THE PYRAMID: GENERAL EDUCATION AND SCIENCE Shirley Tilghman (Princeton University) has pointed out that the typical sequence of courses within the sciences poses a formidable barrier to discovery of what science is all about. Let's take a student interested in a topic such as brain and language. The sequence of courses she would have to take before being able to come to grips with this topic is illustrated here.

BREAKING THE PYRAMID: FRONTIERS OF SCIENCE But suppose that such a student could IMMEDIATELY begin to address interesting issues in science in a challenging and rigorous way, without the hurdle of extensive preparatory classes? Is it possible to break the pyramid, interest more students in science and inform them about how science works? This is the central question behind an ongoing 5 year experiment at Columbia University: Frontiers in Science

THE STRUCTURE OF FRONTIERS

The Structure of Frontiers: Weekly lectures The weekly lectures serve as the text for Frontiers. These lectures make up the four units of the course illustrated here: two of the units focus on the physical sciences and two on the life sciences. Each unit includes three lectures and three seminars (20 student seminars led by lecturers, other senior faculty and Columbia Science fellows). Each lecture reinforces skills and approaches outlined in the online text for Frontiers: Scientific Habits of Mind. A pdf version of the slides for each lecture are posted for the students to print and bring to lecture to facilitate following the lecture, taking notes and preparing lecture questions. These illustrate materials from Frontiers in Spring 2005. For Spring 2006 we are using a podcast format to record the lectures (and podcast video for lectures and slides). Instructions at: http://www.dkv.columbia.edu/fos/index.html The URL for the regular podcasts is: http://www.dkv.columbia.edu/fos/fos_s06.xml The Video podcast, which is still experimental: http://ed.dkv.columbia.edu/fos/ right (or control) click and download fos_enhanced.m4a It should open into iTunes. It can also be opened by quicktime. When it starts to play it should show artwork (the powerpoints) in the lower left corner. You may need to resize your windows to see it at the full 300x300 size. When you start playing it in iTunes a chapter selection box appears on the right side of the progress slider. If you click on it you can select which slide you want to jump ahead to. The Structure of Frontiers: Assignments for Seminars Each week students are assigned readings associated with the lecture (Scientific American articles, book chapters, Science and Nature papers are examples). At the end of each lecture students are expected to hand in a lecture question (LQ) or questions to their seminar leaders.Lecture questions serve to promote attendance at the lectures and alert seminar leaders to issues that should be addressed in their small classes. Before seminar, students are expected to transmit responses to that week's discussion question (DQ) or questions to the seminar leader. Discussion questions are open ended and groups of students can work together to formulate their responses. Student responses can be posted to the web-based class Discussion bulletin board. At each seminar students hand in printed weekly individual assignments (WIAs); these are short problem sets that prepare students for the final examination. Solutions to the WIAs are posted at the end of each week. These assignments together with class participation and performance of the final examination are used by each seminar leader to grade individual students.

Research for Undergraduates following Frontiers of Science The faculty of Frontiers of Science facilitate research experience for their students through Departmental programs and individual contacts. For example, during the summer of 2005, a FOS student joined other undergraduates from Columbia, the University of Puerto Rico, Oberlin, Swarthmore and Harvard for summer research in Darcy Kelley's lab. Students interested in research experience first read an introduction to research on the lab web page. Instructions for applying to the lab are available at this site. Research in the Biology Department Research in the Chemistry Department Research in the Psychology Department Research in the Mathematics Department Research in the Astronomy Department Research in the Physics Department

A TEXT FOR FRONTIERS: SCIENTIFIC HABITS OF MIND The themes common to all fields of scientific inquiry are covered in an online text - Scientific Habits of Mind - written specifically for Frontiers by its Co-Director, David Helfand, Professor of Astronomy at Columbia University.

TEACHING THE TEACHERS One challenge of Frontiers is that Faculty teach outside of their area of expertise: neuroscientists teach quantum mechanics, astronomers teach biodiversity. Along with the course we have developed a series of Instructors' Course Guides which provide materials to answer some of the questions students will raise in seminars. The Guides include Primers ("Maulik's Minimal Manual for Quantum Mechanics". "Neuron to Brain"; see link below), Class activities (case studies, experiments), discussion questions from the lecture readings (and their solutions!) and anything else that could be helpful. Neuron to brain

Columbia Science Fellows Dr. Kerry Brown (Ecology) and Dr. Robin Herrnstein (Astrophysics) COLUMBIA SCIENCE FELLOWS Another challenge addressed in Frontiers is developing programs to promote the professional development of young scientist educators. We have approached this issue by creating positions for young scientists: Columbia Science Fellows.

EVALUATING FRONTIERS OF SCIENCE Frontiers faculty are using a combination of approaches to determine whether the course is working, how it should be changed, and its impact (short-and long-term) on students. Professor of Psychology and Statistics David Krantz, a Frontiers of Science faculty member, leads the evaluation effort in collaboration with other faculty and his collaborators, Susan Chipman (Office of Naval Research) and Rae Silver (Barnard College). Four different types of questions can be asked in evaluating a course or any subpart of a course or curriculum: (1) How do students perform on assignments or exams that reflect the main learning goals of the course?; (2) How well do students like various aspects of the course, and the course as a whole?; (3) How are students' attitudes and intentions altered, with respect to the general subject matter represented by the course?; and (4) How are students' actual choices and future learning altered (as these relate to the subject matter of the course)? Through a sophisticated battery of assessment and evaluation techniques, Columbia is committed to answering all these questions as well as tracking the experiences of junior faculty who teach the course. ONGOING ASSESSMENT AND EVALUATION The Frontiers of Science faculty have designed and are implementing different assessment instruments to address these questions. First, the instructors use student achievement on Frontiers of Science examinations as an informal way of understanding what students learn. Second, the faculty administers a thorough evaluation at the end of the semester. These evaluations target student attitudes (how much they like the course) and their suggestions to improve it. In addition, Professor Krantz and his collaborators have begun studying the changes in attitudes and aspirations toward science and scientific literacy during the crucial first year of college. A web-based (http://www.columbia.edu/cu/psychology/Krantzlabweb/Ques/Scienceideas04/scienceideas.html) questionnaire was administered to coincide with the initial presentation of Frontiers to one-third of the entering class in Fall, 2003. The questionnaire was completed in early fall, 2003 by some of the students enrolled in Frontiers and by some who were not enrolled, and was completed in spring, 2004 by a separate group of first-years students, again including some who had enrolled in Frontiers and some who had not. The questionnaire included a scale for Mathematics Confidence, one for Science Confidence and Positivity, an assessment of interest in several different careers (some of which are science-related), an assessment of important career goals (personal and social), and a test of "science literacy" adapted in part from a former NSF Survey of Scientific Literacy. Among students not enrolled in Frontiers, Mathematics Confidence scores were lower in spring, 2004 than for the group tested in early fall, 2003. The decrease in math confidence was much smaller for students who were enrolled in Frontiers. While this result suggests a positive effect of enrollment in Frontiers, we take it with a large grain of salt, for two reasons. First, the sample sizes are not large; while the decline for those not enrolled in Frontiers was statistically reliable (t statistic about 2.6), and the decline in those who were enrolled was not (t statistic about 0.9), the difference between these declines (testing-time x enrollment interaction) was not statistically reliable. Second, questionnaire return rate was substantially higher among those enrolled in Frontiers, and this suggests a possibility of sample bias in addition to sampling error. At Columbia College, approximately one-third of each entering class intends to major in science, but at graduation the actual number is less than 15 Professor Krantz's questionnaire suggests that substantial attrition takes place in the first year of college: openness to several science-related careers declined between early fall 2003 and spring 2004. Since openness to these science-related careers is in turn related to math confidence, part of the attrition could be explained by the decline in math confidence. If Frontiers of Science does maintain math confidence, besides stimulating interest in a variety of scientific fields, it will help Columbia College to realize more of its potential in undergraduate science education. On the basis of the results of the 2003-04 questionnaire study, Columbia College has decided to administer a similar questionnaire to each of the next five entering classes. Half of the students will complete it early in the fall, the other half early in spring. This permits us to compare results at the start and the end of the first semester, both for students who enroll in Frontiers in the fall and for those who do not (i.e., who enroll in the spring). Our data for each student will also include term-by-term enrollments and grades in mathematics and science courses, choice of major or concentration, career plans at graduation, and follow-up data on actual career choices. Thus, a student's attitudes toward math and science and interest in science careers, as expressed in the above questionnaire, will be related to that student's subsequent choice of courses and careers. These data will also permit us to generate a clear aggregate picture of science-related choices: we are particularly interested in the diversity of science courses taken by undergraduates. In gauging the impact of Frontiers of Science, one necessarily compares different cohorts of students: those who entered Columbia prior to 2003 versus those entering 2004 and later. Differences in science attitudes, science literacy, and majors and career choices, could be attributed directly to the educational effects of Frontiers, or (more indirectly) to changes in the cohort of entering students, produced by the introduction of Frontiers in the curriculum, or finally, to coincidental changes in the entering student cohort, i.e., changes not causally related to the introduction of Frontiers. It may not be possible to separate these possibilities with any degree of confidence. We will try, nonetheless. One method is to use interviews to obtain the students' own accounts of their college careers and the role, if any, played by Frontiers. A second is to take advantage of any differences between the subgroups in each year that enroll in Frontiers during the fall or spring terms. If much change in attitude and intention takes place during the fall, these groups may turn out to be somewhat different. A third method is to compare cohort changes at Columbia College with corresponding changes at peer institutions over the same time period. All three of these methods will be attempted. FUTURE PLANS FOR ASSESSMENT AND EVALUATION Each Spring Columbia's Division of Student Affairs conducts an Enrolled Student Survey of all College students; we seek to extend this instrument to cover student attitudes toward the course in the context of the later years of their undergraduate education, student course choice subsequent to Frontiers (as compared to 2001–2002, before Frontiers) and choice of major. We will also conduct graduation and retention studies of science students (both majors and concentrators) in the College over the course of the project. In addition to these ongoing activities, Columbia College would like to enhance the evaluation and assessment of Frontiers of Science. These enhancements would include exit interviews of students each semester and organizing focus groups of students to evaluate the course. For Columbia Science Fellows we will conduct a structured exit interview during their final semester of teaching Frontiers and will track career trajectories. The web-based questionnaire The ultimate test for FOS