Jo Ellen Roseman

What does it mean to be genomically literate?: National Human Genome Research Institute Meeting Report

Genomic discoveries will increasingly advance the science of medicine. Limited genomic literacy may adversely impact the public’s understanding and use of the power of genetics and genomics in health care and public health. In November 2011, a meeting was held by the National Human Genome Research Institute to examine the challenge of achieving genomic literacy for the general public, from kindergarten to grade 12 to adult education. The role of the media in disseminating scientific messages and in perpetuating or reducing misconceptions was also discussed. Workshop participants agreed that genomic literacy will be achieved only through active engagement between genomics experts and the varied constituencies that comprise the public. This report summarizes the background, content, and outcomes from this meeting, including recommendations for a research agenda to inform decisions about how to advance genomic literacy in our society.Genet Med 2013:15(8):658–663

Using National Standards to Improve K–8 Science Curriculum Materials

With increased emphasis on state standards and assessments in science, one might question whether there is still a role for national science standards and benchmarks. This article makes a case for the importance of national guidelines and identifies key functions performed by the National Research Councils National Science Education Standards and the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences Benchmarks for Science Literacy. We describe how national guidelines provide a vision of what science education could be and its value to all students; consider the implications of aligning curriculum, instruction, and assessment to these guidelines; discuss the quality of current state standards; and consider what the national reform efforts have to offer states and school districts seeking to improve teaching and learning in K–8 science.

Toward High School Biology: Helping Middle School Students Understand Chemical Reactions and Conservation of Mass in Nonliving and Living Systems

Studies have shown that students struggle to understand basic chemical concepts and have trouble applying these concepts to biological phenomena. This article describes the development and evaluation of a unit to help middle school students connect core ideas about chemical reactions to the phenomenon of growth in animals and plants.

Designing for the Next Generation Science Standards: Educative Curriculum Materials and Measures of Teacher Knowledge

ABSTRACT Focusing on the science knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge that teachers need to realize the vision of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) in their classrooms, this article presents findings from efforts to (a) adapt existing criteria and design heuristics for educative features of curriculum materials and apply them in the development of materials to support NGSS and (b) develop an authentic measure of teachers’ knowledge and practice based on an analysis of teachers’ evaluations of their students’ written explanations of phenomena. The study demonstrates that existing criteria and heuristics for designing educative features of curriculum materials can be used productively, with minor modifications, to design features that support teachers in their use of materials that support NGSS. It also provides quantitative and qualitative data to show that teachers’ analyses of the explanation task produced useful information about their understanding of the science ideas targeted in the assessment; of the misconceptions their students held; and of their students’ ability to reason from evidence, science ideas, and models in explaining phenomena. This study builds on and contributes to a body of work on the design and use of educative curriculum materials and the evaluation of teacher knowledge. It suggests a practical approach to the design of NGSS-aligned curriculum materials that support both student and teacher learning based on findings from analysis and empirical studies.