National Research Council Workshop Series for MSPs - The Sequel?
Author: Jay Labov

Contents
2. Background
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2. Background

As part of a MSP/RETA grant from NSF, from 2003-2006 the NRC's Center for Education offered a series of twelve 2-day interactive workshops that were open to all other MSP projects. These workshops were designed to assist participants in learning about the increasing body of education research on a variety of topics that were deemed critical to the success of the original targeted and comprehensive MSP projects. People who served on NRC study committees that produced some of the seminal reports in education as well as other education experts helped workshop participants appreciate the breadth of that research, its finding, and implications and potential applications for MSPs. Topics included

  • How People Learn (3 workshops)
  • Assessment of Learning (2 workshops)
  • Teacher Education and Professional Development (2 workshops)
  • The Role of Higher Education Faculty and Institutions in MSPs (2 workshops)
  • Challenging Courses and Curricula (2 workshops)
  • Sustainability of Effective Programs - What's Worth Sustaining? (1 workshop)

Since that time, the NSF has awarded many new MSP grants. The NSF in interested in learning whether a similar series of workshops that are targeted to new grantees but that would also benefit people who are part of the more established projects would be helpful to the MSP community. This session will explore this question with newer grantees. Several attendees at the originals workshops will describe how their projects have benefitted from their participation. The remainder of the session will be devoted to a discussion moderated by the PI of the original workshop series about whether a new series of workshops would be helpful to new grantees.