Improving Undergraduate Science & Mathematics Education: A Science Deans Colloquium

美国科学促进会(AAAS)对本科科学和数学教育的担忧之一是，从入门到中级课程的学生大量流失，随之而来的专业数量下降，非理科专业缺乏有吸引力的课程，未来大学前教师的科学和数学准备不足，以及无法招聘和留住女性和少数族裔学生。其他组织，包括NSF，也有他们希望提请适当的大学教职员工和管理人员注意的关切和问题，以便采取行动和/或提出意见。目前，向高等教育界介绍这些信息没有单一有效和高效的接入点，更严重的是，也没有一个单一的有效和高效的接入点来协调和交流不同机构的科学和数学系之间的信息。这是科学和数学教学/学习基础设施中缺失的一部分。AAAS在这里提出了一种机制，即科学院长座谈会，以解决大型研究型大学进入科学和数学社区的问题，其长期目标是通过院长之间的持续互动来改善本科生的科学和数学教育。***

Among the concerns of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) for undergraduate science and mathematics education are the large attrition of students from introductory to the intermediate courses and concomitant declining numbers of majors, lack of attractive offerings for non-science majors, poor science and mathematics preparation for prospective pre-college teachers, and inability to recruit and retain women and minority students. Other organizations, including the NSF, also have concerns and issues that they would like to bring to the attention of appropriate university faculty and administrators for action and/or comment. There is, at present, no single effective and efficient access point for presenting these to the higher education community , nor, more seriously, for coordinating and exchanging information among the science and mathematics departments at different institutions. This is a missing piece of the science and mathematics teaching/learning infrastructure. The AAAS proposes here a mechanism, a Science Deans Colloquium, for addressing the problem of access to the science and mathematics communities in large research universities with the long-term goal of improving undergraduate science and mathematics education through continued interaction among the Deans. ***