This research area is one of particular interest to me. The Research Evaluation, and Communication division focuses on research into how students learn and the best techniques for teaching math and science. Last year, the Subcommittee held a hearing on education research during which it became clear that nearly all of the education practices used to teach students, especially in the scientific disciplines, lack a rigorous scientific grounding. Further, we learned that even though we are accumulating more and more research into how children learn, little of it is being integrated into the techniques used by teachers in the classroom. NSF supports two activities with a research focus.
ROLE aims to integrate the scientific disciplines into research on learning and education.
The Interagency Education Research Initiative, a coordinated effort involving NSF, the Department of Education, and the National Institutes of Health, supports large-scale teaching and learning research. I am looking forward to hearing testimony on initiatives planned by NSF in these two important programs. In particular, I would like to hear how NSF is coordinating with these other agencies and how it measures results in the classroom. I would like to thank our three panelists for appearing before the Subcommittee today and I look forward to hearing their testimony.