Karen E. BledsoePhilosophy of Education “He who dares to teach must never cease to learn.”John Cotton DanaThe highest purpose of education is to prepare young people to lead fulfilling and responsible lives. Toward this end, education must equip the learner with the social and academic tools necessary to think critically and creatively. The best classroom practices foster personal growth through free exploration of academic subjects, providing learners with the knowledge needed to participate in their society and fostering individuals who will build and protect the open society we value in this country. Learning is more than simply transmitting content. Telling is not teaching. The importance of content cannot be easily argued against; however, attention must be paid to the process of learning as well as to what is to be learned. The classroom for all students, children and adults alike, must ultimately be learner-centered. Students bring their own experiences, beliefs, values, preconceptions, and mental constructions to the classroom, and these entities constrain the building of new knowledge. An effective educator considers the learning process when developing content, goals, and approaches to teaching.The Learning ProcessLearning theories abound, yet at the heart of most cognitive theories of learning is the acknowledgment that knowledge acquisition is a highly individualized process which takes place within the context of the social setting. Much of learning is elusive; the powerful influence of the behaviorist approach to educational research is apparent in the behavioral objectives which many educators write. Behaviors are easy to measure. Learning is not.Constructivist theories inform much of today’s research into the learning process. Students come into class with their own ideas of what is true and how the world functions based on their prior learning and their own experiences. Conflicting information in the classroom creates tension, and while learners may ignore conflicting information as irrelevant, more often they will assimilate the new knowledge with their existing mental constructs. Knowledge grows and broadens as students link new ideas with their old knowledge in personally meaningful ways. The teacher assists the integration process by using multiple teaching strategies and by developing sensitivity to the varying needs of the learners. Lifetime learning can be achieved if the student can master metacognitive strategies to develop and choose from a repertoire of thinking and reasoning skills. Intrinsic motivation drives meaningful learning and is the major factor contributing to a lifelong desire for learning. Extrinsic motivations can encourage students to master facts temporarily, but when the motivating factor is removed, learning may stop. Educators can facilitate meaningful learning by choosing strategies to increase student commitment and by guiding students to finding personal relevance in the subject.ContentStandards-based education is a reality in most states, and drives much of the content that is currently taught, and the effects are felt in higher education. Tension created in striving to reach high academic standards is high because frequently the stakes are high — for teachers, for schools, and sometimes for students. Teaching to higher standards must mean more than learning rote facts if it is to have any value at all in building tomorrow’s citizens. Memorizing a body of knowledge may gain better test scores, but students must understand the knowledge conceptually and be able to apply their knowledge before it will be useful for them. In order to reach the highest standards, students must engage in complex thinking and demonstrate deep understanding. This requires well-developed metacognitive skills and highly sophisticated academic performance.National and state standards are shaping science education. Besides preparing future scientists, science education standards are aimed at preparing citizens whose participation in society casts an impact on the globe through personal choices in daily life and in the voting booth. Developing scientific habits of mind can help people throughout our society deal rationally with problems which involve logic, presentation of evidence, and a degree of uncertainty. Science benchmarks defined by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the National Science Education Standards created by the National Research Council, stress broad concepts rather than particular facts. The Oregon State Standards for science were modeled after these examples, though alignment continues. The history of science, the nature of science, and scientific inquiry come to the forefront of the national models as keys to understanding the processes and facts of science within their proper context. Science is not biology, chemistry, and physics. Science is not an indisputable body of facts. Science, a wholly human endeavor, is a creative process, empirically based, socially embedded, and even subjective to some degree. Students need to understand what science is in order to make sense of its findings. Understanding the nature of science forms a critical part of the education of future science teachers and the larger public.Goals for teaching future biologistsCourses for biology majors generally set them on a course of progressive learning, from general concepts to specific sets of knowledge that they will need in their chosen branch of the profession. For majors, the incentive to do well in a survey course is the knowledge that the foundation they build there will serve them well in later courses. To that end, survey courses should:Explore of the nature of science and the nature of scientific inquiry — A broad understanding of what science is and what science does helps the biology major understand his or her chosen place in the world.Provide conceptual understanding of the major themes in science — Intense specialization in science today hinders communication across disciplines and with the public at large. A strong conceptual grasp of the major themes in biology — cells, heredity, evolution, interdependence of organisms, and organization in living systems —allows a comprehensive understanding of biology across its disciplines and lends a common ground for communication.Foster communication — Increasingly, grant support for research comes with the obligation to communicate findings not just to the