Science Education for the 21st Century

Paul DeHart Hurd was a biology teacher and science supervisor in Colorado and California high schools and junior colleges for 20 years and a professor of science education at Stanford University for 22 years. He has authored 11 books and monographs on developments in the sciences and over 300 articles on various aspects of science education in the US and foreign countries. He has served on the National Science Foundation's Advisory Committee for Science Education and as a special educational consultant to the National Academy of Sciences, Commission on Life Sciences. Honors include the Apollo Award from the National Aeronautics and Space Agency, the Distinguished Contributions to Science Education Through Research Award from the National Association for Research in Science Teaching, and the Award for National Leadership in Science Education from the National Science Teachers Association. Dr. Hurd is currently focusing his writings on the history of science and technology education in the US over the past 200 years and current activities to modernize the precollege science curriculum.     

Special Issue Article: Preparing for the 21st Century: The Status of Quantitative Literacy in the United States

This article articulates and operationalizes a framework for investigating the level of quantitative literacy in the United States. Quantitative literacy is defined in terms of mathematical content knowledge, mathematical reasoning, understanding of the social impact and utility of mathematics, understanding the nature and historical development of mathematics, and mathematical disposition‐Data from the Third International Mathematics and Science Study are used to document the level of quantitative literacy in the US. Results suggest that, although students in the US seem to possess an awareness of the usefulness of mathematics and have positive dispositions toward mathematics, they fall short in their understanding of the nature of mathematics and an ability to apply their content knowledge to everyday situations. Suggestions for curriculum and instruction that align with the framework for promoting quantitative literacy are offered.     

Designing for Mathematical Abstraction

Our focus is on the design of systems (pedagogical, technical, social) that encourage mathematical abstraction, a process we refer to as designing for abstraction. In this paper, we draw on detailed design experiments from our research on children’s understanding about chance and distribution to re-present this work as a case study in designing for abstraction. Through the case study, we elaborate a number of design heuristics that we claim are also identifiable in the broader literature on designing for mathematical abstraction. Our previous work on the micro-evolution of mathematical knowledge indicated that new mathematical abstractions are routinely forged in activity with available tools and representations, coordinated with relatively na?ve unstructured knowledge. In this paper, we identify the role of design in steering the micro-evolution of knowledge towards the focus of the designer’s aspirations. A significant finding from the current analysis is the identification of a heuristic in designing for abstraction that requires the intentional blurring of the key mathematical concepts with the tools whose use might foster the construction of that abstraction. It is commonly recognized that meaningful design constructs emerge from careful analysis of children’s activity in relation to the designer’s own framework for mathematical abstraction. The case study in this paper emphasizes the insufficiency of such a model for the relationship between epistemology and design. In fact, the case study characterises the dialectic relationship between epistemological analysis and design, in which the theoretical foundations of designing for abstraction and for the micro-evolution of mathematical knowledge can co-emerge.     

展望21世纪风能的利用与发展

本介绍了国内外风能利用的现状,并对我国未来风能的利用与发展提出了很多建设性的意见,诸如：发展目标的确立,政策、法规体系的建立,技术性能的提高及新产品的开发,经济鼓励政策及其实施,产业化体系的建设等。     

A Vision of Learning to Teach for the 21st Century

Glenda Lappan received her Ed. D. in mathematics and education from the University of Georgia in 1965 and has since worked at Michigan State University. From 1989–91 she took leave to serve as the program director for Teacher Preparation at the National Science Foundation. From 1997–2001 she is on leave to serve as president of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM). Her research and development interests are in the connected areas of students' learning of mathematics and mathematics teacher professional growth and change at the middle and secondary levels. She has published over a hundred scholarly papers and numerous books for middle grades students and teachers. She is currently the codirector of the Connected Mathematics Project II, which is funded by the National Science Foundation to revise and continue development of a complete middle school curriculum for teachers and for students. She served as the chair of the middle school writing group for the NCTM Curriculum and Evaluation Standards for School Mathematics (1989), and as Chair of the Commission that developed the NCTM Professional Standards for Teaching Mathematics (1991). She served on the NCTM Board of Directors from 1989 to 1992 and from 1997–2001. She has been a member of many national advisory boards, including the following: Glenn T. Seaborg Center for Teaching and Learning Science and Mathematics, the Ford Foundation/University of Pittsburgh QUASAR Project, the NSF/University of Maryland Teacher Preparation Collaborative, and the NSF/San Diego State University Mathematics for Elementary Teacher Preparation Materials Development Project.     

The 21st Century Physics Classroom: What Students,Teachers, and Classroom Observers Report

Before we can effectively apply specific interventions through professional development, it is important to determine what is occurring in our high school physics classrooms. This study investigated common professional practices in physics teaching among a representative sample group of schools and teachers from a diverse, geographically large population. An adaptation of a convergent parallel design was utilized in this study. Three separate parallel studies were conducted to answer the overarching research question, what is the nature of the secondary physics classroom in our high schools as they exist today? The results provide a unique picture of the variables impinging on physics teachers in their current classroom setting that converges from the particular viewpoints found in each of the parallel studies.     

Using Quality Control Activities to Develop Scientific and Mathematical Literacy

The daily activities of business and industry provide many fascinating opportunities to study basic concepts of mathematics and science. These activities often lend themselves to an activity-based, manipulative-enhanced learning environment. This article focuses upon a quality control activity used in the manufacturing of camera film. It suggests how this activity can be adapted to science and mathematics classrooms, and discusses some basic concepts of scientific methodology, probability, and statistics.     

二十世纪数学发展史的坐标--评李心灿教授编著的《当代数学大师》(修改版)

本文论述了数学著作《当代数学大师》出版的意义 .评价了 33位沃尔夫数学奖得主的光辉数学成就、学术思想、教育思想、治学态度和方法 ,因此 ,他们应成为广大读者特别是数学研究工作者、数学教师和数学爱好者的学习榜样 .