Melissa K. Demetrikopoulos

A Comparison of Internal Dispositions and Career Trajectories after Collaborative versus Apprenticed Research Experiences for Undergraduates

Doing scientific research benefits undergraduates, but relatively few research mentors are available. Using stratified random assignment of students to conditions, this study shows that a collaborative learning model produces student outcomes just as positive as a traditional apprenticeship.

Interplay of Creativity and Giftedness in Science

Creativity is what separates good scientists from truly great scientists who can open up new avenues of investigation. Although the interaction of creativity with giftedness in the scientific arena is often overlooked, it is well established that successful scientists are intellectually gifted, and the idea that creativity is important to the successful scientist was eloquently described by Albert Einstein (1931). “Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution.” Thus, gifted learners must be taught how to create new postulates, to think logically, and to reason rather than to be taught strategies to memorize a set of potentially irrelevant facts. This work by a diverse field of international authors focuses discussion on the interplay of giftedness and creativity within the scientific enterprise and provides evidence and theoretical constructs which can be used to adjust learning environments to be conducive to the development of superior scientists. The book also explores the interplay of creativity and giftedness for scientists in a historical context, describes the importance of creativity in scientific advances, and examines the impact of the current educational system and various cultural expectations on diverse gifted and creative science students including those with special needs. Furthermore, the Interplay of Creativity and Giftedness in Science provides a mechanism for communicating exemplary examples of programs, which have successfully combined creativity, giftedness and science, across linguistic, cultural, racial, geographic, socioeconomic, and situational educational settings.

Formal Lessons Improve Informal Educational Experiences: The Influence of Prior Knowledge on Student Engagement

ABSTRACT Educational experiences can be influenced by novel experiences, yet educators often overlook the influence novelty exerts on students. This quasi-experimental study manipulated prior knowledge before a zoo field trip for 210 urban 7th-grade students from 2 schools, 1 comprised mostly of low-socioeconomic status (SES) families and 1 comprised mostly of middle-SES families. Students participated in 1 of 2 preparatory lessons, only 1 of which previewed field trip-related content, thereby increasing prior knowledge for half the students from each school. Prior knowledge significantly increased learner engagement, measured through attentiveness, from both schools, but in different types of behaviors. Students from the low-SES school demonstrated more attentiveness if their preparatory lesson previewed field trip material than if it was unrelated to the field trip. Students from the middle SES school displayed the same level of attentiveness in both conditions (and overall higher than the low-SES students). This study highlights complexities associated with prior knowledge and reveals strategies to help improve engagement levels for students visiting informal learning environments.