CSE Course Offerings

Core Science Education Courses:
Fall Term: SCI 511: Teaching Science as Inquiry
This course is designed to teach educators how to engage their own students in the process of scientific inquiry. Working with faculty, students experience the methods and processes of scientific inquiry, including experimental design, the recording, quantification, and interpretation of observations and effective communication of results.

Winter Term: SCI 512: Methods in Science Education Research
This course is designed to support the MST Masters Thesis or Project. Students explore professional literature to gain an understanding of many important issues and questions pertinent to contemporary science education. Participants in the course are provided with guidance in the development of their contribution to a CSE or partnering department's science education research project. At the same time, students will develop an understanding of an array of quantitative and qualitative social science research instruments such as various statistical analysis models and approaches to case study analysis.

Spring Term: SCI 513 Assessment of Student Achievement in Science: This course is designed for educators interested in exploring the underlying theory of academic assessment. Using the work of the statewide committees that are currently redesigning the state of Oregon's statewide science standards and assessment for K-12 as a backdrop for understanding, students will explore assessment as scholarship. Students will consider background literature, concepts and terminology of assessment including learning what constitutes measurable student learning outcomes and looking at the differences between grading and assessment. The course will explore practical approaches for designing assessment plans including the development of assessment measures using qualitative and quantitative methods of assessment and how to achieve validity and reliability of assessment measures. Students explore approaches to survey development, interview techniques, portfolios, assessing writing and critical thinking, assessing learning environments and scoring student work samples. The course also examines use of technology in assessment and using assessment results for program improvement.

SCI 507 MST Seminar: The CSE graduate seminar serves as an important setting in which to read and discuss science education research professional literature, and present ongoing as well as finished PSU graduate and faculty research. It is expected that graduate students attend and participate in the MST seminar as a key part of their professional education. Noyce Scholars are required to attend three trimesters of this seminar. Track one MST students are required to take two term of the seminar but strongly encouraged to attend as many terms as possible.

SCI 503 Thesis credit: Offered in all terms. Working with a lead thesis advisor and two thesis committee members, students do literature searches, prepare a research or project proposal, implement the research or project, analyze and synthesize data and write a thesis or project summary in accordance to the protocols determined by the university and the academic advisor. Students then defend their thesis before their committee of at least three faculty members including the lead academic advisor. 

SCI 510 Teaching to Diversity Seminar: This is a three consecutive term course designed specifically for track 2 MST, Noyce Scholars to explore issues of cultural competency for classroom teachers. Noyce Scholars learn about a variety of cultural groups represented in k-12 classrooms in the Portland area through readings, cultural immersion experiences, and dialogue with parents and teachers. By the end of the seminar, Noyce Scholars gain an emerging familiarity with these cultural communities and reflect on ways to teach effectively to a diversity of students.

SCI 510 Forging Community Partnerships: An important approach for learning and teaching for the University and for the Center For Science Education is service learning. This course presents the CSE model for program and curriculum development through service and community partnerships. The course considers various models of project-based learning and explores approaches to incorporating community resources into the design of curriculum that involves students in doing inquiry-based science in ways that strive to serve real needs in the community. Participants will discuss approaches to involving community partners in working directly with students and teachers on contextually based projects and explore various avenues for funding project including grant writing and negotiating sponsorships of projects.

SCI 410/510 Diversity and Equity Issues in Science/Science Education: This course will explore the persistent under-representation of women and minorities in the sciences and engineering. A growing body of scholarship indicates that the demographic characteristics of the practitioners of science have implications for the way science is done and how it is used. Thus it is critical for science educators to become aware of the roles they play in shaping the population of future generations of scientists. We will examine the factors that effect diversity in the sciences by 1.) understanding the demographic characteristics of scientists and engineers in the US and globally, and how the science and engineering "pipeline" has changed over time, 2.) analyzing research that attempts to investigate the underlying causes for the disproportionate representation of women and minorities in science and engineering and 3.) examining intervention programs including the Robert Noyce Scholarship Program and Math and Science Partnership Programs such as the Oregon Teacher Scholars Program and pedagogical approaches that attempt to address diversity and equity issues in science.

ESR 570 Environmental Education: An overview of the purpose and scope of environmental education. Provides and educational framework and examples of a variety of sites where environmental education is practiced. Specific examples of teaching strategies, materials and methods will be presented. Students will be expected to carry out a site-based project utilizing some of the materials developed in class.