Pre-Service Education Working Group
Notes from April 3, 2008 PSEWG Telecon

Present:

Pam Asti
Jennifer Grier
Jim Lochner
Rick Pomeroy
Greg Schultz
Stephanie Shipp
Christine Shupla
Stephanie Slater
Tim Slater
Debra Stork
Bill Waller

Discussion began with an overview of the Langley Pre-Service Conference, by Jennifer.  She assisted in judging the science poster competition, which takes all day; she’s participated as a judge for three years and reports that the students are increasing their participation in the poster competition yearly; they had around 70 this year.

There was a question as to the directions of this conference; we will endeavor to invite conference organizers to a future PSEWG teleconference to discuss their plans and goals for this program.

Pam spoke about NACCTEP; a number of participants are looking for classroom strategies.  NACCTEP participants were interested in additional Earth and Space Science information for the 2009 Reno conference; conference organizers are adding additional STEM strand(s) particularly on innovative programs.  NACCTEP’s new Executive Director begins May 1st and will be appraised of their relationship with our working group.

Jennifer also spoke about the session she and Denise held at NACCTEP; there were only a few people at the session but they were able to conduct in-depth discussions on what the participants would like the 2009 Faculty Institutes at NACCTEP to include; responses included pedagogy (inquiry), scientists, and content—they want a bit of everything.  Denise has the NACCTEP report that Jennifer prepared.

We then discussed plans for the AAS/ASP conference this June, and upcoming plans to elevate the interest in pre-service for 2009.

There was some discussion around the future of the Pre-Service Education Working groups; the NASA Science Mission Directorate’s education forums are funded through the end of 2008, which can help to fund the teleconferences. 

Final discussions focused on the Menu of Opportunities for Scientist Involvement in Pre-Service, specific to the topic on adapting existing resources for pre-service use.

The general feeling was that not much is specifically designed for pre-service, however, those materials that meet best-practices for educational use meet most of the pre-service needs as well.  Changes and additions include:

  • Increase in size the first bullet, about the need for scientists to work in collaboration with educators for all of these topics
  • Provide information tied to the home page on why pre-service is important and the purpose of each subject
  • Making materials easy to find is one of the key issues that is unresolved for all NASA materials in general; in a recent survey, Janelle and Tim learned that most teachers are not using DLESE, while MyNASAData is one of the more used sites for teachers who use NASA materials.

Christine has implemented some of the discussed changes and is working with staff at Space Telescope Science Institute to continue adding links and materials to the Menu of Opportunities.

We proposed the following schedule for PSEWG teleconferences for the remaining months of 2008 on the first Thursday at 3pm Eastern Time:

June 5
July 3
August 7
September 4
October 2
November 6
December 4