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What is Microcosmos?

Contents

Main Objectives of Microcosmos
Microcosmos Reflects Current Research in Science Learning
How Microcosmos Meets Objectives
Summary of Key Accomplishments

Main Objectives of Microcosmos

• Create classroom enthusiasm for science at the middle and secondary levels through inner space exploration
  
• Serve as a conduit toward building lifelong skill development
  
• Show that science is accessible, of daily relevance, and nonstatic
  
• Expose teachers and their students to a new understanding of the planet
  
• Counteract "science-phobia" and "microphobia," so that students and teachers can readily appreciate microbial life and integrate the most common and dominant forms of life on the planet into mainstream curriculum
  

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Microcosmos Reflects Current Research in Science Learning

• Students learn by being physically, as well as mentally, involved with subjects and skills.
  
• Optimal learning flows from a constructivist view, i.e., students build new meanings from their current and ongoing base of knowledge and ideas.
  
• Classroom learning may function optimally in a symbiotic context in which the teacher is recognized as both a leader and a learner, and the students are involved with activities and tasks such that they perceive shared ownership of the learning environment.
  
• Students must be assessed within individual learning styles, and these styles must be reflective of the curriculum.
  
• Exploring concepts in depth fosters connections, solves problems, and unleashes creative potential.
  
  

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Microcosmos Meets the Objectives by:

• conducting workshops for teachers to show them how to integrate Microcosmos into their curriculum and overall pedagogy
  
• modeling curriculum explorations that serve as alternatives to text-based learning
  
• offering new approaches to classroom science learning, including a learning cycle where students create the learning environment with the teacher; outcomes, such as exhibits, are referenced over the year
  
• presenting opportunities to university students so that they can be involved in alternative science education strategies
  
• conducting research that contributes to improved science education practices, both systemically and within the classroom
  
• building collaborations with other individuals and organizations, both nationally and internationally
  

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Summary of Key Accomplishments

• A large number of diverse teachers from across the nation are closely connected to a university program.
  
• Microcosmos is a recognized initiator of educational reform, including empowering teacher leaders.
  
• Microcosmos helps to move university-based education away from verbiage to direct modeling of potential solutions.
  
• Microcosmos is an international program, including teacher training in Spain, New Zealand, and Canada.
  
• The Microcosmos Team is a unique educational reform collective that models how a university can forge successful partnerships among graduate students, professional teachers, curriculum developers, science specialists, and artists.
  
• Microcosmos has helped place exhibit and outcome-based learning on the national agenda, and its overall risktaking approach contributed to its selection in the NAS standards effort.
  
• Through its well-received curriculum guide, workshops, and ongoing outreach, Microcosmos is helping develop new perspectives of the planet and the human connection to it with potentially far-reaching implications both in and out of school settings.
  
• Microcosmos forges an important dialogue between the scientific and educational academic communities that fosters new respect and alliances.
  
• As an outgrowth from the Team structure, Microcosmos is a magnet for doctoral study. We see the evolution of a community level, education-based group of thinkers/doers into scholarly study that feeds back to the communities.
  
• Microcosmos has shown that adjunct programs involving educational issues can reinvigorate and stimulate a university learning environment and enhance the degree-granting programs, such as the MAT.
  
• Microcosmos links educators to each other and the future.
  

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