Chemical Education Today
Report
Education Research at NSF: The ROLE Program by Donald J. Wink
The National Science Foundation Web site now has information, as I briefly noted last month, on the new Research on Learning and Education program—ROLE for short (1). The main announcement is at http://www.nsf.gov/cgi-bin/ getpub?nsf0017. This replaces the Research on Education, Policy, and Practice program. The ROLE program has semiannual deadlines. Preliminary proposals are required by either March 1 or September 1. NSF program directors provide feedback to be used for the full proposal date of June 1 or December 1. There are four areas of concentration where ROLE support will be considered: 1. Brain research as a foundation for research on human learning; 2. Fundamental research on behavioral, cognitive, affective and social aspects of human learning; 3. Research on SMET learning in formal and informal educational settings; and 4. Research on SMET learning in complex educational systems.
Literature Cited 1. Wink, D. J. J. Chem. Educ. 2000, 77, 150.
Donald J. Wink teaches in the Department of Chemistry (m/c 111), University of Illinois at Chicago, 845 West Taylor Street, Chicago, IL 60607;
[email protected]. Research on Learning and Education (ROLE) http://www.nsf.gov/cgi-bin/getpub?nsf0017 Research, Evaluation and Communication (REC) http://www.ehr.nsf.gov/ehr/rec/ The Learning Curve http://www.ehr.nsf.gov/EHR/REC/pubs/learning.pdf Research Methods in Mathematics and Science Education Research: Report of a Workshop (PDF version) http://www.ehr.nsf.gov/ehr/rec/pubs/report10.pdf Research Methods in Mathematics and Science Education Research: Report of a Workshop (MS Word version) http://www.ehr.nsf.gov/ehr/rec/pubs/report10.doc Interagency Education Research Initiative (IERI) http://www.nsf.gov/cgi-bin/getpub?nsf9984
access date: January 2000
JChemEd.chem.wisc.edu • Vol. 77 No. 3 March 2000 • Journal of Chemical Education
303
NSF Information
A complementary set of “goals” provide further insight about projects appropriate for ROLE. Some are related to classroom issues such as how people learn, how teachers from kindergarten to college integrate content and pedagogy, and how specific changes in educational practice affect teaching and learning. Other goals address the need for tools and evaluation methods to be employed in research. Finally, the way that different communities are served by education is also the basis of some goals. Of course, projects can serve more than one goal at a time. An important note in the guidelines is that ROLE is not intended as a program to evaluate change. It is to obtain the data that can be used to direct future change. ROLE operates under the NSF’s Division of Research, Evaluation, and Communication; their Web page is at http: //www.ehr.nsf.gov/ehr/rec/. The Division’s publication list contains several items that may be useful to ROLE applicants, including the report “The Learning Curve: What We Are Discovering about U.S. Science and Mathematics Education”, (available as an Adobe PDF file at http://www.ehr.nsf.gov/EHR/ REC/pubs/learning.pdf) and a draft report on a Workshop on
Mathematics and Science Education Research Methods (available as a PDF file at http://www.ehr.nsf.gov/ehr/rec/pubs/ report10.pdf or a Microsoft Word file at http://www.ehr.nsf.gov/ ehr/rec/pubs/report10.doc). Finally, ROLE parallels another program that involves NSF as a partner—the Interagency Education Research Initiative (IERI). This is a much larger program with more systemic research goals. The old guidelines (NSF 99-84, at http://www.nsf.gov/cgi-bin/getpub?nsf9984) are now out of date. However, the new guidelines, due out soon, should be linked to that page.
