Corporation
of New York
Vol. 4/No. 2
Spring 2007
The Lost (and Found) Voters of Hurricane Katrina
At the Heart of South Africa, a Constitution and a Court
A Timeless University Trains Teachers for a New Era
Philanthropy Now: Diversity and Creativity for Changing Times
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To improve the odds, Block instituted a series of faculty seminars designed to raise awareness of assessment techniques and encourage a dialogue between Education and Arts and Sciences faculty (consistent with the second of the three fundamental principles of Teachers for a New Era). These “Evidence and Education” seminars, which have brought together some of the university’s top scholars, are unprecedented not only for the way they bridge divisions within the institution, but because they are hosted and led by Block himself. What really got people’s attention was the fact that the seminars would be held in the provost’s home, Pavilion V, one of the ten unique buildings Thomas Jefferson designed as faculty residences and lecture halls. Putting himself in the picture not only demonstrated Block’s commitment to teacher education reform, both as a scholar and an administrator, but allowed him to “learn a great deal in the process,” he said.
“Frankly, I think it was sheer fear that led me to come up with the notion to approach this challenge in a way that would allow the very best thinking to float to the top,” Block admitted. “Some people came kicking and screaming. They did not consider the prospect satisfying or of deep interest,” he recalled. “At the first meeting it was like people were speaking different languages…But over time there was a remarkable melding of these languages and of people’s interests. And it has led to new and creative approaches and to real cultural change at the university. Specifically, where in some quarters there was little or no interest in K-12, now K–12 is a significant research area.”
The Corporation’s leadership was intrigued by these innovative seminars and took advantage of the opportunity to obtain a first-hand report on one held during the fall of 2006 on the following topic:
Implicit attitudes and stereotypes about math and science: What is in our minds and how we experience our minds are not the same thing. Many mental activities occur outside of conscious awareness or control, including thoughts that are relevant to social life. This presentation will introduce the core ideas of implicit social cognition with interactive demonstrations, and then describe how these ideas are being applied to basic research on the development and influence of implicit attitudes and stereotypes on math/science interest, participation, persistence and performance.
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About a dozen attendees gathered in the historic residence for a casual lunch, among them professors, chairs and deans of the departments of engineering, neuroscience, physics, psychology, computer science, English, the medical school and the school of education, as well as a local math teacher. The seminar followed, with a presentation by Brian Nosek and Fred Smyth of the psychology department, who used a series of visuals, quizzes and brain teaser-style exercises to demonstrate hidden prejudices and the mind’s tendency to mislead.2 The discussion that ensued revealed widely varied backgrounds and points of view. It also offered a glimpse of the sort of unpredictable partnerships that might emerge from such a meeting, as Smyth approached the engineering school dean—who earlier had mentioned wanting his students to be more involved in community service—about a Chicago charter school for economically disadvantaged girls where he and Nosek were conducting research.
This interaction typified the “seminar effect,” according to associate English professor Victor Luftig, who has perfect attendance at the meetings in his capacity as director of the University’s TNE programs. Asked to explain their success, he says, “We had the ideal provost: a teacher who was in the lab for a long time. Besides envisioning the cross-disciplinary benefits, he set up structures that can be sustained through future administrations.…Having this kind of leadership that’s sympathetic to grantees develops dedication; that’s the core value that you really want.”
Another strength is the seminar series’ ongoing evolution and inclusion of new groups through the years. One of the high points for Block came when representatives of local schools were invited to attend. “These are the people in the trenches,” he said, “and they became the focus of much attention. While there was some expectation that people from outside the university might destabilize the process, we soon realized they should have been there all along. They offered real-world validation. They could tell us what was doable in the classroom as well as providing insight on the research.” For instance, the teachers made it clear that “data collection is a huge burden,” according to Block, and “we wouldn’t walk right into the classroom and be embraced,” as some of the university researchers had expected. Now they know to anticipate significant delays in getting results. “It’s just the way scholarly work is,” Block stated bluntly.
Recently, there was even more evidence of synergy as the group turned one seminar into a workshop to review a National Science Foundation request for proposals for “Discovery Research K-12.” These federal funds can be used for “research, development and evaluation activities through knowledge generation and application to improve K-12 learning and teaching.” The program addresses its mission by funding activities in three major areas: applied research; development of resources and tools; and capacity building for science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) systems research or STEM education research scholars.
The “Discovery” proposals currently in the UVA pipeline range from a math professor’s virtual mathematics manipulatives designed to help strengthen students’ concepts of fractions, to an astronomy professor’s measurement of the impact of summer workshops on teachers’ content knowledge to a materials science and engineering professor’s concept for an adaptive, online engineering career guidance tool. “We were hoping for a few ideas,” Luftig said, and “two or three would have sufficed. But we got eight—only one of which came from the school of education, where this sort of work is usually done. It’s evidence of real capacity building, which is a pretty good description of what TNE is accomplishing here.”