AMES, Iowa -- Michael Clough has a track record for producing national award-winning science teachers. Iowa State University's associate professor of science education in curriculum and instruction has now had eight of his former students earn the National Science Teachers Association Maitland P. Simmons Memorial Award for New Teachers since 2007.
So Clough knows how to prepare a better science teacher, and he plans to make that a priority when he becomes president of the International History, Philosophy and Science Teaching (IHPST) Group at its biennial international conference, July 1-5, in Thessaloniki, Greece.
Those efforts couldn't come at a better time, since the American Association for Employment in Education reports that one of the greatest areas of teacher shortages around the nation is in the physical sciences.
"There are a lot of things going on to improve STEM [science, technology, engineering, and mathematics] education, but not all of it is really addressing deep conceptual understanding," Clough said. "I'm troubled by how much of it is really, 'Can we get kids to say the right things, or answer correctly on tests?' And this group [IHPST] really does remain true to its principles that they want students to really understand science -- which includes what science is, how science works, and the science content.
"With the history and philosophy of science, we're not trying to make historians and philosophers of science out of students," he continued. "We want them to understand where these ideas came from, how they were developed and how science works. And through that, they're going to understand the content better."
Science teachers as storytellers
Clough believes strongly that science teachers need to become better storytellers about the history behind the science. In fact, he's been leading a team of nine educators on the project titled, "The Story Behind the Science: Bringing Science and Scientists to Life in Post-Secondary Science" (http://www.storybehindthescience.org/), funded by a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant.
The team has already created 30 historical short stories -- ranging from Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, to detection of black holes in outer space, to the history behind ice ages -- that post-secondary introductory astronomy, biology, chemistry, geology and physics instructors can download to draw their students' attention to the nature of science.
"The research that's been done on teaching of the nature of science is very clear: you can't just have students read accurate stories and expect them to develop this accurate understanding," said Clough, who is also associate editor of the Iowa Science Teachers Journal. "You've got to draw their attention to ideas about the nature of science that are embedded in the story. So we inserted questions and implicit comments at appropriate places within the stories that do that."
The project team includes fellow Iowa State members Joanne Olson, an associate professor of curriculum and instruction; Jim Colbert, an associate professor in ecology, evolution, and organismal biology; Cinzia Cervato, a professor in geological and atmospheric sciences; Charles Kerton, an associate professor of astronomy; Craig Ogilvie, an assistant dean in physics and astronomy; Thomas Greenbowe, a professor of chemistry; and Joe Taylor, a high school science teacher who earned his master's degree in science education at ISU. Matthew Stanley, an associate professor of history and the philosophy of science at New York University, completes the nine-member team.
A new NSF grant proposal
Secondary science teachers have shown great interest in the stories Clough's team has developed, so a $670,000 grant proposal has been submitted to NSF to create 70 similar kinds of stories for middle school and high school teachers to use.
In his new role as president of the IHPST Group, Clough also hopes to have the organization develop policy statements that will be useful to science educators at all levels.
"I really want to bring on some key players in the organization and develop policy statements that can better help not only teachers, but also administrators and policymakers to understand that this is not some esoteric effort," he said. "In fact, understanding the history and nature of science has been a perpetual goal in science education since about 1900. And since 1989, it's been at the top of many reform documents by the American Association for the Advancement of Science."
Clough will serve a two-year appointment as president of the IHPST Group.