Pathfinder Science L.L.C.
Steven B. Case
Center for Science Education, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 66045
Pathfinder Science L.L.C. is an emerging private, science education company. It is emerging from the KanCRN Collaborative Research Network, a Technology Innovation Challenge grant from the U.S. Department of Education (1997). The Pathfinder research community uses technology to facilitate student work (K-18) that fulfills the vision of the National effort to reform science, geography and technology education. Supported by funding, the research community building process began in October of 1997 with fifteen area schools. The community show rapid growth and significant results in student learning during funding. At the end of funding, a technology transfer was negotiated with the University of Kansas to sustain this international collaboration that now involves 1300 classrooms in thirty countries.
Sustaining Programs: the Bottom Line is the Bottom Line
There are a number of innovative, highly effective education programs that are developed with funding from the Federal Government. A critical question that all Principal Investigators must address is what happens to the program with sponsored funding ends. This question is best addressed at the time the proposal is written however the normal course of events is that it is rarely considered until the end of funding date approaches.
The grant funding allows a proof of concept. The end of funding is a move from proof of concept to building a solid foundation that allows for ongoing support. There is an interesting range of choices on for sustaining a sponsored program beyond the initial funding however they are revolving around revenue. All programs require people and these people need to be paid for their work. There are additional cost including space and the usual operating costs. Programs can be institutionalization within a college or University but in this case money to continue support must come from the general budget. A program that has been running on a budget of $300,000 to over a million dollars a year is difficult for an institution to incorporate into a general budget. The question again will return to revenue generated by the program. Other choices include the continued to pursuit of sponsored funding, for developing a discrete business based around the program. This could be a not-for-profit or a for profit business. All of the choices require the application of a business model and full knowledge of how often businesses fail. For years, the quick answer to that question was that four out of five new businesses fail within the first five years. The difference between success and failure is not a vision or the program, but the ability to execute an idea.
Pathfinder Science L.L.C. is an emerging science education company. It is a technology spin-off company of University of Kansas and was developed to sustain the KanCRN Collaborative Research Network, a Technology Innovation Challenge grant from the U.S. Department of Education (1997). The choice was made to develop this program into a private Limited Liability Corporation that applies a strict business model to the program. Pathfinder Science has created a research environment in which students and teachers have the necessary tools to construct learning environment based around the National Standards for Science Education [1]. Using a collaborative research community that includes researchers, community mentors, teachers, and students, Pathfinder Science uses technology to facilitate the implementation of these standards-based teaching principles. The research community building process began in October of 1997 and is now an international collaboration, involving over 1300 schools in 30 countries with an additional 8000 citizen scientists.
World-Wide Distribution of Pathfinder Science Schools
The Pathfinder community use technology to facilitate student work to fulfill the vision of the national efforts to reform science, geography, and technology education. Pathfinder Science cultivates and celebrates the intellectual, imaginative and humanitarian promise of every learner through mutual respect, embracing diversity, and inspiring a passion for learning about the material world through science. Growing from a foundation of United States National Science Education Standards [1] and the Benchmarks for Science Literacy [2] which both call for "doing science" and "Science for All". Although simple in concept, these two phrases constitute a significant change in the way science is taught. More specifically, the Standards documents call for placing an emphasis on the classroom environment by choosing worthwhile scientific tasks, facilitating classroom discourse, and recognizing a need to increase student’s knowledge and beliefs about science. Since the publication of the National Science Education Standards, science education reform efforts have stressed that developing students' understanding of the process of science is an objective of all high quality science instruction. The National Science Education Standards state that, "Science as inquiry is basic to science education and a controlling principle in the ultimate organization and selection of students' activities” ([1], p. 105). This emphasis requires a significant and unproven change in classroom instruction.
Using Project Based Learning, PBL, curriculum model to develop scientific inquiry is one way to organize the Standard’s vision within a science classroom. Scaffolding student learning around this vision requires the use of a specific process structure, a roadmap to science process, for both students and teachers. Using this process model to organize a collaborative research network has supported changes in instructional behavior and resulted in improvement of student performance. This is learning science knowledge through the context of engaging in science process.
Project based learning is instruction organized around a number of activities that lead to the production of a product. The September 1918 Teacher College Record published an article called, “The Project Method” [3], in which William Kilpatrick develops a definition for project based learning. Even then he states, “the concept is not in fact newly born.” Kilpatrick, through his advocacy of the project method, launched one of the most successful implementation efforts of PBL by starting curriculum development with student interests, then bringing in subject matter incrementally as it was relevant to pursing those interests. For Kilpatrick [3]“purposing, the expression of the child’s own interest in pursuing some activity, remained the essential first step in the curriculum-making process.” Even with this fairly long history as an instructional technique it has never been widely implemented.
Recent research in cognitive psychology and learning tend to support Kilpatrick’s opinion about the efficacy of this teaching technique. The National Research Council book, “How People Learn” is a synthesis of cognitive science research indicates that “These investigations will provide fertile ground where their students can transfer their learning to multiple contexts. Learning that only occurs in a single context will become inert except within that context.” [4] The Northwest Regional Lab [5] embraces this notion of constructivist learning theory by stating that “Project-based learning engages students in complex, real-world issues and asks them to acquire and apply skills and knowledge in a variety of contexts.” The National Research Council reinforces this connection to constructivism stating, “Problem-centered learning allows many experiences and prior knowledge to come into play as students develop new constructs.” [4]
The Pathfinder Science community is creating a dynamic demonstration that doing science is a better way of learning science. Clear organization of science process is necessary to guide student’s work, to facilitate communication among participants, and to allow students and teachers a conceptual frame for the reflection and discussion of research process. The organizing scaffold for student scientific inquiry within a Pathfinder Science project is a modified Vee-diagram.
Modified Vee-diagram guiding student scientific inquiry
The Vee Process Model is intended to serve as a useful graphical guide or roadmap for students, to the process of science. It also assists communication among the research partners. Using the graphic above creates a point of communication that allows a scaffold for student learning that gives direction and support to novice researchers. Students can understand where they are in the process and how to continue to make progress. For teachers, the Vee Process Model is serves as a graphical guide for explicit instruction about the research process. The graphic provides a structure to point at and discuss process, a focal point for communication, and is a useful organization structure for technology integration into curriculum.
The Pathfinder Science community uses technology to facilitate communication between the participants through the Pathfinder Science web site http://pathfinderscience.org . The web site includes threaded discussion areas, organizing protocols, data submission, retrieval from interactive databases, background information on the research areas and a publication area for students to submit their own research work. In addition several active listservs for the teachers and project special interest groups have been established to assist communication. Many teachers begin their participation in Pathfinder Science by "lurking" on the listserv, following the messages, and developing ideas. Student data collection for the various projects also occurs with the assistance of technology. This includes the use of probeware, digital cameras, sound capture, and data entry to centralized databases. The data is analyzed with additional tools that include Geographic Information Systems, Systems Modeling technologies, spreadsheets and statistical applications. In addition the website also allows the publication, discussion, and evaluation of student research work. Improved web design and better interactivity with the databases has made a dramatic improvement communication occurring through the web.
Students as Decision Makers
In the discussion, presentation and publication of the research, students are encouraged to think about how they should act/react on the knowledge generated in the research. Theses discussions occur online and at a research congress held in the spring. In the discussions and at the conference, student research activity is followed by the development of an action plan based on the research data. Students explore science process and how the interaction of science research and social science problem-solving can function. The goal is to develop decision-makers that know how to act on information, rather than just activists who may be reacting based on emotion.
An important component to fulfilling the vision of Pathfinder Science has been the professional development and support of teachers involved in the project. Pathfinder Science approaches professional development from three areas of performance, technology skills, science content knowledge, and pedagogy - the implementation of a research-based classroom. Pathfinder Science is using several models of professional development that include immersing teachers in a research environment, short technology skill sessions, project development, school year long project development classes, presentations, and involving teachers and students working in common sessions to acquire new skills and knowledge.
The development of a business plan for the Pathfinder Science project meant that the management and organization had to be set up. The potential products had to be defined. This included Teacher Professional Development and Education Outreach for research proposal, student services including the research forum, project sponsorships and development of new applications of technology to science curriculum. The definition of products was followed by the development of a marketing plan, a growth plan and a financial plan. The business plan is the key to success for sustaining this program long term.
Pathfinder Science is an innovative, highly effective education program that began developed through federal funding. That initial funding ended October 1st, 2002 and since that time Pathfinder Science has been supporting the infrastructure and continued development through a private business model.
Bio
Steven B. Case is a Research Assistant Professor at the University of Kansas Center for Science Education. An award winning biology and student naturalist teacher for 20 years, Dr. Case has also taught graduate and undergraduate class at the University of Kansas. In addition to teaching activities, he has maintained a research agenda in biology ranging from habitat management of tallgrass prairie to protein engineering and in education he is currently explore learning and spatial analysis.
References
[1] National Research Council. (1996) National Science Education Standards. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
[2] American Association for the Advancement of Science, (1993). Benchmarks for Science Literacy, New York, New York, Oxford University Press
[3] Kilpatrick, W. H. (1918). The project method. New York: Columbia University Teachers College.
[4]National Research Council. (1999) How People Learn. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
[5]Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory. (1997). Integrated workplace learning
project. Portland, OR: NWREL Education and Work Program.