To Raise Science Scores, Colleges Look Beyond the Lecture. [View all]

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Hundreds of students fill the seats, but the lecture hall stays quiet enough for everyone to hear each cough and crumpling piece of paper. The instructor speaks from a podium for nearly the entire 80 minutes. Most students take notes. Some scan the Internet. A few doze.

In a nearby hall, an instructor, Catherine Uvarov, peppers students with questions and presses them to explain and expand on their answers. Every few minutes, she has them solve problems in small groups. Running up and down the aisles, she sticks a microphone in front of a startled face, looking for an answer. Students dare not nod off or show up without doing the reading.

Both are introductory chemistry classes at the University of California campus here in Davis, but they present a sharp contrast — the traditional and orderly but dull versus the experimental and engaging but noisy. Breaking from practices that many educators say have proved ineffectual, Dr. Uvarov’s class is part of an effort at a small but growing number of colleges to transform the way science is taught.

“We have not done a good job of teaching the intro courses or gateway courses in science and math,” said Hunter R. Rawlings III, president of the Association of American Universities and a former president of Cornell University and the University of Iowa. “Teaching freshmen and sophome level classes has not had a high enough priority, and that has to change.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/27/us/college-science-classes-failure-rates-soar-go-back-to-drawing-board.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

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No shit, sherlock!

After studying Transportation and learning about metro stations around the world, 2nd grade students built their own Metro stations. They first had to generate their own list of features that are accessible and help people navigate their way through Metro stations, and then they built model stations to physically represent those features.

https://www.facebook.com/lowellschooldc/posts/990025704344964

Fostering future architects in winter break club making ginger bread houses! Looks yummy eh?

https://www.facebook.com/lowellschooldc/posts/993193350694866