The University of Central Florida will host an education symposium tomorrow (Thursday):
Gale Sinatra, a professor of educational psychology at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, will speak at the symposium, which runs from 6 to 8 p.m. in room 117 of the Teaching Academy on the main campus. The symposium is free and open to the public, and refreshments will be provided.
Sinatra is editor of the journal Educational Psychologist. She is working on a National Science Foundation grant that looks at the challenges of teaching evolution.
Her talk is titled “A Little Knowledge Can Be a Dangerous Thing: Using Beliefs and Dispositions to Make Judgments about Scientific Theories.”
Here is some more about Gale Sinatra.
What the researchers discuss in the next year will have little to do with the controversies that have gripped the school systems in many states, where evolution has become a battleground between social conservatives and scientists. The meetings aren’t intended to debate the merits of intelligent design or rehash the effects of placing stickers in textbooks to urge students to consider alternate views.
Instead, evolution will be used as a lens through which the scholars will look at problems in all science learning, Sinatra says. Evolution makes for a good case study of the social, cultural, curriculum design, and other issues that influence learning. “In evolution, these complexities are easier to see. It’s a microcosm of complex systems for teaching and learning.”
Neither will they be creating new standards for science educators, who already must meet a full slate of curriculum requirements. But their work may be able to help teachers overcome the preconceived ideas their students bring into the science classroom.
