Date:
To:
February 23, 2007
Linda Beath
Associate Vice President for Undergraduate Studies
From:
Subject:
M. Meghan Miller
Dean, College of the Sciences
2005-2006 Program review, Science Education
You have asked me to provide commendations and recommendations as part of the program review process for Science Education. These observations stem from the self-study and the external evaluator’s report, as well as on the context and resource issues within the college.
In certain areas, the external evaluator’s recommendations may be less applicable than his identification of the issues, and program faculty should work closely with the dean’s office during review implementation.
The department prepared a thorough self-study and carefully planned the campus visit of the external reviewer. Dr. Kenneth Tobin provided a ranging narrative discussion of issues rather than a focused set of recommendations. This made use of his report more difficult to implement than others I have seen. There are some additional problems with his review developed below. For these reasons, I have used his report to identify issues that need to be addressed and have developed recommendations in consultation with Dean Bowers. Some of these recommendations align with the narrative in Tobin’s report; others do not.
C OMMENDATIONS :
The Science Education Program has a strong, productive, and cohesive faculty culture built on a shared vision of the program’s role. This vision includes program faculty leadership in both curriculum and innovation, as well as in university faculty professional development. This positive program culture enables the relatively small unit to show leadership in responsiveness, productivity and collegiality well beyond its resource base.
The Science Education Program has changed as much as any in the college during the last four years. This change has been fueled by an influx of resources through high demand grants, successful recruiting of new faculty, expansion of the program to include Earth Science and to provide program at an increasing number of locations, and development of a vision for centralizing science and mathematics education program resources and poising the programs for excellence.
Program faculty members make special contributions to public service in the schools, distinctive from any other sciences faculty. I add my special commendation to these faculty

members for the quantity and the quality of the work that they do in this area – it can be invisible to the university, or nearly so. Yet it is essential to the university’s academic and public service roles, and garners a wealth of goodwill from the community.
These issues stand out among the many for which Science Education deserves commendation.
R
ECOMMENDATIONS
:
The external review identifies several issues that require planning or support. The following recommendations were developed in consultation with Dean Bowers. I summarize with a strategic planning recommendation for the Center.
 Affiliation, reporting, and assignment of faculty.
The reviewer expressed concerns that the affiliation of science education with COTS hampers the relationship with Education and isolates faculty. He perceived that establishment of a “center” would somehow mitigate this effect.
The institutional context and the structure of the CTL may not have been clearly presented to the reviewer, or perhaps were not clearly understood. This was a philosophical rift, probably underscored by the lack of simultaneous review with DoE and with the science disciplines (see process recommendations below).
The reviewer’s concern about the assignment of new faculty and their ability to succeed were not borne out by the data, in particular the teaching evaluations for new faculty members. While the split assignment of faculty carries special challenges, this structure is integral to alignment of science education and advances in the discipline.
Recommendation 1 : While integration of all the elements of the CTL requires vigilance, we recommend continuing diligence in strengthening the communication channels in several directions (including a commitment to communication from CTL, DoE, and the science disciplines, as well as from Science Education who currently is proactive in this regard). Considerable institutional will provides the foundation for the disciplinedepartment alignment of Science Education program within the College of the Sciences.
The program, deans, and CTL disagree with the external reviewer’s recommendation.
 Faculty qualifications and workload: The external report points to issues of faculty workload – in particular the split assignment in the science disciplines, the supervision of fieldwork, and the program role in providing leadership to peers in professional development.
The reviewer expresses concern about the ability for faculty to also stay abreast with the literature and engage in high quality science content and science pedagogy-related research.
Recommendation 2 : Faculty workload needs be reviewed in the context of program and center goals, the CTL initiative to strengthen the involvement of discipline trained field supervisors. Through the governance structure of the CTL, COTS and CEPS need to explore the addition of a tenure-track science educator, whose primary responsibility is supervision of secondary and middle school science student teachers. The institutional framework – including the teacher scholar model – and the possibility of changing the

balance of assignment between the program and departments frame this issue. This topic should be explicitly addressed in program planning, recognizing that the resource base is likely to continue to be limited.
 Program curriculum and academic initiatives: The report identifies several issues in the area of curriculum and the academic role of the program. Where the external report discussion centers on pedagogy vs. content, it is not specific and does not appear to be fully informed.
Where the discussion centers on the need for graduate programs, little is presented to substantiate the recommendation.
Recommendation 3a : Science Education program review needs to be set in context with
Department of Education and science departments program review, allowing a coordinated evaluation of program complementarity and integration. In the absence of simultaneous review, the curriculum narrative in this external report is difficult to follow.
Alignment needs to include quarterly meetings with DOE professional core faculty and with the Director of Field Experience.
Recommendation 3b : Until Recommendation 3a is in place, program assessment provides the best monitor of curriculum success and should guide curriculum revision.
OSPI review will also certainly address this issue.
Recommendation 3c : Development of a graduate program critically depends on stabilizing staffing to the undergraduate program. If the undergraduate program is adequately supported and adequately large, a proposal for a graduate program makes sense. This proposal should also be preceded by a needs assessment.
 Support to the program: The external reviewer identifies two issues: the need to increase technical support to science education faculty and the need establish support for grant writing and for establishing collaborations.
Recommendation 4a : Technical support staff to instruction is missing, and the program secretary is ½ time. This priority competes with several other technical staffing needs within the college, and is most likely to be immediately addressed through sharing of technical staff with the departments within the building, or if additional resources can be garnered through high demand funding.
Recommendation 4b : The external reviewer also identifies the need for grant writing support. This is typically supported on a competitive basis through SOAR awards, and that is one possible avenue for faculty to pursue such support.
 Developing a plan for Science Education program and the Center for Science and
Mathematics Education: In my reflection on the great changes that Science Education has undergone during my tenure as dean, and my reading of the self-study, external review, and the proposal to establish a sphere of distinction, I am struck by how fast this program as grown and been called upon to meet so many competing priorities. Given that resources will

play a major role in establishing the scope for growth and responsiveness of the program, a strategic plan that aligns goals and resources is needed.
Recommendation 5 : Develop a strategic plan for the Center for Science and Mathematics
Education that articulates a mission, develops goals and identifies the steps that are needed to reach those goals.
Process:
The process worked well on the whole, although two issues emerged. When you and I identified external reviewers, we did not review the recommendation with Dean Bowers. As a result, we inadvertently selected a reviewer whose bias is against the strong discipline-alignment that underlies our science education program. This bias was expressed throughout his narrative, but the strengths and weaknesses of such a model were never articulated. Future Science
Education reviewers should be selected from universities that have a science education structure, which more closely resembles that of Central Washington University.
It also struck me that this program review might align well with review of the
Department of Education, and be moved in the schedule to that year. Because the program is close to the science departments, but, in an administrative reporting sense, more distant from
DoE, coordinated timing could invite a better analysis of the vigor of that relationship.
Interviews also should be coordinated with professional education core faculty, who possess a greater knowledge about the relationships between science education and the required education core than does the DOE chair.
S UMMARY :
In summary, the Science Education program is healthy, faculty scholarship is strong, and the student-centered mission of the university is well supported. The strength of the faculty and their commitment underlie this success. The key issues that face the department are those of infrastructure and planning. I forward the key recommendations of the external reviewer as the most critical areas in which to make substantive progress to support this excellent program.
C: David Soltz, Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs
Rebecca Bowers, Dean, College of Education and Professional Studies
Martha Kurtz, Director, Science Education
Stuart Boersma, Chair, Mathematics