Dissemination of Instructional Materials in Science for the PreCollege level: A Report to the Profession

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During the past decade, the Division of Materials Development, Research, and Informal Science Education (DMDRI) at the National Science Foundation (NSF) has funded more than 100 projects aimed at developing materials to enhance both formal and informal teaching and learning across the nation in the fields of mathematics, science and technology. While each of these projects has had a limited, project-specific evaluation component built into it, heretofore there has been little effort to assess the longer-term impact of the projects either individually or as a class on teaching and learning on a broad scale across the nation. To find the answers to key questions about the impact of DMDRI/NSF-sponsored activities, Reynolds and Schaeffer Associates, Inc. (R&S), proposes to use a highly interactive interdisciplinary team approach. R&S will begin by working with the DMDRI/NSF staff to select between 15 and 18 projects that are presently funded, or have been funded, by DMDRI/NSF within the past decade and have been judged to be successful according to the limited objectives of the individual project evaluations. R&S will recruit and coordinate a team of people with significant expertise in the field who have successfully served in past projects, analyze the data and file individual reports for each project with the R&S PI. The PI will analyze and synthesize the reports on the 15 to 18 individual projects into a single coherent report on the impact of DMDRI/NSF activities on formal and informal teaching and learning in the fields of mathematics, science and technology across the broad national spectrum. This report will be filed with the Director, DMDRI/NSF not later than seven months from the project start date.