Chemical Education Today
Report
Shaping the Future: A Developing NSF Feature by Donald J. Wink
In 1995 the Division of Undergraduate Education at the National Science Foundation was charged with developing a document on undergraduate education. This became the basis for the “Shaping the Future” report, written by a committee led by Melvin George. “Shaping the Future” contains a brief history of NSF’s involvement in undergraduate education, a review of the current situation on campuses today, and a rich list of suggestions addressed to every conceivable audience—including government, industry, the media, college faculty and administrations, and those charged with developing and assessing materials and standards for science education. The report is available in full from the NSF (document no. 96-139) and in the form of an Executive Summary (document no. 96141) that is a quick introduction to the issues. The report contains some guides for those who want to change how they teach undergraduates. In addition, educators who are thinking of moving outside of their traditional activities will find very helpful examples, including how to address the issue of teacher preparation. But “Shaping the Future” may be even more important for what has followed as it became a “campaign”, not just a report. Robert Watson, former director of the DUE division, took the report “on the road” in an effort to disseminate the report and to survey its impact on the nation’s educational programs. In the last year, the NSF has published conference proceedings (document no. 98-73) and a volume of contributed responses (document no. 98-128). Both show how experienced educators are able to take the report and use it in a wide variety of contexts. The major materials connected with the “Shaping the Future” report are available on the NSF Web site at http:// www.ehr.nsf.gov/EHR/DUE/events/stf/start.htm. This page contains links to the original report (available in ASCII text and HTML) and the follow-up NSF materials (the 1998 “Shaping the Future” report is available in MS Word, Text, and as a pdf ). The page also includes links to one major report from the National Research Council, “From Analysis to Action”.
Within the page is a link to a list of the conferences that followed the report at http://www.ehr.nsf.gov/EHR/ DUE/events/stf/next/conferences.htm. As part of this page, you will find information on conference proceedings, reports, and an interesting set of Watson’s “Reports from the Road”, the latter which are separately collected on his page at http:// www.ehr.nsf.gov/EHR/DUE/events/stf/next/report.htm. These can, I think, be the basis for anyone who is thinking of organizing a local conference on science, math, engineering, and technology education. Donald J. Wink is in the Department of Chemistry, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL 60607;
[email protected].
In mid-February 1999 the Division of Undergraduate Education released online their 1999 guidelines, publication NSF 99-53. They are available at http:// www.nsf.gov/cgi-bin/getpub?nsf9953. The guidelines include material related to Collaboratives for Excellence in Teacher Preparation (preliminary proposal deadline May 1, 1999) and Course, Curriculum, and Laboratory Improvement programs (proposal deadline June 7, 1999).
JChemEd.chem.wisc.edu • Vol. 76 No. 4 April 1999 • Journal of Chemical Education
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