New England Workshop on Science and Social Change

The New England Workshop on Science and Social Change (NewSSC) organizes innovative, interaction-intensive workshops designed to facilitate discussion, teaching innovation, and longer-term collaboration among faculty and graduate students who teach and write about interactions between scientific developments and social change.

The choice of workshop topics and the innovative, interaction-intensive character of the workshops are designed to attract participants who will develop their knowledge, skills, and interest in promoting the social contextualization of science through interdisciplinary education and other activities beyond their current disciplinary and academic boundaries. Participants are sought from the various areas of Science and Technology Studies, the sciences, and science education and-with an eye to training "interdisciplinarians"-include graduate students as well as more experienced scholars.
For the 2006-7 workshops, participants were expected to submit new syllabi and curriculum units (primarily for college-level courses) or outreach activities (e.g., hosting a citizen forum on a science-based controversy) related to their workshop's topic within six months of its completion. These are made available in an expanding compilation of Online Resources for Science-in-Society Education and Outreach.
Formative (during the process) and summative (after the fact) evaluations of the workshops provide a basis for developing the workshop experience from one year to the next and for establishing a model of workshops that can be repeated, evolve in response to evaluations, and be adapted by participants [evaluations are linked to the webpage for each workshop].

Specific objectives of NewSSC

1. Promote Social Contextualization of Science

To promote the social contextualization of science in education and other activities beyond the participants' current disciplinary and academic boundaries.

2. Innovative workshop processes

To facilitate participants connecting theoretical, pedagogical, practical, political, and personal aspects of the issue at hand in constructive ways.

3. Training and capacity-building

To train novice and experienced scholars in process / participation skills valuable in activity-centered teaching, workshops, and collaboration.

4. Repeatable, evolving workshops

To provide a workshop model that can be repeated, evolve in response to evaluations, and adapted by participants. See Background and Rationale for each objective, including how the objective will be achieved and evaluated, and selected reactions of participants to the workshop experience.

NewSSC-affiliated Workshops, with links to materials & evaluations

(Increasingly from 2006 on much of the working, "in progress" material has been developed on a wiki, and only the final products and reports are posted on the webpages for each workshop. From 2008 onwards commuity-building and collaborative reviewing of materials is being pursued using a social network "ning" site open to NewSSC participants only. Interactions on the ning may lead to materials for wider circulation, which will be transferred to the wiki and, when appropriate, to these webpages.)

Upcoming

Spring 2009, Topic TBA, April 18-21 (arriving evening of 17th)

Past workshops

Spring 2008, "Science-in-society: Teaching and engaging across boundaries"

Spring 2007, "Collaborative generation of environmental knowledge and inquiry"

Spring 2006, "Ecological restoration as social reconstruction"

Spring 2005, "How complexities of the social environment shape the ways that society makes use of knowledge about 'genetic' conditions"

Spring 2004, "Complexities of environment and development in the Age of DNA"

Precursor and allied workshops, 1999-2005

Location: Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL), Woods Hole MA, USA

Costs, Arrangements, Application Process

Organizer: Peter J. Taylor, University of Massachusetts Boston, Programs in Science, Technology and Values and Critical and Creative Thinking.

Last update 15 July 08