Carl Wieman: Taking a Scientific Approach to Science Education

How can science be taught better? Who better to answer that question than a Nobel Laureate. Carl Wieman gave the inaugural Simon Initiative Lecture at Carnegie Mellon University. Carl Wieman holds a joint appointment as Professor of Physics and of the Graduate School of Education at Stanford University. Since winning the Nobel Prize in Physics with two others in 2001, Wieman has dedicated himself to improving science education. CMU president Dr. Subra Suresh invited Dr. Wieman to join the new Global Learning Council (GLC), which includes experts from industry, academia and foundations, who are committed to using science and technology to enhance learning through the open sharing of data and best practices. The Simon Initiative at Carnegie Mellon coalesces the university's decades of interdisciplinary research into technology-enhanced learning with the goal of continuously improving learning outcomes, both for CMU students, and for millions of people throughout the world. The Simon Initiative convenes experts in cognitive psychology, computer science and human-computer interaction who together are working to unlock the potential of human learning. It also features the Simon DataLab, the world's largest open repository of learning data, where researchers and course developers anywhere can both contribute to and use a catalog of thousands of data sets and analytical tools. For more, visit: http://www.cmu.edu/simon