In order to make innovative curriculum materials more accessible to instructors, a set of teaching, learning, and assessment resources have been created to implement more student-centered pedagogy for many topics in an introductory materials course. The resource development has been based on major principles for effective learning described in the book, How People Learn. The book states that, for more effective teaching and learning, instructors need pay attention to three major principles. One is that they should be aware of students’ prior knowledge and experience and misconceptions in order to inform classroom instruction and materials. As such, we have created tools to assess prior knowledge including the Materials Concept Inventory and Pre-Post Topical Concept Question Sets. Eliciting such information is critical in informing creation of innovative and misconception-informed teaching materials. A second principle is that instructors should create opportunities for student engagement with one another in order to promote conceptual change with deeper content understanding. This will help students build a conceptual framework that facilitates recall and transfer of concepts to new applications. As such, we have created visually-rich, contextualized content to promote student interest and link abstract concepts to concrete applications. The constructivist materials and activities that have been created include: Misconception-Informed Mini-Lecture Slide Sets, topical concept-context maps, a variety of classroom engagement activities, and homework that includes just-in-time preview problems to prepare students for the next class. A third principle is that instructors should promote student reflection so they become more metacognitive learners who can develop their own expertise by defining learning goals and monitoring their own progress. This need was addressed with a Daily Reflection Points sheet that requested students to write down their own class Points of Interest, Muddiness, and Learning. Most of these resources are available on the web at http://concept.asu.edu/. Assessment results showed significant gains on specific course topics using the innovative materials and an increase in persistence of students completing the class that rose from 85% to 95% compared with earlier lecture-based classes.

We, as education outreach providers at a research center, believe research scientists and engineers have much to contribute to science education. Our job is to design programs that allow our faculty and students to share their expertise and their stories to positively impact student learning and attitudes towards STEM fields. Is it possible to show that middle school students’ interaction with scientists and engineers makes a positive difference in only one day? The National Science Foundation funded Princeton Center for Complex Materials (PCCM), in partnership with MRS and NOVA, held a large-scale, one-day event for middle school students on January 27, 2011. This study measures the impact of that engagement on the students’ attitudes, contributing to their general attitude towards science and scientists that will ultimately determine their career choices later in life. Among other methods, focus group interviews and pre- and post-event attitude surveys were conducted and analyzed to evaluate the impact of the program.

Being a dedicated and enthusiastic high school science teacher is not enough to successfully prepare our children to take on the challenges of the 21st century and live up to its potential. We need high quality professional development opportunities in order to enrich our subject knowledge and teaching skills and reflect these skills in our craft. The Glenn Commission report, released ten years ago, details goals and associated action strategies included addressing professional development needs in order to deliver high-quality teaching as well as providing for teachers to engage in common study. We typically must scrutinize long lists of potential development opportunities to weigh the value of the program against the commitment of time and likelihood that intent of the training can be implemented. Beyond the training comes the quest for resources necessary for implementation and support to sustain the intent once new ideas and skills are brought back to school. Too often do teachers get their batteries charged from a professional development experience only to return to school where they become challenged to employ new skills or ideas and become further discouraged if there is no sustained support from the professional development sponsor. The best value-added programs that I have experienced are those where professional relationships can be forged through a significant and meaningful experience. Through these relationships, support networks can be established to help sustain knowledge and initiatives to provide a world-class education for our children.

I have had the excellent fortune to experience a top quality professional development program at the Princeton Center for Complex Materials (PCCM), a Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC). My experience with the PCCM programs has demonstrated to me how a truly effective program can change lives. Over the past six consecutive summers I have gained invaluable experience starting with the Research Experience for Teachers (RET) program and subsequent involvement with PUMA and other PCCM programs that have provided me with the necessary resources to improve my teaching skills, depth of knowledge in my discipline and enable me to sustain a higher quality science program at my school. Through the RET program, I engaged directly with professors for two consecutive summers who were enthusiastic about helping improve my teaching skills and supportive of my pursuit to improve the science program at my school. This experience has led to the development of two new courses I have been able to offer for the past four years in Chemistry and Materials Science designed to engage students through hands on experiences. It was this experience that became the catalyst for me to further collaborate with local industry professionals who joined my cause and also helped in the development of one of the two new courses. Through this short paper, I will expand on my professional development experiences over the past six years to demonstrate how others can maximize opportunities provided by MRSEC educational outreach programs.

During the decade 2000 to 2009, the diversity trends for bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees and faculty underwent very different changes in the number and fraction of women represented compared to men in the field of materials science and engineering (MSE). Although the number and fraction of women increased substantially in graduate programs and within faculties, the fraction of women receiving bachelor’s of science degrees in engineering (BSE) in this field was significantly lower in 2009 than in 2000. In contrast with gender, the outcomes for diversity in terms of underrepresented minorities (URMs) across the decade are more disappointing. The potential implications are discussed with respect to ongoing limited degree attainment of URMs in many engineering and science disciplines

The Princeton Center for Complex Materials (PCCM) joined the PBS NOVA/MRS Making Stuff coalition and created a program to inspire middle school students and their teachers about materials science during exciting large programs at Princeton University and multiple pre and post events. As a National Science Foundation funded Materials Research Science and Engineering Center, it is part of PCCM’s mission to inspire and educate school children, teachers and the public about STEM and materials science. Research shows that it is critical to excite students at a young age and maintain that excitement, and without that these, students are two to three times less likely to have any interest in science and engineering and pursue science careers as adults. The Making Stuff TV series offered a great teachable moment in materials science for students and teachers alike. The four episodes, Stronger, Smaller, Smarter and Cleaner aired in January and February, 2011. Our complementary education program helped promote the viewership of the Making Stuff series in the region, and the NOVA episodes helped us by priming the teachers and students to learn more about materials science research conducted at Princeton University. The Making Stuff coalition events we conducted were designed to have the maximum positive impact on students’ attitudes towards science and scientists, in general, and materials scientists and engineers, specifically. Each and every student had an opportunity to interact with dozens of scientists and engineers, in the lab, at table demonstrations and lecture presentations. As an ongoing MRSEC education and outreach program we have developed many successful educational partnerships to increase our impact. Plus, through years of successful education programs and the participation of our materials scientists and engineers, we have cultivated great trust in the schools and local community. The schools eagerly joined as partners in the program to bring their students to the event. Teachers from those partner schools actively participated in associated professional development programs conducted by education staff and PCCM professors before and after the big event. Included were presentations by MRSEC members and the partners from Princeton Institute for the Science and Technology of Materials (PRISM), Princeton University’s chemistry department, DOE funded centers PP-SOC and PPPL, Liberty Science Center, Franklin Institute, our PBS partner NJN and our many school district partners.

During summers 2009 and 2010, the Renewable Energy Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (REMRSEC) at the Colorado School of Mines (CSM) successfully piloted a 10-week Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program that addressed fundamental materials issues related to the science and technology of renewable energy. In January 2011, the National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded CSM a three-year grant to establish an REU Site that will strengthen our recruiting of women, underrepresented minorities, and persons with disabilities in research. This paper describes the features of these pilot programs and outlines the nature of our 2011 REU.

The U. S. Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory in Ames, Iowa was a coalition partner for outreach activities connected with NOVA’s Making Stuff television series on PBS. Volunteers affiliated with the Ames Laboratory and Iowa State University, with backgrounds in materials science, took part in activities including a science-themed Family Night at a local mall, Science Cafés at the Science Center of Iowa, teacher workshops, demonstrations at science nights in elementary and middle schools, and various other events. We describe a selection of the activities and present a summary of their outcomes and extent of their impact on Ames, Des Moines and the surrounding communities in Iowa.

In Part 2, results of a volunteer attitude survey are presented, which shed some light on the volunteer experience and show how the volunteers’ participation in outreach activities has affected their views of materials education.

The true nature of scientific research, often neglected in science education and pre-service teacher training, is critical to student conceptual understanding of how science works. Many education students leave school with the naive view that science is a collection of facts rather than a dynamic process of inquiring into nature. The ASU Math and Science Teaching Fellows (MSTF) program gives in-service math and science teachers an opportunity to experience scientific research by immersion in active research groups in state-of-the-art laboratories. With a better understanding of what science looks like in actual research laboratories, these teachers implement direct instruction in the Nature of Science in their classrooms. Research that was conducted by teachers in a nanoscience laboratory and how they plan to implement their experiences into their high school classes will be presented.

More than 100 science and mathematics teachers have participated in the ASU Math and Science Teaching Fellows program for summers in 2007-2010 at Arizona State University. The goal of the program was to expose the teachers to the real world of science and help them transfer the experience into the classroom. The teachers spend the mornings in small groups in assigned research laboratories and afternoons in whole group interactive sessions. During the afternoon sessions the teachers worked on a poster presentation and a classroom unit integrating the research experience. The present study focuses on the impact of the research experiences on the teachers’ classrooms and the differences between a larger and longer program (37 teachers for 5 weeks in 2009) and a smaller and shorter program (8 teachers for 4 weeks in 2010). The lesson plans were coded based on a rubric. The posters were coded using qualitative analysis software. The scores on the lesson plans and the frequency of codes on transfer to classroom were higher in 2010 compared to those in 2009. The results indicate that the research experience program had a better impact on transfer to school curriculum with a smaller cohort of teachers. This implies that future research experience programs should be designed for smaller groups of teachers.

For many engineers and technologists, their only exposure to materials engineering principles occurs within a single fundamentals course. Within that course, the students must conceptualize a wide variety of interdisciplinary topics drawn from chemistry, physics, engineering, and mathematics. Often, the students consider this fundamentals course challenging because it is likely that this is the first time that they are to develop understanding in such an interdisciplinary environment. Research studies in engineering education, which are based in social and cognitive constructivism, indicate that students build scaffolds from existing cognitive structures to new information when the students are able to make connections to their existing knowledge and experiences. It is also known that prior learning heavily influences this learning and that motivation plays a key role in the time that students devote to acquiring new knowledge. Research has also shown cooperative learning, understanding of individual student learning styles, and inductive teaching practices are important components that lead to improved Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs). The only way to truly understand effective practice is to implement constructively aligned strategies, problems, and concept learning opportunities, and then measure the SLOs. Additionally, an in-depth study of prior knowledge, conceptual understanding, and experiences is absolutely essential as key research questions are probed.

This paper describes research work underway at Western Washington University to understand how to improve SLOs in a fundamental materials engineering course by investigating students’ prior knowledge and conceptual understanding, measuring individual learning styles, measuring the effectiveness of different constructively aligned course modules based upon ‘WHERETO” principles with collaborative problem sets or design problems, investigating the effect of pre-exam quizzing, measuring term-long conceptual gains, and developing Information Communication Technology (ICT) enabled applications to support and enhance student learning. Future investigations will probe how more personalizable instruction that allows for student differences might be accomplished with ICT applications, especially for large lecture classes.