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Educational research is changing paradigms on teaching and learning
The last issue of Inventio focused on the remarkable advances
in biomolecular sciences made possible by technological developments
and multidisciplinary teams of biologists, chemists, clinicians,
physicists, mathematicians, and engineers collaborating to solve
biomedical problems. Inventio showed how institutions with different
missions, resources, and constituents are working jointly to
create a critical mass of scientists for Puerto Rico’s scientific
and economic development and to educate a science-literate population.
In this issue, we resume our discussion of the university’s
research by focusing on innovative educational research that is
helping to rethink the methods of teaching, making them more flexible
and adaptive to the ways students learn and their particularities
as learners. This research is being conducted at the University
of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus in a variety of ways,
with a variety of funding, and from a variety of departments.
Our students are members of the “millenial generation.” These
students resist sequential learning and memorization, preferring
to learn by doing. This has profound consequences on how teaching
is conducted. Faculty members need to be able to design learning
experiences and environments for this student generation, and
education researchers on campus are assisting this process by
identifying, through experimentation, experiences, and environments
that enhance learning. They are discussing their research findings
with other professors, publishing papers for international audiences,
and leaving the campus to take their expertise to K-12 teachers
across Puerto Rico.
This issue of Inventio documents a close to $35 million National
Science Foundation/UPR, RP initiative to facilitate public school
students’ understanding of math and science. The Alianza para el Aprendizaje de las Ciencias y las Matematicas
(AlACiMa) project provides K-12 public school teachers technological assistance,
professional development for certified science and math teachers, and additional
training to certify teachers who are teaching these subjects without math and
science credentials. The UPR professors involved in the project are not only
leaving the campus to help create a science-literate population but fomenting
a cultural change regarding the role of science and math teachers, research
in education, and the way science and math are taught. Project members also
gather and analyze data to assess their own efforts and chart ways to improve
effectiveness. The results of their educational research are regularly reported
to the NSF and disseminated to the education community at large.
Another article in this issue, “Nuestra Escuela,” tells the story
of a UPR partnership with an extremely successful educational alternative for
dropouts in Puerto Rico. Campus professors and a motivated administrator of education,
with support from the public and private sector, have designed a curriculum based
on the special needs of dropouts. Nuestra Escuela’s program is graduating
former dropouts and is cited as a model for communities nationwide. Another outreach
education effort sponsored by the university is the adult literacy training in
Río Piedras and computer literacy training for women in surrounding
communities.
Given the tendencies of today’s students, it is not surprising that research
on student retention—conducted at UPR and corroborated by research at other
universities—has concluded that undergraduate research experience, almost
unheard of ten years ago, is a key factor in determining student success, graduation,
and decision to enter graduate programs. In an interview in this issue, the director
of UPR, RP’s Project for the Development of Thinking Skills explains why
exposing students to research and developing their research competency is one
of the goals of lifelong learning. Another article excerpted from a professor’s
journal gives a personal account of a field research experience with undergraduates
on the island of Culebra and educates the public about the plight of an endangered
species endemic to Puerto Rico.
In addition, Inventio looks at specific innovative educational
research projects being conducted by individual professors
and their efforts to improve the quality of education. These
researchers observe students’ progress and use qualitative
and quantitative methods to assess learning, pinpoint exactly how students learn,
and experiment with ways that teachers can accommodate the learning process.
Higher education in the years ahead will need to foster a willingness to constantly
adapt to students’ needs, lifelong learning through research, a seamless
preschool to graduate school curriculum, and continued investment in information
technology and education research.
Rather than viewing this new era in education as “an age of knowledge,” perhaps
we should focus instead on building a “culture of research,” in which
students—as lifelong learners—are continually motivated by inquiry
and immersed in learning experiences.
Ana R. Guadalupe, Ph.D.
Dean of Graduate Studies and Research |
