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Paul Numedahl
Science Educator
pnumedahl@bscs.org
Paul Numedahl, Ph.D., is a science educator in the Professional Development Center at BSCS, and an Institute for Learning Fellow at the University of Pittsburgh, where he serves on the DL Science Team. He holds degrees in biology and science education from the University of Northern Iowa and University of Iowa respectively. Prior to joining BSCS in the spring of 2008, Dr. Numedahl taught secondary school science in both urban and rural school districts and was a district level administrator. In addition, he has held both visiting professor and assistant professor positions in science education at the college level.
Post-secondary experience includes teaching both undergraduate and graduate level education courses and research in the field of science education. In addition to teaching and research, Dr. Numedahl has been involved with numerous externally funded professional development projects for elementary and secondary science teachers. His early work centered on secondary math and science teaching in rural school districts and involved the integration of math and science instruction via a problem-solving pedagogical model. Most recently, Dr. Numedahl was involved with Science Teacher Enhancement for the Pikes Peak Region (STEP-uP) project. This eight-year initiative, funded by the National Science Foundation, focused on science education reform in five urban school districts. Since the project’s inception, he was extensively involved with the development and facilitation of institutes and courses designed to substantially enhance science content and pedagogical knowledge of practicing teachers.
Dr. Numedahl has a broad range of scholarly interests that include the areas of teacher beliefs concerning science as a discipline and the teaching of science. Consequently, he has presented papers on teaching beliefs and conceptions at various national conferences including the Association of Science Teacher Educator (ASTE), Association of Teacher Educators (ATE), and the National Association of Research in Science Teaching (NARST). Secondary interests include effective instructional approaches that explicitly teach and infuse the nature of science into science curriculum and the influence such methods have on student perceptions of the scientific endeavor and content area understandings.
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