The annual convention for the American Association for the Advancement of Science, which starts in Washington, D.C., today, is usually pretty geared toward hard-core physics, virology, chemistry and the like. This year it’s been a welcome surprise to find there’s a strong focus on using research to improve learning. AAAS President Alice S. Huang plans to dedicate part of her keynote address to open the conference tonight on ways to encourage K-12 students to get and stay interested in science, technology, engineering, and math fields, and you can find more about the specifics of her plans over at Curriculum Matters.
Yet at a small press meeting with Ms. Huang this morning, I was particularly struck by her focus on improving research into pre-service teacher education generally. “It’s clear that in one particular area—that is training teachers, teacher schools, teacher colleges—it’s clear that there we have not done enough to attract the best of our young to enter teaching and also to provide them support while they are teachers out in the field.”
This year’s AAAS will highlight new research into moving successful lab results into actual classrooms; leveraging the cognitive strengths of multilingual students; using technology to help teachers stay up-to-date in their fields; and more. I’ll be blogging the convention, so please stop by if you are here.