needs to ask themselves questions in order to problem solve, or to see a problem all together. I can't tell you the number of times I have heard an arts student say that they didn't like science because there was only one right answer, and that they preferred to have an objective look on their topics. But this here, is the beauty of science; anyone can disprove anything that is considered ?true? with sufficient evidence, creating a paradox in how we test the subject. If education can step back from the emphasized learning of knowledge and spend more time exploring the beauty of the scientific method, people won't be as afraid of science. I'm not necessarily saying that I think everyone should go into the sciences because of this, but people who are in other fields shouldn't have a fear of it.

In line with this, there may also be a problem with this method for the upcoming generation who are surrounded with more and more electronic gadgets connected to all human information. With an increasing dependence on technology, the need of memorizing small details diminishes proportional to the easiness of accessing the information [1]. In fact, it has been proven that if the information is easily accessed, our mind will refrain from storing it in our long term memory. From this, we may see a change with our next generation in their ability to hold long term memories of small facts. Because of this, we need to push for a stronger investment in the creativity and imagination of students. It was Einstein who stated that "Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world?.

Consequences of the current education system

One key result of this is the fact that 3rd year genetics is considered to be one of the toughest courses for biology undergraduates, but for other majors such as mathematics, physics, and chemistry it seems easier because of their problem solving experience. Up to that point in university biology students are made to only know memorization as the medium of education. They aren't made to problem solve, create, or learn the scientific method until later in their degree; all they are doing is building up their knowledge to be able to problem solve later. As much as this method has worked for years and years, I believe that we can do better in educating students so that when they do get to their first genetics class, they have the problem solving skills to be able to excel in the course.

As have just finished my undergrad, i have witnessed a slew of grad students who eagerly boast in their academic excellence, while in their T.A. duties saying things such as "Wow, you don't know that", and refuse to teach an elemental concept. This power trip blocks the process of education; being in an employee of an academic institute, they are there to help educate and build the body of science, but instead think selfishly in looking at their academic achievements. They are the kind of people who were bred out of this academic competition that exists in a capitalistic society, a concept of every man/woman for themselves, only yielding the best of the best. But these people fail to see what science really is. They fail to see that it is a body of knowledge that is dependent of everyone working as a whole.

Ending Comments

It will be tough to be subjective through a land of no standardized tests, creating a lot of issues in how to test the mass number of students without multiple choice. The recourses to mark thousands of objective tests at a time are just not here unless we can find a testing method in the future that both appeases this method along with the practicality of marking.

I'm not necessarily saying that we should put all of our teaching into the creativity process because we will still need to have memorized a great deal to get anywhere in the scientific world. Our brains rely on connections to get anywhere, which requires us to have this knowledge in our memory. We need to see the comparisons that the computers are unable to see, this also being known as human intuition.

References
[1]Sparrow, Betsy, Jenny Liu, and Daniel Wegner. "Google Effects on Memory: Cognitive Consequences of Having Information at Our Fingertips."?Science333.6043 (2011): 776-778.

Source: http://www.reactionoftheday.com/2013/04/ponderings-of-where-science-education.html

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