Research Agenda
For me, the goal of reading and conducting research is to find additional
or improved ways of augmenting students' learning via curriculum designs
and instructional strategies.
Technology
An important instructional strategy currently underway in education is
integrating computer-based technology across the K-12 curriculum and in
higher education. The World Wide Web (WWW) and other multimedia applications
are changing the way we teach and the way students learn. The implementation
of computer-based technology is an instructional strategy that needs to
be better understood and explored.
Teachers need to be prepared to teach in tomorrow's classrooms. The opportunities
that computer technologies bring to education must be exploited. The WWW
expands a teacher's boundaries; a teacher is no longer isolated. Ideas,
strategies, resources, and programs will enable teachers to greatly enhance
the learning environment of their classroom.
My technological research interest is in the use and value of incorporating
computer technology into the classroom. We are moving rapidly towards every
classroom having one or more networked computers. We as teachers need to
know how to utilize the resources available and how to develop instructional
strategies that promote meaningful learning in the classroom. The need
for teachers using computer-based technology is becoming evident since
professional associations such as the National Council For Accreditation
Of Teacher Education (NCATE
Report, 1997), and the International Society For Technology In Education
(ISTE)
have placed great emphasis on the infusion of technology into the training
of teachers.
Students from their respective cooperative learning
groups using their electronic journals in a science classroom.
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Science Education
Science curriculum must "make sense" to our students and provide "real"
examples from the world in which we live. Science education reform projects
such as the Scope, Sequence
And Coordination by NSTA, the Science Benchmarks by
Project
2061 and the
National
Science Education Standards promote more applications to the real world,
more hands-on activities, inquiry learning, higher order thinking skills
and quality assessment. Research is showing us that students learn best
when they are actively investigating and applying information.
Science curriculum reform is providing us with a direction to develop curriculum
programs that will increase science literacy for our students. Science
literacy is the knowledge and understanding of scientific concepts and
processes. According to the National Science Education Standards: "people
that are science literate will have the skills necessary to identify scientific
issues underlying national and local decisions and express positions that
are scientifically and technologically informed."
My science education research interest is in the implementation of inquiry
teaching and learning in the science classroom. One of the National Science
Education Standards (NSES) states that Teachers Of Science Plan An Inquiry
Based Science Program For Their Students. Science educators need to adapt
and design curricula which enable students to learn such skills as observing,
inferring, and experimenting. Inquiry is central to science learning and
science teachers must engage students in inquiry so that they ask questions,
describe objects and events, test their ideas with what is known, and communicate
what they are learning.
Doctoral Dissertation
Current Investigations
Agenda
On-line Assessment and How it Affects Traditional
Academic Achievement
Multimedia Instruction and Its Impact on Secondary
Science Students
Science Education Research Interests
Supplementing educational software instruction with
an interactive electronic journal.
Laboratory assessment through a rubric database
design.
The effect of shared student experiences via electronic
bulletin boards on students' motivation and academic achievement.
Simulation problems and their effect on decision
making and other higher order thinking skills.
Inquiry learning and its effect on long term memory
of scientific concepts.
The effect of inquiry activities on the understanding
of chemistry concepts.
Inquiry laboratory experiences and their effect
on the scientific process.
Scientific decision making and its effects on
science achievement.
Models of inquiry learning in teacher preparation
programs.
National Science Education Standards - the effects
on the teacher in the K-12 classroom.
Joseph F. Zisk
zisk@cup.edu
©2000