Reflections on DNA Day

Originally published at Science Progress

Today is National DNA Day, (now you know). Students across the country are right now discussing inheritance, the achievements of Watson and Crick (probably not Maurice Wilkins or Rosalyn Franklin), and in more progressive parts of the country, Darwin and evolution. ‘Tis a good day to learn some science. But it’s also a good opportunity to consider a radical overhaul of U.S. science education.

This year, and indeed, this week have delivered plenty of remarkable news that put the astounding science that surrounds the double helix in a special context that probably can’t be adequately resolved in a science classroom in a day and don’t begin to treat the sickness of scientific ignorance in the U.S.

For example, yesterday the U.S. Senate passed the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act, after Senator Coburn (R-OK) lifted his curious block on the bill (he voted in favor of it twice before deciding to block it from even being considered). As much as I would like to pump my fist in victory, we shouldn’t pop the champagne (or Freedom Suds for the jingoistic sect) yet, as the bill is slightly different from the one that passed the House twice this Congress, leaving wiggle-room for more Coburnesque obstructionism. The blocks on GINA were not a science issue, but are at least in part the result of a lack of understanding and appreciation of the fact that genetic predisposition to disease is not a diagnosis. The opposition was mainly about greed and business interests.

We can drop Ben Stein’s magnum crapus, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed in the same category of non-science issues, but for different reasons. Now widely discredited as manufactured controversy in the name of creationist activism, Mr. Stein managed to make a fool of himself by displaying a lack of knowledge and intellectual honesty that will likely spell the end of his unusual career (and might be equally indicative that he should seek some professional help for his case of the crazies). That Mr. Stein is attacking scientists does not make his movie or his aggressively ignorant point of view part of science. But that isn’t going to stop it from coming up in classrooms today.

The unfortunate fall of Jim Watson last October will probably stick in my mind for many years to come. Patently racist comments made in a scientific context effectively ended the career of the world’s most famous living scientist, and we are not better off for it. I am still baffled by Watson’s comments and torn on the fate of one of my science heroes. For sure, students are looking at his Wikipedia entry today and learning that he was forced into retirement for falsely linking race and intelligence.

I worry that teachers might not be equipped with the knowledge to explain where Watson was wrong, or Ben Stein, or what a genetic predisposition is, or how it could be used to discriminate against someone.

The truth is that scientific advances have always brought controversy, most often because of a lack of appreciation and understanding of actual achievements or their implications, coupled with fear of change. Expelled and the opposition to progressive legislation like GINA are symptoms of an ignorance of science and a fear of change, not vice versa. Such misunderstanding is certainly not limited to evolution and human genomics either. The only way to combat that fear is to eliminate it, and the only way to do that is to dedicate a serious effort to revamping science education in the U.S. starting with minimum standards for science education, radically improving science teacher literacy and retention, and making a solid science education compulsory for all students. Let’s not beat around the bush; that is going to cost a lot of money and effort. But there are few measures that the next President and Congress could take that would be more worthwhile for securing our future.

We are in the unfortunate position of having to discuss controversy in classrooms because we have done an inadequate job of creating a scientifically literate public. We lie in this bed because of inaction on creating national science education standards, because of decades of educational decay, and an unwillingness to address the roots of fear and ignorance.

The National Human Genome Research Institute deserves a lot of credit for successfully using DNA Day as a tool to have genomics and basic genetics taught in schools, and there seems little doubt that other groups should expand upon their efforts. But let’s not mistake DNA Day as any kind of solution to the kind of societal and education changes we will need to remain competitive. Each of the Presidential candidates and every candidate for Congress should put their cards on the table for revamping science education. Anyone who doesn’t think that is a prerequisite for their jobs is probably not prepared for them.

Michael Stebbins is the Director of Biology Policy for the Federation of American Scientists, President of the SEA Action Fund and author of Sex, Drugs and DNA: Science’s Taboos Confronted.

More Tests Please: No Child Left Behind Debate Misses the Point

Originally posted on Science Progress.

By Henry Kelly, Ph.D.

No Child Left Behind has created the wrong kind of debate about testing. Given the lack of new funding, many states are jiggering their tests to obscure the failure of poorly performing schools and undermining the accountability that was the core goal of the program. Others are attempting to opt out of the program altogether. The process is wasteful, confusing to students, and fails to produce the information that education enterprises badly need to ensure continuous improvement in what they do.

Instead, we should first engage in a national debate about the expertise students need to acquire in order to prosper in the 21^st century, and only then settle on how best to measure their progress. The interactive methods used in computer games represent some of the most powerful ways to test newly acquired skills, but understanding why they are so useful requires a clear recognition of why our current testing procedures are thoroughly outdated.

Despite all the complaints about the numerous tests mandated by the No Child Left Behind Act, the problem is not too many tests but too few tests. High stakes, standardized tests are an artifact of a mass production model imposed on education out of necessity during the last century. Traditional tests measure performance in situations that will seldom, if ever, occur in an actual job. Someone trained to solve problems working in isolation, with no access to reference material and no ability to consult experts, is largely useless in today’s economy—however many facts they may have mastered. We use such tests because they are inexpensive to implement.

But consider the ideal classroom scenario: An instructor able to spend plenty of time with each individual student, constantly challenging them, asking probing questions, and presenting increasingly complex challenges tailored for each student. By the time a test is taken the student should have run through the material enough times that they and their instructors have high confidence in success.

These powerful methods aren’t used in standard classrooms for two obvious reasons—they’re unaffordable and we continue to think of the classroom the same way they did 200 years ago. A solution, however, has emerged from an unexpected source—computer games.

The average U.S. teenage boy spends about 14 hours a week glued to computer games. Yet, we aren’t taking advantage of that. Most adults can’t imagine how the lessons of Super Mario could be applied to high school science or history. But consider that a good game will capture and hold a player’s attention with a series of compelling goals, each slightly beyond the player’s current abilities. A great game draws players in what designers call “the flow.” Once in it, they will try, fail and try again, working for hours to master the skills needed to win.

What’s striking, of course, is that they’re also being continuously tested. Tests are an integral part of winning, and players accept the fact that they will fail before they master the skills needed to move on. If you keep crashing your simulated aircraft you know that you’ve got to work harder—and want to. Winning at the most advanced levels of game play requires players to draw on a huge body of knowledge and experience.

Winning many games, moreover, often requires more than mastery of specific skills. They require precisely the skills that the Partnership for 21st Century Skills recently reported are in greatest demand in today’s economy: gathering evidence, making decisions under uncertainty, evaluating options, and (in the case of multiplayer games) working effectively as a member of a team.

The U.S. Department of Defense, which unlike most organizations is completely unembarrassed about having its employees play games (war games), has come to appreciate the power of simulation-based games to teach and test individuals and teams. They have convincing evidence that skills acquired through simulations translate into performance in the field.

Simulation-based instruction can reproduce the complexity, confusion, and tension of field conditions so faithfully that the success a soldier gains in the simulation translates directly into reliable performance during first real combat experience. This powerful transfer from simulation to practice has also been demonstrated for pilots and several areas of surgery. Surely it’s possible to create challenges in biology, history, or engineering that can capture and hold attention.

Building software to teach and test complex skills is expensive. Several billion dollars were invested and lost in education technologies towards the end of the dot-com boom a decade ago, and investors have been wary ever since. Schools and universities are a notoriously poor market for innovations, in part because of an understandable reluctance to take risks with unproven approaches. But as a result, an enormous opportunity is being lost.

We’ve confronted this kind of market failure before. The federal government has been able to fill gaps by funding basic science research, development, testing and evaluation that can be picked up by private investors. It can do this in new technologies for learning as well and create significant markets for robust new products…or we could just continue to fool ourselves that our education system can be fixed with ad hoc testing standards.

Henry Kelly, Ph.D., is the President of the Federation of American Scientists and Chairman of the Board of Directors for Scientists and Engineers for America.