NSTA Emeritus Executive Director Gerry Wheeler shared his thoughts on the challenges facing science education in the coming decade in the Robert H. Karplus Lecture. He noted that although students’ lives outside the classroom are changing dramatically, but their lives inside the classroom have not kept pace. Wheeler said future visions of education are being held hostage to the “tyranny of tradition.”
Wheeler called for more emphasis on student-centered activities, movement away from isolated learning, formative assessment, and more. He said “disruptive innovations” would be needed to really change education, although he expects those innovations to first gain traction outside the mainstream education setting.
At the start of the his talk, Wheeler shared some of his memories of Robert Karplus, theorectical physicist and education leader. As he wrapped up, he said, “What we neeed night now is a Bob Karplus,” someone to lead the next wave of disruptive innnovation in education.