The Try Science online course, as noted on Lesley University promotional literature, "introduces the principles of inquiry-based science to elementary and middle school educators. . . Through the combination of online learning and participation in study groups of two to five people, educators learn by inquiry as preparation for teaching by inquiry. . . Using investigative tools commonly available in K-8 schools, participants collaborate in explore-and-explain activities. . ."

In May of 2000, TERC/Lesley was awarded a $2.7 million grant from the National Science Foundation to further develop the complete science education program, which was the first time TERC had participated in a degree-granting program. The TERC/Lesley collaboration aligns with National Science Education Standards calling for inquiry-based learning.

Today there are approximately 70 students enrolled in this online degree program. About 35 students have graduated. Try Science, in addition to being the first course in the M.Ed. program, has grown into a popular stand-alone course that has enrolled 200 students to date. Students in the program come form all over the country. The percentage of students who have taken Try Science and ultimately enrolled in the full degree program has risen from 30 percent to 45 percent.

Part of the reason for the rise in students moving toward earning their master’s degree may have to do with the fact that "there is a shortage of good science teachers," says Linda Grisham, Lesley University’s director of the program. The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) also plays into this picture. Basically, NCLB stipulates that schools must have "highly qualified" teachers. Plus, state boards of education across the country are moving toward requiring teachers to have some advance work in particular subject areas, which, Grisham notes, is a bigger national trend that started before NCLB was passed.

Doubler explains that students do their "investigations" at home during the first week of class, for instance. This is the period of time when "they sort out their own thinking. Then they come together online, sharing the results of their investigation, reading over each other’s investigations, and negotiating an understanding of what was going on in the phenomena that they studied."

The students in this program are a "very diverse group," adds Grisham. "Some have agreed to teach science because nobody else would [in their school]. Others are coming in with some science background and science fascinates them. Other people realize that they are going to be required to teach science in their classroom, and they are going to stand and face it."

Similar to the students in this program, the instructors come from diverse areas. Many of the scientists in the program have a strong desire to reform science education, says Grisham. "This provides them with an opportunity to really work with teachers, and they don’t have to leave their lamps to do it." One instructor, for instance, is a Harvard-trained chemist with his own business, "who is intensely interested in schools and what is happening with teachers." Another instructor is an engineer with a Ph.D. who earned a master’s in technology in education from Lesley.

Grisham claims that typically undergraduate students at colleges and universities in the U.S., who are either majoring in the sciences or just taking some classes in the sciences, never really see what true science is like until they reach graduate school. "I’m a biochemist, and I recognize that although I was a science major, a lot of the courses I took were in a certain way not science," she says. "Science is about mysteries and solving problems; it is about getting answers. All the labs that I ever had [while an undergraduate student] were demonstration-type labs, where you are looking at a phenomena, but everyone is expected to get the same number. There is no mystery there.

"So, for the [K-8] teacher, many of whom are not science majors, but may have taken some science courses, I’m not surprised that they, and the general public, have a strange idea of what scientists actually do."

The Online M.Ed. in Science Education Program for K-8 Educators sets out to adjust such ideas by teaching teachers how to change science education inside their classrooms. "We give teachers skills and strategies that they can use in their classrooms so that their students can really thrive."

Editor’s Note: TERC is now opening up the Online M.Ed. in Science Education Program for K-8 Educators to other institutions and educational organizations who may be interested in entering into content licensing, referral and/or resource sharing agreements. For more information, contact Sue Doubler at sue_doubler@terc.edu.