Many programs claim to be inquiry, but only BSCS provides the tools and training for teachers.
President Obama Praises Education Technology at School Piloting Geniverse
BSCS partnering with The Concord Consortium on "Virtual Laboratory" Geniverse project
(News release courtesy of The Concord Consortium): President Obama praised the virtues of educational technology during a March 8 visit to TechBoston Academy, one of six schools in the New England area piloting the Concord Consortium's Geniverse software. Mr. Obama stressed the importance of creating engaging educational technology. "I'm calling for investments in…educational software that's as compelling as the best video game. I want you guys stuck on a video game that's teaching you something other than just blowing something up." The Concord Consortium's Geniverse software fits this description precisely, immersing students in a narrative game-like world of dragon genetics, in which they conduct virtual breeding experiments to solve problems and track down diseases in the dragon population.
Ninth grade Geniverse pilot teacher Marsha Turin says her students are deeply engaged with learning through the software. "Students are much more willing to do the work because it's like a game and to write about the science because they blog about it," Turin says, "This really is authentic learning." Obama praised this type of curriculum during his remarks at TechBoston. "We're working to make sure every school has a 21st-century curriculum like you do," the President remarked. The Geniverse project represents one of the Concord Consortium's many investments in building next-generation educational technology curricula.
The Concord Consortium's Geniverse project, funded by the National Science Foundation, is a collaboration with the Jackson Laboratory, the Maine Mathematics and Science Alliance, TERC, and BSCS.
The Concord Consortium is developing a cyber-learning environment that engages students with the same processes used by scientists. High school students are participating in a virtual laboratory environment and learn firsthand how science knowledge develops in the rapidly changing biology fields of bioinformatics and DNA science.
BSCS will study the impact of a cyber-learning model on various student outcomes, including students' learning about biology concepts, their integration of biology knowledge, their skill at scientific argumentation, and their knowledge of the process of science. BSCS will also study factors that mediate the effects of the Geniverse materials, including professional development, teacher content knowledge, and fidelity of implementation.
The Geniverse project builds upon previous work by the Concord Consortium, and will contribute important research findings about how to apply transformative cyberlearning models to core biology learning and how these new models can be effectively implemented in the classroom. Geniverse will enhance student learning about the process of science while creating and testing structures for researching this learning.
Learn more about The Concord Consortium
For more information about the Geniverse project, contact us.
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