Teaching Students to Think Like Scientists

School Solutions

The roots of America’s urgency to train specialists in science, technology, engineering and mathematics go back many decades to the recognition that we were not educating enough students in the disciplines we need to succeed as a nation.

As a former superintendent and chief executive officer of JASON Learning, a nonprofit organization that connects students to real science, research, exploration and discovery, I have advocated for offering stimulating experiences for learning science in the classroom, such as the multimedia curriculum that JASON provides.

Improved Outcomes

JASON’s classroom and professional development programs have been extensively researched by independent evaluators, including Battelle Memorial Institute, the Center for Children and Technology at the Education Development Center, SRI International (formerly Stanford Research Institute) and Daniel Duke of the University of Virginia’s Curry School of Education.

The data conclude that the program increases students’ STEM engagement and academic achievement, and improves teacher efficacy while enabling educators without a science background to teach the subject.

Case in point: From 2011 to 2016, independent school districts in the Houston area adopted JASON as the core science curriculum. Researchers from Battelle Memorial Institute independently evaluated the impact of this adoption by analyzing the improvement in standardized performance among 8th-grade science students. Their conclusions were striking, and significant.

Key findings from their report included the following:

• Students in JASON Learning districts showed a higher rate of passing relative to students in non-JASON Learning districts, and demonstrated greater improvement in passing rates in every student category.
• The gain in improvement was greatest among economically disadvantaged students, limited English proficiency students, and historically challenged students.
• Relative to their male colleagues, greater improvement was demonstrated by females.
• The annual change in student performance for almost every student category showed greater improvement in JASON Learning districts than in districts not adopting JASON Learning.

Principal Jeff Bailey of Ulrich Intermediate School in Klein, Texas, agrees. For his students, JASON Learning has brought a level of energy to their campus. Students are able to be engaged (in doing science), see real-life application of what they are learning and show greater interest of science-related content, he says.

For districts lacking access to rich science resources, JASON bridges that gap with rich online curricula (www.jason.org) that places students in challenging, real-world situations where they are connected with and mentored by leading STEM professionals.

In the past, STEM courses were unexciting and uninspiring and detached from our economic needs. Students found little reason to build those subjects into their future. Fortunately, this is changing.