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States use simulations to assess science skills and students seemed to "enjoy playing with the computers and took quickly to the assessment." A costly option, but goals to have all students complete computer-based tasks as part of Common Core assessments by 2014. NOTE: This article just scratches the surface of actual results, but for more commentary about this year's results take a look at: "NAEP Reveals Shallow Grasp of Science" http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2012/06/19/36naep.h31.html?tkn=VLPFYOoO%2Fh6K0gBMoWRnkBNKB%2B3NDBvfmvWl&cmp=ENL-EU-NEWS1 It will be important to watch if/how computer simulations help students explain or justify their responses and apply concrete knowledge to real-life scientific scenarios.

Thanks for sharing this, Chris. It's both interesting and relevant to my project for this course. A comment at the bottom suggested that really the companies need to change their unrealistic minimum criteria for job candidates. I've heard that argument before, and sometimes I do wonder when I see complaints from companies looking only for people with 5+ years of STEM work experience railing on the state of STEM education. What do you think?

Thanks for sharing Chris! I can totally relate to this. I remember having to sit through those "weed out" intro biology and chemistry courses in undergrad. They were the antithesis of motivating but I pushed through because I knew without them I couldn't do the "cool science" I wanted to. I remember at the time thinking these courses were weeding out people who were entertaining the idea of a STEM career but just didn't want to put up with the cut throat nature of these courses. It seemed to me the classes were more concerned about weeding out people than by providing an environment that really fostered learning.

Also as a follow-up to our conversation on Monday. Although more women are in STEM careers, there is still a lag in those considered "hard sciences." Most people look at mathematics as the core difference, these authors look at creativity. "For instance, three factors that are widely accepted as being positively correlated with creativity are playfulness, curiosity, and willingness to take risks. Studies have found that boys and men are generally more playful than girls and women, and are more curious and more willing to take risks, which could help explain why men are more creatively productive than women in general, and in particular, in the hard sciences."

This ten-minute video uses the protein-folding game FoldIt and another crowdsourced science game called EteRNA as examples. Speaker Adrien Treuille (from CMU) talks about rewards in these types of crowdsourcing games starting around 5:50. He envisions scientific discovery, software development, product design, and societal change being "solved" in the future through a platform that allows for finding, engaging, and paying people at a very individual level: "Find Me, Engage Me, Pay Me."

Bjork, the Hall of Science and middle school students from Queens have been participating in a month-long series of science/music explorations that are "part spectacle, part ipad app emporium, part new instrument laboratory and part curriculum." From The New Yorker Digital Edition : Feb 27, 2012

sixth grades connecting writing and media to science

Very disturbing findings. Here's a quick excerpt: "There is still debate over whether scientific collaboration leads to better results. Jonathon Cummings, an associate professor of management at Duke University, and his colleagues got a grant from the National Science Foundation to look at 491 research collaborations funded by the foundation. They discovered something unsettling: Collaborations of more universities fared worse than projects primarily executed at a single university. More collaborators meant fewer patent applications, fewer published papers, and less chance of the group seeking additional funding to keep projects going." "Dr. Cummings says it appears that the amount of coordination required to make progress on research-everything from setting up meetings to integrating knowledge among group members-outweighed the potential benefits of collaboration. In the wake of the study, he says, the science foundation now requires grant applicants for some programs to detail how they expect to manage the collaboration."

Evidence on whether games help children learn science

Researchers from Yale and Stanford study how people make face and scene associations.

WolfQuest, WhyPox are highlighted as tools for informal science learning.

This a great (and local) group doing exciting work with Game Mechanics and Science Inquiry. Check it out!

Online social science data collection! 

A very inspiring story! This is an example of engagement, motivation and flow coming together! If this 15 year-old boy can achieve this, why can we not foster it in other children? 

Hear MIT GAMBIT Lab experts talk about engagement in practical terms--and get some hands-on experience designing a board or video game. The three-hour workshops are part of the Cambridge Science Festival; this event takes place on April 28 and requires a $5 preregistration. Though I'm sure EMF will be touched on one way or another in all of the workshops, I thought the Serious Games for Social Change workshop might be of particular interest to you all: "In this workshop, best practice examples of serious games for social change will be played, discussed and analyzed. Furthermore ideas and sketches for proto-types will be developed and ways of realizing them will be discussed! The workshop gives the participants hands-on experiences and insights into the potential and limits of video games designed for social change. No pre-experiences are needed!"

Note the first listed winner in the (empowering) education category: involved with use of interactive games to enhance learning in math and science.