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Thomas T. Liao
FROM PSSC TO MSTE : A PERSONAL 34-YEAR ODYSSEY IN
SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING EDUCATION
Thomas T. Liao
Program in Technology and Society
State University of New York at Stonybrook
Introduction: Confessions of a NSF Junkie
To reflect on one’s professional career is at best a daunting exercise. In my case, the
task is simplified because of one common trend: involvement in NSF sponsored
projects. In the past thirty-four years, I have had the good fortune of being directly
involved in NSF sponsored curriculum development and teacher enhancement
projects for thirty of those years.
In the Fall of 1957, I was a freshman at Brooklyn College, majoring in Physics.
Thus, my high school Physics courses were not influenced by the post Sputnik
educational reform efforts. In one sense, this may have been a blessing because if I
had taken the PSSC [Physical Science Study Committee] Physics course at
Stuyvesant High School, I may not have become a Physics major. The reasons for
this comment will become more evident when I discuss my experiences as a teacher
of the PSSC Physics course.
My professional career as a science teacher was first affected by NSF sponsored
projects in 1963 when I attended a summer institute in Physics that was part of an
NSF funded three-year program that resulted in a Masters Degree. The next year I
was assigned to teach the newly developed PSSC Physics course at Brooklyn
Technical High School. Since 1963, except for a few short time periods between
projects, I have benefitted from involvement both as a participant and staff of NSF
sponsored projects.
This paper will provide a personal account of my journey from being a teacher of the
PSSC Physics course in 1964 to my current role as a Co-PI of a NSF supported
teacher enhancement project designed to help elementary teachers to integrate the
Prepared for the Symposium “Reflecting on Sputnik: Linking the Past, Present, and Future of Educational Reform”
Washington, DC, 4 October 1997
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Thomas T. Liao
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study of Mathematics, Science, and Technology [MSTe]. Each of the past four
decades has provided unique educational reform challenges. I will reflect on the
challenges from the perspective of the important lessons learned that can be used to
guide today’s reform efforts. I will also reflect on the value of NSF sponsored
projects in the professional development of young teachers.
1st Decade [1957-1966]: The Physics Education Years
Preparing and teaching the PSSC course helped me to develop a much deeper
understanding of the processes and major concepts of Physics. However, only the
future scientists in my PSSC class found the course to be interesting and
meaningful. Most of the students, even at a magnet high school such as Brooklyn
Technical High School needed to study Physics in which concepts are learned in
the context of real world examples and in a learning environment that provides
opportunities for student construction of their own understandings.
The PSSC course lacked both of the above curriculum and instruction features.
Thus, if I had taken the course as a student at Stuyvesant High School, I might not
have elected to be a Physics major. My encounter with Physics and Electronics
courses in the mid 1950s was filled with real world applications. In fact my Physics
teacher, Dr. Myers worked part-time at Bell Labs and often discussed the
applications of the Physics concepts that we were studying.
Given my early interest in applied Physics, I probably would have majored in
Engineering except for the positive experiences that I had in my high school Physics
classes. My opportunity to study Engineering finally occurred at the end of the
first decade. The watershed year of my teaching career was 1966, when I was
invited to be a pilot teacher for the new ECCP [Engineering Concepts Curriculum
Project] course that was entitled “The Man-Made World”[TMMW]. During the
Spring of 1966, I had a very difficult decision about how best to develop myself
professionally. Besides the ECCP invitation to attend a six-week summer institute
in Boulder, Colorado, I also had invitations to attend two other NSF sponsored
summer
Prepared for the Symposium “Reflecting on Sputnik: Linking the Past, Present, and Future of Educational Reform”
Washington, DC, 4 October 1997
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Thomas T. Liao
workshops. The deciding factor was the opportunity to learn about the emerging
information technologies and to teach a new course dealing with engineering
concepts.
2nd Decade [1967-1976]: The ECCP Years
Preparing myself to teach “The Man-Made World”[TMMW] was much more difficult
than my earlier experience of getting ready to teach the PSSC course. Besides
learning a new body of knowledge, I also had to learn how to use analog and digital
computers. But the hard work was very worthwhile because for the first time in my
teaching career my students and I were engaged in analyzing and solving real world
problems that required application of science and math concepts. Our
understanding of physics and calculus concepts was internalized as we modeled
the behavior of physical systems using analog computers.
In 1968, I obtained a leave of absence from Brooklyn Technical High School to work
as a part-time staff associate at ECCP headquarters and was admitted to Teacher’s
College of Columbia University to start taking courses toward an Ed.D degree in
science education. Earlier, I had obtained the MS in Physics via a three-year
(1963-65) NSF sponsored sequential summer institute. At Teacher’s College, my
doctoral thesis focused on the role and effectiveness of computer simulation for
helping high school students to better understand the behavior of physical systems.
Thus, I was able to obtain two graduate degrees because of my involvement in two
NSF sponsored projects. From 1967 to 1971, I helped to refine the ECCP course
that had many innovative features.
The ECCP curriculum was unique in many ways and about 20 years ahead of other
curriculum reform efforts. In the 1990's, many of the current MST curriculum
projects have adopted a constructivist learning model. Twenty-five years ago, many
of the ECCP laboratory activities engaged students in explorations of microworlds
using analog computers, logic circuit boards, and computer simulations written in
BASIC.
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Washington, DC, 4 October 1997
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TMMW was also unique in that a primary design criterion was that “less is more.”
Project 2061 and other contemporary educational reform groups in the past ten
years have also adopted the “less is more” approach. TMMW focused on major
engineering concepts such as design and decision-making, modeling, systems
analysis, and optimization.
For five years, after the publication of TMMW in 1971, hundreds of teachers
attended summer institutes and in-service workshops to prepare themselves to
teach the course. One of the biggest mistakes that was made in the mid-1970's was
for NSF to discontinue funding for summer workshops. For ECCP it meant that
significant numbers of teachers could not be trained. Since very few high school
teachers had background in engineering studies, the ECCP program stopped
growing and peaked with an annual enrollment of about 100,000 students. The
obvious lesson is that we must budget for continued professional development of
teachers.
3rd Decade [1977-1986]: The STS Years
In 1972, the ECCP project headquarters moved from the Polytechnic Institute of
Brooklyn to SUNY at Stonybrook. The project director, Dr. John G. Truxal had
become the Dean of Engineering and the ECCP staff joined him at StonyBrook
University to create a Program in Technology and Society [PTS]. During the next
five years, PTS faculty and staff designed a set of new courses for undergraduate
and graduate students that focused on the interaction of Science, Technology, and
Society [STS].
By 1977, we were teaching hundreds of college students per semester. Thus, a new
Department of Technology and Society was created that offered two minors for
undergraduate students and a MS in Applied Science for graduate students.
During the late 1970s, when NSF funding for science and engineering education
became available again, I was awarded a NSF grant to develop a set of STIM
[Socio-Technological Instructional Modules] curriculum materials designed for use
Prepared for the Symposium “Reflecting on Sputnik: Linking the Past, Present, and Future of Educational Reform”
Washington, DC, 4 October 1997
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Thomas T. Liao
in STS courses. Each of the eight STIM units consisted of a student reading and
an Instructor’s Guide that provided suggested student activities and projects. In
1980, I conducted NSF Chautauqua-type short courses to introduce college faculty
to the STIM materials.
From 1978-1984, we also developed applied science and mathematics curriculum
materials that used the STS approach to provide interest for under-represented
minority students and to encourage them to continue their study of science and
mathematics subjects. With funding from the Sloan Foundation, we developed a set
of curriculum materials designed for use in high school science and mathematics
courses in regional programs that were addressing the under-representation
problem. I spent my 1981-82 sabbatical year working as a visiting professor of the
MESA [Mathematics Engineering Science Achievement] program in California.
During the mid-1980s the STS approach to science education was adopted by many
secondary schools and some colleges. In 1985, the National Association of Science,
Technology, and Society was created. At about the same time, Drs. Truxal and
Visich, faculty in the Department of Technology and Society received funding from
the Sloan Foundation to launch the New Liberal Arts [NLA] program that involved
faculty members from many of the major colleges and universities. The NLA books,
monographs, and other curriculum materials are still being used by hundreds of
college professors who are teaching STS-type courses.
4th Decade [1987-97] : Technology Education and the MST Years
In the past ten years, National Standards in Mathematics and Science Education
have been developed and are having some success in guiding educational reform.
Currently, National Technology Education Standards are also being developed. The
New York State Education Department has taken a bold step to develop a new set
of learning standards that integrate the study of Mathematics, Science, and
Technology [MST]. Building on the National Standards, especially the Project 2061
Benchmarks, the New York State MST Learning Standards go beyond disciplinary
standards by providing integration standards.
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Thomas T. Liao
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Serving with Dr. James Rutherford of Project 2061 as co-chair of the New York
MST Learning Standards Advisory Committee, my life long dream of
institutionalizing the ECCP approach to learning MST concepts is becoming a
reality. At the high school level an updated version of TMMW is now called
Principles of Engineering [POE] and is being taught at over 100 high schools in
New York State. This time around, most of the POE teachers are Technology
Educators. POE is an exemplary program for implementing the MST Learning
Standards and in a few schools is linked to Mathematics and Physics classes with
the three MST teachers having the same group of students. This arrangement
facilitates integration of the three subjects.
In the Spring of 1997, SUNY at StonyBrook in collaboration with Hofstra
University and Brookhaven National Labs was awarded a five-year NSF grant to
provide enhancement in Technology Education and MST integration for elementary
school teachers from 21 school districts in New York State. This MSTe project is
currently working with 20 leadership teams (one team consists of teachers from two
school districts) who after two years of professional development will conduct
teacher enhancement programs for their colleagues in their school districts. By the
year 2002, the goal of this project is to provide over 1300 elementary teachers with
the knowledge base and pedagogical skills to implement the new MST Learning
Standards.
The design of the MSTe project was guided by the lessons learned from the projects
that I and my colleagues have been involved in for the past thirty years. This paper
will conclude with a discussion of the lessons learned from working on curriculum
development/teacher enhancement projects and how they influenced the design the
MSTe project.
Lessons Learned and the Design of the MSTe Project
Ever since 1966, my professional development as a science and engineering
educator has been positively influenced by Dr. John G. Truxal who taught me most
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Thomas T. Liao
of the engineering that I know. In preparing this paper I consulted with him and
was given a advanced copy of his “Engineering and Curriculum Reform” essay that
he wrote for this symposium. Professor John Truxal wrote :
“One would hope that the four decades of government and private support for
curriculum reform would leave us with widely useful guidelines for future efforts.
While there may not be unanimous agreement, our group at StonyBrook believes in
the validity of the following thoughts:
(1)
Change has to be evolutionary, not revolutionary.
(2)
(3)
Technology can be strong motivation for learning science and mathematics.
Curricular reform has to be a long-term proposition, with evaluation of the
success of the program over a number of years or even decades.
Designing a new course or a novel learning system should be approached just
as we tackle an engineering design problem.
Finally, national efforts to improve education should not over-sell and
over-promise.”
(4)
(5)
For further elaboration of these five guidelines, refer to Professor Truxal’s essay. I
fully agree with the five lessons learned from thirty years of experience and used
them to guide the design of the MSTe project. A sixth lesson that we have also
learned is that educational reform is much more than curriculum development and
teacher enhancement, even though they are both necessary and important. In order
to achieve lasting systematic change we must take a systems approach to reform
where all the constraints or barriers to change must be addressed concurrently.
Our newly funded MSTe project used the above six guidelines to design a program
which we hope will result in innovative MST education in the elementary schools of
21 school districts. The following ten design features provides an overview of the
MSTe project :
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Partnership among two universities, a national laboratory, and 21 school
districts with their associated BOCES regional centers
Two years of intensive professional development of 20 leadership teams
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Washington, DC, 4 October 1997
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Empower 20 leadership teams with the ability to be change agents and
mentors
Each of the seven Co-PIs will work directly with three school districts
Develop an Implementation and Resource Guide for leadership teams
Use existing exemplary MST curriculum to address the MST Learning
Standards
Commitments are made via a memorandum of agreement
Both district-wide and school administrative support for classroom teachers
Development of a culture of professionalism and life-long learning
Develop a constructive approach to learning among teachers and students
In the next five years, we will evaluate the degree of success that we will have in
trying to achieve systematic change in MST education in 21 school districts. In
2002, we can reflect on our work and will most likely learn additional lessons that
can be used to improve educational reform projects of the 21st century.
Prepared for the Symposium “Reflecting on Sputnik: Linking the Past, Present, and Future of Educational Reform”
Washington, DC, 4 October 1997
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