Scientific Knowledge Survey

The keynote speaker at the Parkland Workshop was Dr. Ed Nuhfer who is the Director of Faculty Development and a Geology Professor at Cal State University - Channel Islands.  Dr. Nuhfer gave a talk entitled “Conceptual Approaches to Informed Design of Successful Science Courses”.  It was pretty eye-opening – not just for those teaching online!  I have his powerpoint presentation if you wish to learn more about the surveys he and his colleagues have come up with to measure science knowledge.

For a great case study of the Knowledge Survey check out this link.

http://elixr.merlot.org/assessment-evaluation/knowledge-surveys/knowledge-surveys2

And here is a link to the slides of his section on Designing a Science Literacy Concept Inventory (last slide shows only preliminary results, but I think it is disheartening to see that freshmen do as well as seniors).


Some important points that I do not want to forget:

•  course outcomes (as presented in the Knowledge Survey) needs to be organized in the order of course presentation - this is especially important in online courses.
• Students often view courses as hoops that they have to jump through.  Our goal needs to be to to offer courses that together form a framework for reasoning.