The Committee on Biology Teacher Inservice Programs was a combination of teachers, research scientists, teacher educators, and educational administrators. When research scientists involve themselves intensely in science-education reform, their perceptions change. Improving science education is not as simple as doing experiments in the laboratory. Data are harder to collect and interpret.
Educational improvement is difficult to quantify, and the important variables are hard to sort.
In science education, both problems and solutions are embedded in the context of the individual teacher, his or her classroom, and the school and school district. Formulating problems correctly does not necessarily lead to their solution. In fact, the simple logic of problems and solutions can often impede reform. Our analysis and recommendations are based on review of almost 200 programs for teacher enhancement and the collective experience of the committee members. Although we focused our study on biology-education programs, and the name and makeup of our committee reflect this focus, we found that many of the issues we address apply to education in all sciences.