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Online Science Learning:

Best Practices and Technologies

Kevn F. Downng
DePaul Unversty, USA

Jennfer K. Holtz
DePaul Unversty, USA

Information Science Publishing

Hershey • New York


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Published in the United States of America by

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Online science learning : best practices and technologies / Kevin F. Downing and Jennifer K. Holtz, authors.
p. cm.
Summary: “This book reviews trends and efforts in web-based science instruction and evaluates contemporary
philosophies and pedagogies of online science instruction. This title on an emergent and vital area of education
clearly demonstrates how to enrich the academic character and quality of web-based science instruction”--Pro-
vided by publisher.
ISBN 978-1-59904-986-1 (hardcover) -- ISBN 978-1-59904-987-8 (e-book)
1. Science--Study and teaching (Higher) 2. Web-based instruction. 3. Education--Computer network re-
sources. 4. Education, Higher--Computer-assisted instruction. 5. Education, Higher--Effect of technological
innovations on. I. Downing, Kevin F. II. Holtz, Jennifer K.
Q179.97.O55 2008
507.8’5--dc22
2007049561

British Cataloguing in Publication Data

A Cataloguing in Publication record for this book is available from the British Library.

All work contributed to this book is original material. The views expressed in this book are those of the authors,
but not necessarily of the publisher.
 

Dedication

To my wonderful wife Lisa whose passion and dedication to enriching her students’ knowledge
is a constant inspiration. To my beloved sons, Alexander and Sean, with whom every second
shared is the greatest joy, may your lives always be bountiful in the quest for knowledge. To
Mom, Dad, Ray, and Bri, bonis avibus always. –KFD

In memory of my father, Arthur F. Peters, Jr., who dreamed of this first for himself, then for
me. I miss you, Dad. –JKH
v

Online Science Learning:

Best Practices and Technologies

Table of Contents

Foreword........................................................................................................................ix

Preface............................................................................................................................xi

Section.I:.
Science.Education.and.Online.Science.Learning

Chapter.I
Online Science: Its Role in Fostering Global Scientific Capital................................ 1
Building Global Science and Technology Capital ............................................... 2
Valuing Science Education Globally .................................................................... 3
Global Implications for Online Science Education ........................................... 10
Conclusion.......................................................................................................... 10
References .......................................................................................................... 11

Chapter.II
Controversies.and.Concurrence.in.Science.Education............................................. 14
The U.S. Failure in Science ................................................................................ 16
Additional Factors Influencing Science Education ............................................ 19
Other Considerations that Influence Online Learning Pedagogy...................... 21
Issues in Learning Science ................................................................................. 22
Learning Theories and Concepts ....................................................................... 22
Conclusion.......................................................................................................... 27
References .......................................................................................................... 27

Chapter.III
Virtual.School.Science................................................................................................. 30
U.S. Virtual Schools ........................................................................................... 31
Obstacles to Seamless K-16 Science Instruction in the U.S............................... 34
 v

Enrichment at the Interface: Coordinated K-16 Online Science Learning ....... 36

Online Professional Development for Science Teachers ................................... 37
Selecting, Employing, and Designing Online Science Learning Objects
for Schools..................................................................................................... 38
Contemporary Approaches to Online Science Learning at Schools .................. 40
Conclusion.......................................................................................................... 43
References .......................................................................................................... 44

Chapter.IV
Taking.University.Science.Education.Online............................................................ 49
Survey of Undergraduate Distance Science Education (SUDSE©) .................. 50
Revisiting Current Practice ................................................................................ 54
Conclusion.......................................................................................................... 55
References .......................................................................................................... 56
Appendix: SUDSE Online Survey ...................................................................... 58

Chapter.V
The.Role.of.Practical.Work.in.Online.Science.......................................................... 73
What is Practical Work? .................................................................................... 74
Where Does Practical Work Take Place?........................................................... 76
A Brief History of Practical Work in the UK and U.S........................................ 76
Purpose and Value of Practical Work ................................................................ 79
Value of Practical Field Work ............................................................................ 80
Additional Purposes for Practical Work ............................................................ 80
Practical Work Controversies ............................................................................ 82
Designing Practical Work Tasks ........................................................................ 85
Epistemological and Procedural Introduction to Practical Work...................... 86
Example: Employing Situated Cognition and Scaffolding in Practical Work ... 87
Conclusion.......................................................................................................... 88
References .......................................................................................................... 89
Appendix: Compilation of Learning Outcomes for Practical Work ................... 93

Chapter.VI
Knowledge.Transfer.and.Collaboration.Structures.for.Online.Science................. 98
Collaborative vs. Cooperative Online Learning ................................................ 99
Online Collaboration ....................................................................................... 100
Collaborative Learning and Online Science .................................................... 101
Stages and Models of Online Collaboration .................................................... 101
Effective Approaches to Collaboration and Group Structures ........................ 104
Social Software for Online Science .................................................................. 106
Role of the Instructor in Online Collaboration ................................................ 107
The Sage on the Stage Lives? ........................................................................... 107
E-Moderating ................................................................................................... 108
Gesture and Silence in the Online Science Classroom .................................... 108
Using Collaboratories to Enrich and Sustain Science Knowledge.................. 109
Collaboration in Virtual Worlds to Support Science Learning ........................ 110
Live Online Classrooms ....................................................................................111
Laboratory E-Notebooks .................................................................................. 112
v

Science Collaboration Miscellany ................................................................... 113

Evaluating Online Science Collaboration ....................................................... 113
Conclusion........................................................................................................ 114
References ........................................................................................................ 115

Section.II:.
Online.Science.Instructional.Strategies.and.Technologies

Chapter.VII
Online.Science:.Contemporary.Approaches.to.Practical.Work............................ 121
Learning Objects .............................................................................................. 122
Learning Objects Classification ....................................................................... 123
Learning Object Repositories .......................................................................... 124
Multimedia ....................................................................................................... 124
Streaming Digital Video in Online Science ...................................................... 125
Typologies for Web-Enabled Science Laboratories ......................................... 126
Benefits of Simulations in Online Science Learning ........................................ 129
3-D Learning Objects as Simulated Specimens ............................................... 129
Additional 3-D Learning Objects for Online Science Learning ...................... 132
3-D Virtual Worlds ........................................................................................... 133
Caveats of Using Virtual Worlds ...................................................................... 135
Affordances of Virtual Science Environments .................................................. 135
Examples of Online Virtual Science Learning Environments .......................... 136
Educational Science Games ............................................................................. 137
Models for Online Learning Game Development ............................................ 137
Remote Experimentation .................................................................................. 139
Remote Experimentation: Design Approaches and Considerations ................ 139
Examples of Remote Experiments .................................................................... 141
Remote Experiment Affordances ...................................................................... 142
Hands-on Laboratory Approaches for Online Students ................................... 143
Virtual Field Trips ............................................................................................ 145
Actual Field Study to Support Distance Education.......................................... 147
Virtual Puzzles for Learning Science ............................................................... 149
Hybrid or Blended Science Courses ................................................................ 150
Digital Libraries and Repositories for Science Education .............................. 151
Conclusion........................................................................................................ 152
References ........................................................................................................ 153

Chapter.VIII
The.Cutting.Edge:.Promising.Technologies.and.Strategies.for.Online.
Science.Education...................................................................................................... 159
Emerging Learning Systems for Online Science Education............................. 161
Remote and Virtual Experimentation to Support Student Research................. 163
Mobile Technologies for Online Science Education ........................................ 164
Using PDAs and iPods® in Online Science .................................................... 166
Mobile Learning Objects.................................................................................. 167
Advances in Visualization ................................................................................ 168
 vii

Emerging 3-D Learning Environments............................................................. 171

Haptic Design................................................................................................... 178
Virtual Instructors, Classmates, and Tutors...................................................... 180
Virtual Science Museums and Science Centers................................................. 184
Trends................................................................................................................ 186
Impact of Online Technological Innovation to the Science Professoriate........ 186
Conclusions....................................................................................................... 187
References......................................................................................................... 187

Section III:
Assessing Online Science Learning

Chapter IX
Assessing Science Competence Achieved at a Distance.......................................... 196
Assessment Standards and Science Assessment................................................ 197
Novice-to-Expert Knowledge............................................................................ 198
Aligning Content, Instruction, and Assessment................................................. 199
Interpretive Assessment Online......................................................................... 201
Online Science Assessment Cases..................................................................... 204
Conclusions....................................................................................................... 211
References......................................................................................................... 212

Section IV:
Disciplinary Examples in Online Science Courses

Chapter X
Online Mathematics and Physical Science
(Mathematics, Astronomy, Chemistry, and Physics).............................................. 216
Designing Online Math Learning Activities..................................................... 217
On the Design of Physical Science Learning Activities.................................... 218
Courses.............................................................................................................. 219
Simulations and Virtual Labs............................................................................ 224
Collaborations, Virtual Science Museums, and Digital Libraries.................... 234
Trends and Conclusion...................................................................................... 238
References......................................................................................................... 239

Chapter XI
Online Geoscience...................................................................................................... 242
Courses.............................................................................................................. 243
Virtual Field Trips............................................................................................. 246
Virtual Laboratories.......................................................................................... 250
Collaboration, Virtual Science Museums, and the Cyberinfrastructure........... 256
Collaboration.................................................................................................... 257
Virtual Science Museums.................................................................................. 258
Cyberinfrastructure........................................................................................... 260
Trends and Conclusion...................................................................................... 260
References......................................................................................................... 262
v

Chapter.XII
Online.Life.Sciences................................................................................................... 265
Courses............................................................................................................. 266
Virtual Field Work and Laboratories ............................................................... 273
Online Resources.............................................................................................. 285
Trends and Conclusion ..................................................................................... 287
References ........................................................................................................ 287

Section.V:.
Best.Practice.Model.for.Online.Science.Learning

Chapter.XIII
A.Didactic.Model.for.the.Development.of.Effective.Online.Science.Courses...... 291
Considerations ................................................................................................. 293
Phase 1: Course Planning ............................................................................... 293
Phase 2: Design ............................................................................................... 298
Phase 3: Implementation.................................................................................. 304
Phase 4: Course Assessment and Redesign ..................................................... 309
Conclusion........................................................................................................ 310
Epilogue ........................................................................................................... 312
References ........................................................................................................ 312
Appendix: Model Planning Documents ........................................................... 317

About.the.Authors...................................................................................................... 338

Index............................................................................................................................ 340
 x

Foreword

In November 2007, the Inaugural Conference of the International Mind, Brain and Educa-
tion Society (IMBES) was held in Fort Worth, Texas. Its purpose was to foster collaboration
between practitioners and researchers in the neurosciences, cognitive sciences, and similar
fields. Interestingly, and unlike past practice, educators were also included in this group. Each
of us knows “default educators,” members of any given profession who believe, because
they completed their own professional program, that they can teach in their field. There is
no doubt that some are able to do so—a few are remarkably talented—yet many are not. In
Online Science Learning: Best Practices and Technologies, we hear from two scientists who
made the deliberate decision, years ago, to embrace professional education praxis.
The praxis of Downing and Holtz is matter-of-fact, yet thorough, much like the authors
themselves. These are researchers and educators who read widely, think globally, and act
locally. They use the tenets presented here in each of their courses, whether online or on-
site in format, and whether learners are adult or traditional-aged. In fact, Kevin Downing’s
emphasis on experiential learning in science made him instrumental in establishing their
current online program, and Jennifer Holtz’s previous work with resident physicians informed
her current practice philosophy.
Their lack of credence with more ephemeral aspects of education and learning theory is
palpable, yet they clearly identify valuable features from behaviorism, cognitivism, and
constructivism, typically those based on reproducible research. These they merge with
neurological advances in learning to posit neuro-cognitive instrumentalism, a learning
theory that emphasizes hypothetico-predictive behaviors that current evidence supports as
naturally occurring. Their work is well grounded in both contemporary and classic education
and learning literature, yet it requires us to think differently, more inventively, about ideas
that we believe we understand.
Although the titular focus is online science learning, the model presented is also applicable to
on-site courses that incorporate—or could incorporate—computer-based learning activities.
Furthermore, as Downing and Holtz address in Chapter III, the tenets developed here likely
x

have application to secondary, as well as tertiary, education applications that could improve
the state of science education for all learners, regardless of the method of instruction.

W. Franklin Spikes, Ed.D.

Professor & Director
Doctoral Program in Adult Education
Kansas State University
USA
 x

Preface

Purpose
There is an enormous and swiftly growing literature for online learning practices, but rela-
tively little attention has been paid to the special attributes and pedagogy of online science
at the community college and university level. As regular authors of natural science courses
and instructional materials for the online program for adults at DePaul University, we have
long wondered why there was no up-to-date and expansive examination of the best practices
in online science learning for university faculty, no general survey of current and emerging
technologies for teaching science online, little consideration of the role of online science
education as a burgeoning force for building American and global science capital, and no
pragmatic models to inform the comprehensive development of online science programs,
courses, and constituent learning activities. This book concentrates on this void by providing
a general treatment of online science learning in the sciences—a subject area we affirm is
an emergent and vital area of science education. While we review and incorporate selected
examples from vast literature in computer science and engineering, we have purposefully
constrained the chief focus of our treatment to online science learning in the natural sciences.
The other fields within the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM)
knowledge areas are certainly deserving of comprehensive treatments of their own online
learning practices, but are beyond the scope of this book. Likewise, while our approach is
largely U.S. in focus, we have tried, whenever possible, to incorporate non-U.S. consider-
ations and concerns, and hope that this effort is apparent.

Educational.Context
The current fervor over distance learning in schools and universities inspires the impression
that it is an educational construct borne recently of the computer age, but this is certainly not
the case. For almost two centuries, learning separated spatially from teaching has been an
approach to acquiring knowledge (Bell & Tight, 1993). In contrast, online learning is a rela-
tively young format for distance teaching and is fostered by and parallels the contemporary
x

Figure 1. The domain of online science learning positioned within lifelong learning
framework

revolution in communication and information technologies (CIT). The rapid proliferation

and tacit acceptance of online instruction in higher education and school instruction has
effectively made the terms “distance education” or “distance learning,” in practical usage,
synonymous with “online learning”. Likewise, the term “distance education” is often used
interchangeably but unsuitably with “e-learning”, which is actually learning that relies on
CIT technologies in a variety of contexts; thus it significantly overlaps, but not necessarily
involves, distance education (Guri-Rosenblit, 2005).
In the hierarchy of learning forms in the “lifelong learning” framework (Figure 1), online
science learning is nested within distance learning, e-learning, and online learning, respec-
tively. Other important learning types such as blended learning (also called hybrid and
mixed) and mobile learning (also called m-learning) can also be used in conjunction with
online science learning.

Organization.and.Character.of.the.Book
Online Science Learning: Best Practices and Technologies is organized into five sections
(Figure 2) spanning: (1) fundamental issues and concepts in online science learning, (2)
emerging online science practices and technologies, (3) assessment of online science activi-
ties, (4) current online practices in mathematics and natural science disciplines, and (5) a
detailed instructional design model to develop online science activities. Section I reviews the
value of science education in terms of scientific capital. It also evaluates global and national
 x

trends in both science and online science education. In addition, this section examines the
epistemological and pedagogical foundations of online science and introduces the character
of online science in schools. In the final chapters of this section, contemporary online science
practices in higher education are investigated and the essential topics of practical work and
collaboration are reviewed from the online science perspective.
In Section II of this book, we appraise and provide examples of contemporary approaches
in online science instruction and review emerging technologies that may soon significantly
affect the character of how science is taught online. Our book’s Section III provides a
review of best practices in online assessment of learning, including specific applications
to online science learning. In Section IV, we compile and review a substantial number of
best practice cases of online science from recent publications in the physical and chemical
sciences, earth and environmental sciences, and the life sciences. Our book’s final section
is devoted to presenting an instructional best practices model for developing online science
exercises, courses, and programs. Our model is didactic and derived from a hypothetico-
predictive philosophy consistent with the neurological basis of human learning. This section
also provides course authors and designers developmental worksheets to aid in the various
designs or redesign phases of an online science course or learning activity.

Figure 2. Organization of Online Science Learning: Best Practices and Technologies

xv

Online science learning can be a remarkably visual-rich experience and we have attempted
to bring some of its vitality through to the reader with the graphics used. We note that our
publisher’s cost considerations prohibit a printed color version of this book. However, the
reader is encouraged to access the digital rendering of this book, which is principally in
color.
A brief description of each of the chapters follows:
Chapter I provides an overview of the state of global science capacity and online science
education initiatives designed to increase that capital, with emphasis on developing countries.
We briefly describe the valuation of science education, and establish a base from which
advances in online science education is explored in the remaining chapters.
Chapter II evaluates trends in online science education within the context of the biggest is-
sues in contemporary science education, the ongoing debate about the definition of science,
the proper role of science education and the steps necessary to correct the science gap in
the United States. Almost by definition, this controversy falls along theoretical camps—the
variety of constructivists versus the movement toward a hypothetical-predictive learning
theory more tightly bound to the neurological (i.e., biological) source of learning.
Chapter III provides the reader a foundational look at the contemporary character and role
of online science learning in virtual schools. With an emphasis on secondary schools, we
examine the interdependence and existing obstacles to seamless K-16 science instruction.
The affordances of the online science environment to generate a more connected science
education strategy for students from K-12 through their university studies are investigated,
including the crucial area of professional development for science teachers. To illuminate
the salient similarities in the character and efforts between online science learning at schools
and universities, we conclude this section with a comparison of practices and technologies
applied commonly to each. We offer general guidance on areas of online science learning
that can be capitalized on to improve student learning in science within our schools.
Chapter IV presents an investigation of the current use of cutting-edge science technologies
and explores the pedagogical foundations of online science education that effect how use
choices are made. We examine strategies consistent with the neurological basis of learn-
ing linked to hypothetical-predictive processes and where those strategies are currently
utilized.
Chapter V reviews and defends the concept of practical work and its use to support online
science instruction. We review practical work’s historical foundation, purpose, and value,
as well as controversies concerning practical work’s utility in science instruction. This
chapter builds a rationale for practical work’s intentional implementation in online science
learning environments and supports subsequent chapters that review current and emerging
approaches and technologies to support online practical work.
Chapter VI provides a general overview of online collaboration but emphasizes the role and
types of collaboration useful to teaching science online. This chapter reviews models and
effective approaches to online collaboration including establishing greater lifelong learning
ties to scientific information through lasting forms of collaboration facilitated online.
Chapter VII presents an analysis of the key forms of contemporary online instructional
design concepts and practical work approaches to online science learning such as learning
objects, simulations, remote laboratories, and virtual field trips. Our discussion incorporates
best practice examples, which form the groundwork of an extensive review of disciplinary
science examples in Chapters X-XIII.
 xv

Chapter VIII reviews and encourages the use of innovative technologies to promote effec-
tive online science learning. This chapter considers the outlook for the character of online
science learning in the near future synthesizing recent research in the CIT and online tech-
nology areas.
Chapter IX reviews current and emergent best practices in online learning assessment, notes
similarities in on-site and online methods, and explores the differences and how those dif-
ferences are or can be addressed. Particular attention is paid to the assessment of typical
online science activities (e.g., practical work) and troublesome theory incongruities (e.g.,
discrete knowledge).
Chapter X provides a review of best practice cases in online science from mathematics and
the physical sciences. Examples are grouped into the chief areas: courses, simulations, vir-
tual laboratories, collaborations, virtual science museums, and digital libraries. This chapter
provides a foundation of resources to consider in the development or redesign of math and
physical science learning activities and courses.
Chapter XI’s focus is to present a more discipline-centered review of representative pub-
lished examples from the geosciences. Our review takes account of courses, virtual field
trips, virtual laboratories, collaboration, virtual science museums, and the relationship of
the cyberinfrastructure to the geosciences. This chapter provides a variety of resources to
consider in the development or redesign of online earth and environmental science learning
activities and courses.
Chapter XII reviews representative published examples from the life sciences. Our review
takes account of courses, virtual field trips, virtual laboratories, collaboration, and virtual
science museums. Our goal is to provide the reader with an appreciation of the best practices,
innovations, and initiatives in online science in the life science area.
Chapter XIII presents our didactic model for online science instruction based upon best
practices in both science education and online education coupled with insights from the
diverse and substantial literature reviewed in previous chapters. We blend concepts of
distance education and science into a practical model that addresses the learning needs of
major and non-major students, and the instructional design constraints of their instructors
and institutions. We approach the instructional design topic with the assumption that the
published online modalities included herein are generally effective as presented, but have
noted evidence of ambiguity, where found. The summation of this treatment is an integrated
model that takes into account emerging ideas about the neurological basis of human learning
and consideration of the different philosophies of science education, although we make no
apologies for holding a particular perspective. Our chief goal is to present the reader a process
flow and supporting development tools through key course design steps bringing together
original learning design structures with sensible best practices from the literature.

Who.is.This.Book.For?
We have written this book with the intent of serving several audiences within the science
education community of practice. Foremost, our book is intended to serve as a practical
resource for science programs and community college and university-level science instructors
building new and/or transitioning existing aspects of their science curriculum or courses,
xv

whether fully online or blended. Accordingly, we provide both a theoretical and practical
background on online science learning as well as a model for course development. Moreover,
we have deliberately presented many of the best practice cases organized by key scientific
areas so that science educators can get a quick view and be inspired by contemporary best
practice examples in their own mathematics or natural science disciplines. Although our
perspective is through the window of science, our hope is that practitioners of online learn-
ing from other disciplines will also find the topics, review of technologies, and strategies
informative.
In addition, this book should be useful for instructional designers involved with the develop-
ment of online scientific materials. We anticipate that this book will enhance the dialogue
between instructional design staff and science faculty. Utilizing this book’s analysis of
practical work and collaboration as well as its review of socio-economic (i.e., valuation)
aspects of science, trends in online science, and online science pedagogy; this tome can
be employed as an effective resource or text for education department courses on science
at the upper division and/or graduate level. Similarly, with the rapidly growing interest in
augmenting K-12 education with online activities and resources, this book is also intended
as a reference for secondary school educators and administrators. Lastly, we share deeply
in the concern regarding America’s “failure” in science education over the last few decades
and its long-term consequences for America’s prosperity. Consequently, this book is intended
to inform and motivate policy makers to explore and make the most of this important and
emerging area of science instruction to increase scientific capital, both here and abroad.

Kevin F. Downing
Jennifer K. Holtz
DePaul University, Chicago, USA
October 2007

References
Bell, R., & Tight, M. (1993). Open universities: A British tradition? Buckingham: The
Society for Research into Higher Education and Open University Press.
Guri-Rosenblit, S. (2005). “Distance education” and “e-learning”: Not the same thing.
Higher Education, 49(4), 467-493.
 xv

Acknowledgments

The authors extend a special thanks to the three anonymous reviewers whose thoughtful
comments improved this book and whose enthusiasm for the project was very welcome.
We thank IGI Global for their forms of assistance. Our sincere appreciation to the authors
and organizations whose permission to reproduce original figures and Web graphics was
integral to communicating the richness of current online science efforts. We thank our col-
leagues at DePaul University for their many types of support, with special thanks to Dr.
Ruth Gannon-Cook and Dr. Beth Rubin for the distance learning expertise they routinely
share with us and for their enthusiasm for this project. Special thanks also go to Dr. Michelle
Navarre-Cleary and Dr. Gabriele Strohschen. Our thanks to DePaul’s University Research
Council and Quality of Instruction Council, for their financial support.
xv

Section I

Science Education and

Online Science Learning
 Onlne Scence 

Chapter.I

Online.Science:
Its.Role.in.Fostering.Global.
Scientific Capital

Concern for man and his fate must always form the chief interest of all technical endeav-
ors…Never forget this in the midst of your diagrams and equations.
– Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

Health and illness, flood and drought, want and plenty: each of these dichotomies rests
squarely within the province of science education, for science education enables one to
think critically and creatively, to collaborate, to investigate, to solve real-world problems,
and to apply a body of knowledge that is dynamic and that rewards the lifelong learner with
its challenges.
Moreover, science is arguably the single most important force behind world economies, for
good or ill, the potential for which has been recognized since World War II (Bush, 1945).
Of the market categories identified by UNESCO World Development Indicators, five—de-
fense, transportation, power and communication, information technologies, and science
and technology—rely on advances in science knowledge. Science education is valued for
its immediacy and its investment, as can be seen by remarkable advances across the globe
in science capacity.

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 Downng & Holtz

However, advances in myriad science and technology fields are not uniform, just as science
education is not uniform (Schulman, 2002; UNESCO, 2004). Where Southeast Asia advances,
for example, much of the Middle East lags. Science capacity is, truly, global capital, yet
capacity must be meaningfully applied in order to be sustainable and carry worth. It has
been said, “A Nobel Prize for science will do little by itself to alleviate poverty or gener-
ate new business in developing countries,” (Watkins, Osifo-Dawodu, Ehst, & Cisse, 2007,
para. 4), emphasizing that science without actionable purpose accomplishes little. In fact,
developing countries often lose their most highly skilled scientists to institutions that offer
better salaries and the potential for revolutionary work.
In this chapter, we provide an overview of the state of global science capacity and online
science education initiatives designed to increase that capital, with emphasis on developing
countries. We see the online environment as a connective tool to bridge very large gaps in
wealth and capacity, an educational bootstrapping mechanism that has not yet been fully
tapped. We briefly describe the valuation of science education, and establish a base from
which advances in science education will be explored in the remaining chapters.

Building.Global.Science.and.Technology.Capital
Whether eliminating hunger or developing global partnerships, the concerted effort to meet
the needs of the world’s population requires that those who serve and are served have the
ability to take advantage of opportunities developed. That ability is capacity and capacity
evolves from education.

With increasing frequency, officials in low and middle income countries are coming to the
conclusion that they must build up their science, technology and innovation (STI) capacity
in order to make demonstrable progress in achieving the Millennium Development Goals
(MDGs); raise productivity, wealth, and standards of living by developing new, competi-
tive economic activities to serve local, regional, and global markets; and address social,
economic, and ecological problems specific to each country (Watkins, Osifo-Dawodu, Ehst
& Cisse, 2007, para. 4).

Agricultural and environmental husbandry, access to energy and access to health care are the
most visible needs of those in developing countries, yet foundational to these are infrastruc-
ture—both regulatory and physical, and collaboration—both as internal, public support and
external partnerships (Watson, Crawford, & Farley, 2003). The World Bank identifies four
essential factors for successful development of human capital, environments, and support
systems that facilitate innovation:

• Education for the knowledge economy refers to foundational secondary and tertiary
education and lifelong learning, as well as specialized education in technology, sci-
ence, and communications;

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• Research and development (R&D): Producing and acquiring economically relevant

knowledge mandates activities that lead to applied, rather than theoretical knowl-
edge;
• Technology acquisition and diffusion: Using existing knowledge to improve industrial
competitiveness “focus(es) on helping the private sector absorb and utilize technology
that is already in use elsewhere in the world” (Science, Technology, and Innovation,
2007, para. 5); and
• Science and technology policy making capacity refers to the ability of policy makers to
“understand the challenges and opportunities flowing from the global economy and to
devise appropriate policies” (Science, Technology, and Innovation, 2007, para. 6).

Underlying each of these factors is education and the use of knowledge at multiple levels in
science, technology, and innovation, each of them problem-based and solution-oriented. An
example of operationalizing the four factors outlined by the World Bank is Juma’s (2007)
description of infrastructure initiatives that incorporate funding for engineering education,
one way of addressing the World Bank’s emphasis on sustainability at the local level. Juma
identifies key elements as road and rail construction and upgrades, improvements to ports
and harbors, and enhanced telecommunication systems.
Lindholm (2007) describes a combination public-private economic collaboration that re-
vitalized an area of the former East Germany, relying heavily on existing, underemployed
scientists and entrepreneurial-minded intermediaries who could facilitate collaboration.
Both Lindholm (2007) and Juma (2007) stress the importance of having in place people
who can identify strategic opportunities and people to forecast human capacity needs. In
fact, the importance of growing the numbers of variously skilled workers is a common point
in development, one also stressed by the World Bank. They characterized it as, “Producing
knowledge intensive, technologically sophisticated, higher value goods and services is not
possible without a trained management cadre and labor force with the appropriate mix of
technical and vocational skills” (Science, Technology, and Innovation, 2007, para. 2). Such a
group would, by necessity, include scientists experienced in research and development, and
engineers and technicians to adapt and use the resultant technologies for specific pursuits.
To that end, “vocational, secondary and tertiary education must all contribute to turning
out graduates with the necessary skills. Moreover, since the skills required by today’s labor
market may not be the same as those that will be required in the future, a process of lifelong
learning must be built into the education system. And at all levels and life-cycle stages, the
education system must work with the private sector to understand and respond to its needs”
(Science, Technology, and Innovation, 2007, para. 2-3).

Valuing.Science.Education.Globally
Bateman and Willis’s (1999) work on environment valuation is readily extrapolated to sci-
ence education. Its primary considerations are those of use value and conservation value,
each of which are of significant importance in building science capacity and sustainable

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 Downng & Holtz

modernization among the world’s nations. While their framework is explored in more detail
in Chapter IV, a brief introduction here to the valuation model helps put the importance of
global examples into perspective.
The examples described in preceding sections represent use value. Science education is of
direct use value to those who utilize science education in professional science or a career
that integrates science knowledge, those who use science knowledge as one comprising an
informed citizenry, or for personal enjoyment or avocation. Career applications are evident
in both the Juma (2007) and Lindholm (2007) examples. Indirect use value is manifest in
infrastructure, commodities, and the general application of science knowledge to societal
functions for the common good, again evident in both Juma (2007) and Lindholm (2007).
Option use value refers to untapped potential, as Lindholm (2007) described.
The conservation value of science education, despite its connotation of a lack of immediacy,
is just as crucial to developing countries and areas in need of revitalization. Bequest con-
servation value refers to the benefit gleaned by future generations from what is done today,
a key motivating factor in the development efforts described. Existence conservation value
recognizes the worth of science education as a force for reason or progress, what Watkins,
Osifo-Dawodu, Ehst, and Cisse (2007) describe as the motivating force for countries on
the verge of development. Finally, intrinsic conservation value holds perhaps the weakest
position in science education immediacy, referring as it does to, as we state in Chapter XIII,
“the natural quest of understanding of a thinking organism.” Science education is of intrinsic
value because it enables the educated person to conceptualize issues larger than the immedi-
ate, larger than self or of any economic consequence. These valuations are also clearly seen
in the science education initiatives occurring throughout the world and, sadly, in those areas
without such initiatives, where the lack of use value efforts affects the current populace, but
the lack of conservation value efforts bodes ill for subsequent generations.
Much of our treatment of online science addresses and incorporates examples from the
U.S., UK, and Europe. To provide a broader view of the efforts and the informational
technology infrastructure that will assist in building global scientific capital, we present
next brief summaries from other regions, particularly in developing countries. These initia-
tives are usually part of a larger, more comprehensive aid package that addresses health,
infrastructure, and education needs, often—especially in the cases of World Bank and the
United States Agency for International Development (USAID)—also addressing a variety
of needs related to capacity building.

Middle East Scientific Capital

Perhaps nowhere is the valuation structure described by Bateman and Willis (1999), and
applied here to science capacity, more necessary than in the Middle East and North Africa.
The most recent figures available, which are a regional composite, indicate that unemploy-
ment approaches 20% in some areas. Despite gains in school enrollment, rates remain low
and “there is little evidence that education has contributed to economic growth” (Sarbib,
2002, p. 1). Currently, the majority of students who leave Middle East countries for higher
education—most to the U.S.—do not return, and those that do face the same unemployment
challenges as the less-educated (Taqrir Washington, June 13, 2007). Yet, as Sarbib (2002)
points out, the region faces a larger challenge.

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 Onlne Scence 

Harnessing the region’s human and social capital so that it can take its place among today’s
leading knowledge economies will take less financial investment than policy reform: trans-
forming education systems to meet the demands of a global economy driven by advances
in knowledge and technology; encouraging private businesses to invest in research and
development; creating business and research set-ups that foster innovation (Sarbib, 2002,
p. 1).

There are exceptions; sophisticated information and communications technology (ICT)

is found in the oil-rich Gulf States, where options for students are more numerous (Taqrir
Washington, June 13, 2007). Dubai Internet City (DIC) offers what it calls a “one-stop-shop
environment” for technology oriented international businesses, while incorporating a national
development plan (The Career Centre, 2007). Away from the Gulf States, and among those
disenfranchised by cultural mores, options are fewer. It is, indeed, ironic that Arab countries
find themselves with such wide disparity both among themselves and their economic classes,
and between themselves and the industrialized world, considering the role of Arabic culture
in fostering scientific and mathematical advances prior to the Renaissance.

Jordan

While not specifically science education-oriented, Jordan’s Education Reform for Knowl-
edge Economy (ERfKE) program is designed to increase the overall capacity of Jordanian
primary and secondary students, better positioning them for higher education. Now in its
fourth year, ERfKE is comprised of components that address Sarbib’s (2002) concern for
policy reform, including provision of ICT for student use (Education Reform for Knowledge
Economy I Program, 2003).
The first component is significant in that it addresses overall policy and the refinement of
systems responsible for policy implementation, including an effective decision support system
and “comprehensive and coordinated educational research, policy analysis, and monitoring
and evaluation activities” (Education Reform for Knowledge Economy I Program, 2003,
para. 3). The second ERfKE component encompasses revised curriculum and assessment,
the provision of professional development and learning resource development and acqui-
sition including, with the third component, the need for both computer and science labs.
Component 3 also provides for a sufficient number of safe, uncrowded schools, which, with
the fourth component, “promotes readiness for learning through early childhood education.
It is designed to enhance equity in low-income areas by providing kindergarten for children
of age 5” (Education Reform for Knowledge Economy I Program, 2003, para. 3).

Lebanon

Michigan State University, through its College of Communication Arts & Sciences, is work-
ing with Lebanese American University to develop an ICT education program “to strengthen
the capacity for ICT training and to help Lebanese educators, particularly women, as they
develop new strategies for teaching” (U.S. Department of State, 2006, para. 2). The goal is
to build regional capacity in ICT, integrating what is known about how women approach

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 Downng & Holtz

technology (Research Around the World: Lebanon, 2007). The project is an initiative of the
U.S. State Department’s Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI), with equal funding from
each university and additional assistance from the U.S. Agency for International Develop-
ment (USAID) (U.S. Department of State, 2006).

Tunisia and Egypt

Tunisia’s Education Quality Improvement Program (EQIP) is dual-phased, with Phase 1

having closed in 2006. Project evaluation documents classified the initial phase as satisfac-
tory in meeting the three project goals:

• Achieve near-universal completion of basic education (Grade 1 through 9).

• Provide a greater number of students with opportunities for post-basic education.
• Modernize the sector in ways that improve the quality of outputs and the efficiency
with which they are produced (Education Quality Improvement Program, 2000).

Both EQIP Phase 2 (2004) and Egypt’s Higher Education Enhancement Project (2002) are
similar to Jordan’s ERfKE program in scope, particularly in improvement of infrastructure
for subsequent development initiatives.

Russian Federation Scientific Capital

While the core centers of Russia itself and the former Soviet Union (e.g., Moscow, St.
Petersburg, Volgograd) have a rich history of science investigation and science education,
the areas currently comprised of republics and regions that are more isolated have long suf-
fered from a dearth of options. Two collaborative initiatives seek remedies. The Education
Reform Project, in collaboration with the Russian Federation’s Ministry of Education (now
the Ministry of Education and Science), seeks to reform existing infrastructure and policy,
while initiating what the West knows as vocational education. Specifically, the goals of the
project are to “improve quality and standards; promote the efficient and equitable use of
scarce public resources for education; modernize the education system (structure of network
and institutions); improve the flexibility and market-relevance of initial vocational educa-
tion” (Education Reform Project, 2001, para.5).
The E-Learning Support Project (2004), working with the Ministry of Education and Science,
“seeks to improve the accessibility, quality and efficiency of general and initial vocational
education,” through ICT (para. 8).

• Building sustainable Russian capacity to produce high quality, affordable and flexible
learning materials…
• Supporting both pre-service and in-service teacher training in the introduction of ICT
into classrooms and its embedding in teaching and learning practices…

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 Onlne Scence 

• Establishing in project regions a network of resource centers which would improve

regional access to ICT enhanced education opportunities and dissemination of new
teaching practices (E-Learning Support Project, 2004, para. 9).

The British Council’s Faulkes Telescopes Project established a collaborative with urban
Russia that has the potential for outreach to more remote areas as ICT infrastructure de-
velopment permits. Users access the remote-controlled telescopes, located in Hawaii and
Australia, through a control center in the UK, transmit commands and then receive the
requested images through Microsoft® (Redmond, WA) or Apple® (Cupertino, CA) operat-
ing systems. Professional astronomers collaborate with individual schools, working with
teachers and students to identify a suitable research project. Designated projects require
hands-on activity by teachers and students, including data collection “which will contribute
to finding answers to research questions which are of interest to professional astronomers.
Through a new website, ‘Hands-On Universe, Russia’, schools and astronomers will share
and discuss their findings with each other and with schools and astronomers in the UK and
across Europe” (Faulkes Telescope in Russia, 2006, para. 3).

Southeast.Asia.Capacity

As in the Middle East, development across Southeast Asia is neither uniform nor universal,
although the past decade has witnessed tremendous growth and a comprehensive study of
the region was recently completed (UNESCO, 2004). Australia, South Korea, and Singapore
are vigorously engaged in science education, with special emphasis on distance science
education. Typically, “almost all classrooms are equipped with computers and other ICT
tools; the student/computer ratio is high; Internet access is available in all schools; cur-
riculum revision ensures nationwide ICT integration; delivery of education is increasingly
online” (UNESCO, 2004, p. 9). Later chapters include work from some of these countries,
as we discuss standards for best practices (Clark & James, 2005; Rich, Pitman, Gosper, &
Jacobson, 1999).
Surprisingly, the same UNESCO study found that Japan, typically considered an academic
powerhouse, was joined by China, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, and India in a second,
less vigorously engaged group. These countries each had developed national ICT education
policies, with goals and objectives, but had not yet fully integrated ICT.
Other countries (e.g., the Vietnamese peninsula) are in the early stages of ICT development
or “have no relevant policies but are running pilot ICT projects. In both instances, however,
there is insufficient budget to implement policies and work plans and ICT infrastructure and
penetration are poor” (UNESCO, 2004, p. 9).

African.Capacity

Juma’s (2007) examination of an initiative that integrates engineering education is only one
of many initiatives in place throughout Africa, although most are limited to foundational

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 Downng & Holtz

development or infrastructure, rather than science education or promotion of science field-

specific promotion. An important initiative that was approved as recently as July 2007 for a
six-year period is the Niger Basin Water Resources Development and Sustainable Ecosystems
Management Project (2007). As with many of the initiatives worldwide, the first component
of the initiative is devoted to “institutional strengthening and capacity building,” specifically
in and between the Niger Basin Authority and existing water management entities within
the existing national and regional governments (2007, para. 4). The second component then
focuses on “rehabilitating and upgrading the existing large water infrastructure” (para. 5),
specifically the Kainji and Jebba dams and power plants. An integral aspect continues the
focus on capacity by assessing optimization and management options for those structures.
Finally, the third component focuses on “sustainable management of selected degraded
ecosystems and rehabilitation of small water infrastructure” (2007, para. 7). Similar Global
Environmental Projects are underway throughout Africa; while the initiatives do not spe-
cifically incorporate science education, they develop the infrastructure to accommodate
learning environments.
An anticipated project is Tanzania’s Science, Technology and Higher Education Reform
Program (2007), with the broad outcome of “education for the knowledge economy” (para.1),
focusing exclusively on tertiary education. A similar development initiative already under
way in Uganda is the Millennium Science Initiative (2006), the objective of which “is for
Ugandan universities and research institutes to produce more and better qualified science and
engineering graduates, and higher quality and more relevant research, and for firms to utilize
these outputs to improve productivity for the sake of enhancing Science and Technology-led
(S&T) growth” (para. 2). What neither project does is combine distance technologies with
science education, although their efforts are foundational for potential distance education
and complements the distance learning initiatives in Mauritania and Burkina Faso. These
two projects are similar in that each tests the viability of distance learning in situ, with clear
implication that its acceptance is an uncertainty.
Description of Burkina Faso’s Development Learning Center Project (2002) pointedly ad-
dresses foundational goals, to determine “its ability in approaching international knowledge,
to improve implementation of the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) Bank financed
projects, and in the coordination of local training institutions as regards national capacity
building policy” (para. 4). Every element of the infrastructure was supplied in the first com-
ponent, including the laying of electrical and telecommunication lines, and construction of
the actual building. In the second component, operating costs for three years were provided
on a decreasing basis, to include staff training, development of operational structures and
initial program development; the third component included evaluation and measurement.
The center opened in June 2006, with its initial programming scheduled for the subsequent
fiscal year, pending a request for at least 24 months of additional funding (Status of Projects
in Execution FY06, 2006).
Mauritania’s Global Learning Center (2001) has experienced substantially greater success,
although goals and objectives were essentially the same. The World Bank’s report, Status
of Projects in Execution FY2006, documents success in addressing the needs of multiple
educational, government, private and non-government organizations (NGOs). Moreover,
“the Center is on good track in view of improving its financial sustainability: by the end

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 Onlne Scence 

of the reporting period, the Center recovered 55% of its operating costs after 30 months of
operations and its revenues are increasing” (Status of Projects in Execution FY06, 2006, p.
370). Demand for use of the system is increasing and has led to development of a portal for
distance access (Status of Projects in Execution FY06, 2006).

Central.and.South.American.Capacity

As in Africa, most initiatives in Central and South America address not science capacity
or access to distance education in the sciences, but basic health, education, and welfare
needs. Peru’s Rural Education Project (2003) is not specifically science oriented, but in the
first component addresses foundational issues of education equity and quality, followed by
improved accessibility through distance delivery of secondary education. Teaching quality
in rural areas comprises the second component, followed by a third component focusing
on reform of education management and policy, “motivating linkages towards educational
standards, by supporting school development, within the national assessment system, through
strategic analysis and policy research” (Rural Education Project, 2003, para. 3). Mid-term
review found mixed results, with rural initiatives showing lesser progress (Status of Projects
in Execution FY06, 2006).
Similarly, Brazil’s Ceara Basic Education Quality Improvement Project (2000) demonstrated
mixed results by 2006, with indication that there had been recent, rather than consistent,
improvements (Status of Projects in Execution FY06, 2006). The Ceara project consists of
four components, initially focusing on educator development and early childhood prepara-
tion, then moving into televised access and accelerated programs for adult learners, with
substantial investment in both educator in-service and development of teaching tools and
processes. The revised priorities reported are not detailed, but the report’s omission of ac-
celerated program development may be telling.
Yet, Chile’s Life-long Learning and Training Project (2002) is successfully providing
young adults with basic and secondary education opportunities, with certification options,
as well as “...vertical articulation of technical secondary, with tertiary technical-professional
education, through the establishment of technological curricular disciplines. As well, the
horizontal articulation of technical secondary, and tertiary education with the labor market,
will be constituted through regional networks of educational institutions at the technical,
secondary, and tertiary levels” (Life-long Learning and Training Project, 2002, para. 4).
Mid-term review documented that these programs are, in fact, realized (Status of Projects
in Execution FY06, 2006).
Other components of the initiative included enhanced teacher training, “a national system
of competency framework, and professional-vocational pathways on selected sectors of
the economy” (Life-long Learning and Training Project, 2002, para. 5) and funding for
infrastructure. Again, each was documented as functioning well at the mid-term review,
with full cooperative of Chile’s Ministry of Education (Status of Projects in Execution
FY06, 2006).

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0 Downng & Holtz

Global.Implications.for.Online.Science.Education
It is clear that a global cyber-infrastructure does not exist and that developing nations are
in many cases far from capitalizing on the connectivity to online distributed scientific
knowledge and education resources that could spur innovation, thus improving economies
and the quality of life. In some cases, as evidenced by the reports provided and many others
not included, social and geopolitical forces impede such development, yet an increasing
number of initiatives ranging from foundational to implementation stage are found around
the world. In part, disparity in infrastructure is what prevents full implementation of the
innovations explored in the remaining chapters of this book. Such useful learning objects
as animations, 2-D and 3-D visualizations and streaming audio and video are the principal
alternatives to traditional experiential learning and practical work that make distance science
education possible at levels beyond the conceptual. Simple, blended, and Web-facilitated
courses are possible with basic Internet access, which would also support elementary, e-
mail-based collaboratories. The lack of flexibility inherent to simple ICT infrastructures is
invisible—indeed, empowering—to those whose pedagogical options are limited, but such
inflexibility restricts them from emerging best practices.
In addition to the absence of technological infrastructures, much of the world is restricted
from emerging best practices simply because of a lack of collaboration between educators
and ICT developers, which is typically unintentional. As we found in our own institution,
ICT developers often know what is possible, but lack an application, while educators know
what students need, but are unaware of the extent to which ICT can meet those needs.
Furthermore, neither has fully explored the pedagogical foundations, including assessment
issues, of hybrid and fully online courses, although isolated attempts are underway (Holli-
man & Scanlon, 2004). These disconnects might very well change as a result of emerging
inquiry into collaboratory design of learning interfaces.
By no means is the developed countries’ lack of pedagogical and technical integration
meant to minimize the challenges faced by developing countries. On the contrary, the com-
paratively slow pace of implementation bodes well for those countries currently securing
infrastructure, as it enables them to enter the field of distance learning on a par with much
of the world, having learned from the mistakes of others and with a clear path to bootstrap
the way to practices that are pedagogically and financially sound. Many of the innovations
explored in later chapters fall short of the sophisticated multimedia currently considered
state of the art, but sparsely employed.

Conclusion
As the opening quotation of this chapter from Einstein maintains, concern for humans and
their fate is the penultimate concern in technological innovation. In the broadest sense, we
frame the application of online learning environments to science in this book as tied to that
central objective. Building science capacity through the use of ICT to augment education
options for and to increase the capacity of people throughout the world, particularly those in

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 Onlne Scence 

isolated areas or circumstances, is a worthy goal, one to be embraced by both governments

and agencies with the resources to help those governments.
The agencies and, increasingly, the governments, consider science education a key to ca-
pacity building and development, and those discussed—as well as others not mentioned,
but at a similar developmental level—are well positioned to take advantage of emerging
technologies that impact best practices in distance science education. As will be discussed
in later chapters, there are those who question the verity of this position, and who consider
science capacity a neutral element, at best. Moreover, the very definition of science and its
importance to a large segment of the world’s populace is considered by critics to be debatable.
However, we maintain that only those countries with the most highly sophisticated science
capacity have both the time and freedom to concern themselves with innovations in science
education, and the results, as later chapters explain, are of varying quality. To those in need,
the philosophical debate on the purpose of science education is, rightly, merely specious.

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 Onlne Scence 

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1089743700155/StrategicApproachesS&T.pdf

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 Downng & Holtz

Chapter.II

Controversies.and.
Concurrence.in.
Science.Education

Science is facts; just as houses are made of stone, so is science made of facts; but a pile of
stones is not a house, and a collection of facts is not necessarily science
– Jules Henri Poincaré (1854-1912)

The practical application of theory, or praxis, in science education is arguably less straight-
forward today than it has been in preceding generations. While formal education and learn-
ing theories have been promulgated for close to 100 years, the changing disposition and
balance of academia, and the consequent dissemination of questionable and unverifiable
social theories, have led to a more ambiguous discussion and application of au courant
learning theories to science education. Much of what the authors consider the detrimental
entanglement in academia of definitions and educational theories about science occurs at
the confluence of different professional attitudes and motivation. Scientists are generally
complacent in terms of championing and defending their own core philosophy and epistemol-
ogy, and a scientist’s professional rewards and efforts rarely consist of debunking critics in
the so-called other “ways of knowing” (see the Science Wars Web site and the Sokal Affair
for a droll exception at http://members.tripod.com/ScienceWars/). The defense of scientific

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 Controverses and Concurrence n Scence Educaton 

reasoning is not what scientists focus on by training; thus, this is an area that almost certainly
needs more systematic attention and treatment in science curricula. By contrast, science’s
detractors in the humanities, social sciences, and even education find professional incentive
and marketable topic in assailing the science colossus. Most notably, postmodernism with
its socially relativistic and radical constructivist theories, replete with the denial of objective
truth, have attempted to undermine science, or as Fishman (1996) noted, are attempting to
put science on an “indefinite furlough” (p. 95). Like it or not, the science community is at
war with nihilistic ideologies and one of the battlegrounds is pedagogy, a deliberation that
extends to online science learning environments.
While such debates about science may seem to be pedantic and simply the posturing of
academics, there are concrete consequences for how science education is carried out in
schools and universities. As colleges of education—the fount of pedagogy—accept and
convey postmodernist theory (“fashionable nonsense” of Sokal & Bricmont, 1998) and its
derivative pedagogies to budding science teachers, the epistemology and stature of science
and science reasoning is diminished in the classroom and, thus, the science learning out-
comes for students and their subsequent students. It is difficult to develop a science literate
society when the foundation of science and reason is bantered about as suspect. As Gross
(2000) stated, “Educational constructivism is in whole or in part a postmodernist view of
things, and postmodernism questions the objectivity of observation and the truth of scientific
knowledge….” (p. 14).
As a result of this conflict, not only is how science should be taught debated—a reasonable
and proper discussion—but whether and to what extent science belongs in the curriculum
has been reduced in academia to a matter of dispute. In our own experience at an interdis-
ciplinary faculty meeting not long ago, a humanities colleague openly stated opposition to
restructuring a research methods course, maintaining within the argument that the sciences
are no more than inquiry. This revelation effectively negated the value of science subject
matter, but even more stunning were the multiple heads nodding in agreement from other
humanities and social scientists in the meeting. Osborne (2006) states that this sort of per-
spective—science as inquiry, rather than content—was documented as early as 1851, when
Great Britain was concerned about the quality of its science education; worth noting is that
the perspective was rejected as an influencing factor on curriculum.
Furthermore, beyond the definition and validity of science as “the world’s most comprehensive,
consistent, and successful knowledge acquisition system for nearly 400 years” (Gross, 2000,
p. 12) contemporary society’s role for science has also caused considerable misunderstanding
among the public, educators, and practicing scientists, as seemingly competing views and
needs come to the fore. Society looks to science and the science community to help explain
and deal with complex problems that affect the quality of life, such as those involving the
environment, health, and natural resources. However, as introduced in Chapter I, there is
a prominent, if not growing, gap in science literacy between the public and the scientific
community. The rapid expansion of human knowledge in science and technology makes it
problematic even for scientists to keep abreast of developments in their own areas, not to
mention developments in closely allied disciplines. It might be said that there is a growing
literacy gap even between scientists of different disciplines. In this chapter, we summarize
competing educational and learning theories, those that apply to science as well as those that
apply to online science learning. In this way, our discussion provides the epistemological

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 Downng & Holtz

and pedagogical background and rationale behind discussions in later chapters, including
support of the model introduced in Chapter XIII, to meet the seemingly disparate needs in
online science education.

The.U.S..Failure.in.Science
There have been alarming reports about the decreasing scientific competitiveness and so-called
failure in scientific education over the last five decades (Rutherford, 2005; Symonds, 2004;

Figure 2.1. Science and engineering degree attainment by country. From college learning for
the new global century. The National Leadership Council for Liberal Education & America’s
Promise (LEAP). Washington, DC: AAC&U. Government open access document.

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 Controverses and Concurrence n Scence Educaton 

Valverde & Schmidt, 2006). Many researchers contend that the United States, most noticeably,
is losing its science and technology edge and, hence, its long-term economic vitality. This
line of argument is substantiated by many measures, such as drain of researchers to other
countries, trade deficits in advanced technology and the number of patents granted in the
U.S. (Lemonick, 2006). Moreover, this trend is suggested also in the comparative percent-
ages of young adults who have attained a science or engineering degree, where the U.S. is
twentieth out of 26 nations examined (Figure 2.1). It is also supported by the comparative
numbers of engineering graduates in India, China, and the United States. It is estimated that
China is graduating as many as five times the number of undergraduates in engineering as
is the U.S. Equally troubling is that approximately 60% of the engineering PhD degrees at
U.S. institutions are awarded to non-native students, predominantly from India and China
(Wadhwa, Gereffi, Rissing, & Ong, 2007). Related to this pattern is the relative decrease in
articles published by U.S. scientists to Asia and Western European scientists (Figure 2.2).
College and university science faculty maintain that the current strategies for science and
mathematics in schools have led to the trend of under-prepared students. That is, the majority
of matriculating students are not ready for tertiary level coursework, resulting in prolonged
remedial work and unnecessary attrition (Altschud, 2003). To our knowledge, what impact
the lack of science preparation or science emphasis plays on driving students away from
science careers has not been determined. However, we observe science and math phobia

Figure 2.2. Comparison of scholarly articles published by the U.S., Western Europe, and
Asia. From the Association of American Universities 2006 National Defense Education and
Innovation Initiative. Used by permission.

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 Downng & Holtz

in the vast majority of our adult learners, who report not feeling as if they have adequate
background to approach the work; many would avoid these areas completely if possible,
to avoid failure anxiety.
Meanwhile, others decry the privileging of science knowledge that supposedly keeps many
learners from developing science literacy (Roth, 2005; Roth & Barton, 2004). National
statistics on science education, such as those provided by the National Assessment of
Educational Progress (NAEP), indicate a small increase in scores for students in Grade 4
assessment in the U.S. since the standards-based No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) (Pub-
lic Law 107-110) was implemented, but show little change for later grades, indicating that
there are still systemic problems in the preparatory lead-up to college science (The Nation’s
Report Card: http://nationsreportcard.gov/science_2005/). These results are evidence for
those who criticize NCLB’s emphasis on math and reading skills, its reliance on supposed
scientifically based research standards that vary widely in validity and generalizability, and
its lack of flexibility in working with students whose capabilities are not average (Beghetto,
2003; Ryan, 2004).
In addition to the problematic issues of K-12 science instruction, it can be further con-
strued that the U.S. failure in science also involves the rewards system for scientists and
the restrained public discourse about science’s pivotal importance to the well-being of U.S.
society. These function separately. Scientists are not rewarded for speaking out in public;
on the contrary, such efforts reduce the time spent in investigation, where funded work
occurs. Bench scientists who choose to embrace education, for example, find very quickly
that time for laboratory and field work diminishes dramatically, and, thus, their funding.
Yet, it is reported that in China, science researchers who publish in international journals
are accorded national acclaim (Wadhwa et al., 2007).
Complicating science education reform are hotly debated epistemological beliefs on the value
of science knowledge for society at large and what science literacy should mean. Thus, the
field of science education finds itself in substantial flux, with reformers debating the nature of
science and science standards, particularly the comparative merits and limitations of science
literacy, defined by some as citizen science versus power science, as well as the means for
achieving each. Citizen science has been characterized as “…a form of science that relates
in reflexive ways to the concerns, interests and activities of citizens as they go about their
everyday business” (Roth & Barton, 2004, p.9). In this way, its purpose is to empower learn-
ers by emphasizing application of science concepts, from the internal workings of a lawn
mower motor to the multi-faceted, community investigation of polluted groundwater, while
de-emphasizing tenets that would be of interest only to those, not the majority, interested in
the cooperative realm of academic and industrial science (Roth & Barton, 2004). Conversely,
those in support of teaching power science maintain that de-emphasizing traditional science
fails to bring that majority to scientific literacy. In fact, such citizen science programs relegate
learners to a level of understanding that effectively removes them from power science and
its associated careers, further aggravating the existing perception of professional scientists
that college graduates are not adequately prepared to enter the science work environment
(Holliman & Scanlon, 2004; Scanlon, Murphy, Thomas, & Whitelegg, 2004). Moreover, an
emphasis on citizen science may well diminish the option value of science held within the
individual, which can be utilized by the individual or society at a later date.

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 Controverses and Concurrence n Scence Educaton 

Parallel to this argument for citizen science run decidedly career-oriented program initiatives
to increase the number of women choosing science as a career, including those to engage
girls in authentic science activities as early as middle school (Girls Re-designing and Excel-
ling in Advanced Technology [GREAT!] Judy Brown, NSF Grant 0114669; Women on the
Prairie: Bringing Girls into Science through Environmental Stewardship, Beth Montelone,
NSF Grant 0114723). Similar programs seek to engage racial minorities (NIH’s Minority
K-12 Initiatives for Teachers and Students [MKITS]; Louis Stokes Louisiana Alliance for
Minority Participation [LS-LAMP], NSF Grant 0503362). Such initiatives focus on situated,
context-sensitive and non-threatening interfaces designed to emphasize personal meaning
and personal potential within science, but still convey the substance of a science career,
including those elements that do not have direct applicability to students’ personal lives.
Where the citizen science and power science camps converge is on application of experien-
tial, inquiry-based learning experiences, although they come from different angles. While
those in support of citizen science consider laboratory work—practical work, as described
in Chapter V—unnecessary, constructivist learning theory, on which citizen science bases
its tenets, is heavily experiential. However, Edelson (1999), whose research is on the imple-
mentation of scientific visualization to learning school science, concludes that convergence
of content and process is the crux for any student success. Process alone does not lead to
science literacy in either citizen science or power science.
The most significant criticisms of citizen science relate to its heavy reliance on radical
constructivism, education’s primary canon—perhaps dogma—for the last decade or more.
Specifically, critics maintain that under the constructivist foundation, which will be discussed
in detail later in this chapter, (1) content takes a back seat to socially driven experience,
(2) emphasis is placed on derivative and repackaged theory, (3) anti-reason, anti-science,
and political philosophy holds sway; and (4) emerging insights on the neurological basis of
learning are not taken into account (Gross, 2000; Matthews, 2002; Rezaei & Katz, 2002;
this volume). However, as noted, performance in the sciences by U.S. students has been
declining compared to other nations for decades. Thus, effective pedagogical approaches to
learning content knowledge are yet another area of flux within science education.

Additional Factors Influencing Science.Education

Government.Guidelines

National standards are developed for primary and secondary school. However, they are
developed in collaboration with the National Science Foundation, should be congruent with
upper levels of science education and are therefore adequate for extrapolation for tertiary
level science learning. This is elaborated on in the context of seamless K-16 online science
learning in the following chapter. In addition, quasi-governmental organizations have also
weighed in on what is needed in the area of science education. For example, the Association of
American Universities’ National Defense Education and Innovation Initiative identifies three
general objectives that support U.S. competitiveness and security at the college level:

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0 Downng & Holtz

• Enhance the U.S.’s research capacity in order to sustain scientific and technical in-
novation.
• Cultivate U.S. talent to enhance the nation’s math, science, engineering, and foreign
language expertise.
• Continue to attract and retain the best and brightest international students, scientists,
engineers and scholars.

Within the details of these general goals, a key strategy is the training and retraining of K-12
teachers. Online science learning may readily contribute to this area.

Personal.Objectives

At the tertiary level, a student’s learning goals generally fall within three specific areas,
identified by Houle (1961) in his examination of adult learners. First is the social learner,
who, in the case of formal learning, takes a course because of the social aspect. The second
type, who learns for the sake of learning, takes a course because it simply sounds interest-
ing. The third is goal-oriented, as in major bound, and takes a course because it is required.
Depending on what category a learner falls into, the level of science understanding may
be that of citizen science or of power science. Hence, it is inherently difficult to partition
citizen science or power science into exclusive sets of learning objectives that can be ap-
plied to a diverse classroom.

Figure 2.3. Differences between material taught, depending on student emphasis in science
education. Students intending science or science-oriented careers would learn Science
Explanations, while other students would learn Ideas-about-Science (from Osbourne &
Hennessy, 2006). Used by permission.

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 Controverses and Concurrence n Scence Educaton 

There can be a disconnect between those types in the classroom. A career or vocational
science learner may be expected to understand citizen science level materials, while a citi-
zen science level learner may not understand the nuances required for science knowledge.
Considering this, there are two issues to address. The first is what Osborne and Hennessy
(2006) addressed in their Delphi study of science curriculum, in which respondents were
asked to identify what science should be taught to the different types of learners. Respondents
to the Delphi study were science educators at the tertiary level and professional scientists.
What the study concluded was that a tracking system was necessary, in the opinion of the
respondents. Students who foresaw a career in professional science or in a vocation that
used the science knowledge would by necessity need to be taught different content than
those students who did not intend to enter science as a career (see Figure 2.3). In the case
that students should later decide on science careers, they would need to complete whatever
remedial work was deemed necessary by their intended programs, just as students do now.
While tracking in the classroom environment is known to be complex in operational terms
and on psycho-social impact, distance learning lends itself readily to track systems, as stu-
dents are able to engage in multiple types and multiple levels of learning activities, whether
individually or collaboratively.
A detailed study of what science and engineering graduates actually do with their degree
(Reget, 2006, in Lowell, 2006) is relevant to how personal objectives and employment op-
portunities influence the use of a student’s scientific capital. This study revealed that more
than half of the students receiving science and engineering degrees did not seek an additional
degree. Of those who sought advanced degrees, 62% pursued them in professional and
non-science areas (e.g., business, medicine). The vast majority of individuals who earned
science and engineering degrees considered their learning useful and relevant to their job
responsibilities well into their careers, including those that moved into management. This
supports the idea that power science plays an important role even for science and engineer-
ing students who reposition their careers away from the science and engineering degree
they first accomplished.

Other Considerations that Influence

Online.Learning.Pedagogy
As we will argue throughout this book, the structure of online learning should be peda-
gogically driven; however, one must not lose sight that there are pragmatic considerations
important to the learner that should also inform instructional design and implementation.
The adult online learner tends to be goal-oriented in the sense of Houle (1961), as described
earlier. For example, in a recent survey of a group of adult student learners, mostly teach-
ers, O’Lawrence (2007) determined that two key factors influence them to undertake online
study: incentives from employers and “suitable” offerings from programs. In addition,
this study indicated that only 9% of students selected the distance format because of the
self-directed learning approach (i.e., pedagogy), but that 89% indicated flexibility was the
foremost factor (that is, accommodating transportation, child care, and career demands).

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 Downng & Holtz

For this reason, the instructional design of online science learning should also take account
of the flexibility needs of students.

Issues.in.Learning.Science
Regardless of the goals of the science learner, there are key issues of concern to stakeholders
in professional science. Undoubtedly, how to best address the learning needs of students is
of primary importance, followed closely by responsibility to the field of science. These must
balance each other. The state of science achievement in the U.S. has made some wonder
whether too much emphasis has been placed on learner needs with insufficient attention to
the needs of the field or even the need to build a society’s scientific capital, as we discuss
more fully in Chapter XIII. It is important to address students’ learning needs and styles;
however, science educators and scientists have a responsibility not to weaken essential con-
tent by adherence to a given learning theory or mandate. In this next section, we provide a
background to the common learning theories applied to science and online science.

Learning.Theories.and.Concepts
Three core movements comprise the bulk of contemporary learning theory: behaviorism, cog-
nitivism, and constructionism (Mergel, 1998). These theories overlap considerably, although
their relationships to each other are not as direct as one might assume. Several emergent
learning models and theories (e.g., inventive model, hypothetico-predictive theory) seek to
reintegrate constructivism and cognitivism, at least partly as a response to the more extreme,
and demonstrably less effective, forms of constructivism (Kirschner et al., 2006; Martens
et al., 2007; Matthews, 2002; Rezaei & Katz, 2002). Reexamination and repositioning of
learning theory and practice are further warranted in light of a rapidly increasing knowledge
of how the brain responds to stimuli and actually learns (i.e., internally and biologically as
opposed to coarser external psychological observation) made possible from advances in brain
imaging and from neurological theories of learning. These advances seem to justify beliefs
from behaviorism and cognitivism that have been denounced by constructivism.
The genesis of contemporary learning theory lies in behavioral psychology, particularly
the work of Edward Thorndike, John B. Watson, and B. F. Skinner, although extrapolation
of classic conditioning (stimulus-response) animal studies by Pavlov was foundational to
their work (Skinner, 1976). Behaviorism, then as now, classified learning and thinking as
precursors to changed behavior, with environmental experience causing the mental change
that leads to changed behavior (Ormrod, 1999). Thorndike’s connectionism theory maintains
that experiences affect the strength of the stimulus-response; positive results strengthen
connections, while negative results weaken them. Similarly, Watson’s work demonstrated
that repeated connection of a particular stimulus with a particular response strengthened the
learned behavior change (Mergel, 1998). Skinner’s work on operant conditioning and the

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 Controverses and Concurrence n Scence Educaton 

Figure 2.4. Comparison of psychology-based learning theory characteristics and relation-

ships to each other. The left arrow indicates the comparative balance that newer learning
theories, which are based on neurological advances, place on existing learning theories.
The right arrow represents the degree of objective and subjective emphasis inherent in the
traditional learning theories (adapted from Mergel, 1998).

effectiveness of partial reinforcement was rooted firmly in behaviorism, but gradually he

began, however slightly, to incorporate the evolving theory of cognitivism.
Jean Piaget and Jerome Bruner developed the core of cognitivism as a learning theory. As
Figure 2.4 illustrates, cognitivism shares many characteristics with behaviorism, although
the equivalents to audience and behavior components of behaviorism are explored in much
greater depth in cognitivism. In fact, the key concepts attributed to cognitivism (e.g., schema,
meaningful effects) address learner analysis and task analysis exclusively, while adopting
behaviorism’s condition and degree components.
Cognitive theorists recognize that much learning involves associations established through
contiguity and repetition. They also acknowledge the importance of reinforcement, although
they stress its role in providing feedback about the correctness of responses over its role as
a motivator. However, even while accepting such behavioristic concepts, cognitive theorists
view learning as involving the acquisition or reorganization of the cognitive structures through
which humans process and store information (Good & Brophy, 1990, p. 187, in Mergel,
1998). This type of cognitive view is also supported in the recent and seminal discussion of
the neurological basis of learning by Lawson (2003).
Yet even before behaviorism tackled learning, Vygotsky was developing the concept of zone
of proximal development, which became foundational to both his theory of social constructiv-
ism and subsequent concepts of scaffolding and cognitive load (Rieber & Robinson, 2004;
Sweller, 1988; Wood & Wood, 1996). The related work of both Piaget and Gagne supported
development of constructivism, as conceptualized by Vygotsky.

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 Downng & Holtz

Constructivism, as originally conceived, formed a theory of learning based in constructivist

developmental theory in psychology. As a learning theory, it offered an alternative manner in
which to involve the learner in constructing meaning as opposed to transmitting knowledge.
Because of its developmental stage emphasis, constructivism acknowledges a spectrum of
approaches to teaching/learning, depending on the task and the stage of intellectual develop-
ment of the learner. It was not originally intended to be a replacement for any one particular
learning theory’s tenet or principle; rather, it hoped to provide a context in the absence of
specific understanding of the neurological bases of learning.
Constructivism is not now simply a learning theory. It has become a behemoth that con-
sumes competing beliefs, criticism, and well-intentioned debate under the umbrella of
student-centeredness. Critiquing constructivism has essentially become equivalent to being
anti-student, especially in science education where educators have to contend with radical
constructivism’s key tenet that there is no one right answer. In a quest to address student
learning needs and honor their experience, constructivists have largely ignored the values
and lessons learned from behaviorism and cognitivism. Yet, constructivism as originally
conceived by Vygotsky and Piaget did not go so far as to negate the importance of other
perspectives. In fact, techniques that have shown themselves to be completely appropriate,
useful, and indeed necessary (e.g., scaffolding) have arisen from work in constructivist learn-
ing (Figure 2.5). It has been the more extreme practices of constructivism that dismissed
other learning theories or their main tenets and it is these that have recently been shown
to be insupportable in light of research into neurological aspects of learning (Kirschner et
al., 2007; Martens et al., 2007). Such research demonstrates key principles and tenets of
behaviorism and cognitivism emerging as foundational to effective instructional techniques
(Rezaei & Katz, 2002).
Several emergent learning theories are based on the hypothetical-predictive model, which
acknowledges that students have an existing knowledge base prior to instruction (e.g., Lawson,
2003). Students incorporate new knowledge by continuously making informal hypotheses
based on their existing knowledge, presumptions about truths and experiences. This type

Figure 2.5. Comparison of supportive learning concept integration into traditional learn-
ing theories. Current understanding of developing neurological learning theories seems to
indicate that scaffolded material, practical work and collaboration/networking are sup-
ported concepts.

Learning Theories
Behaviorism Cognitivism Constructivism
Learning Concepts Objective Objective Subjective
Scaffolded Material ● ● ●
Practical Work ● ● ●
Situated Learning ● ●
Anchored Instruction ● ●
Collaboration/
●
Networking
Metacognitive Tasks ●

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 Controverses and Concurrence n Scence Educaton 

of model subsumes the elemental ideas of the three learning theories introduced previously.
In behaviorist learning theory, reinforcement is part of learning. Cognivistic task analysis
is a natural occurrence, according to the neurological basis of learning. The constructivist
tenets of need for authentic tasks and experiential learning are equally important. These
learning elements are not mutually exclusive to a learning situation, but rather complement
and support a learning theory that is focused on the students’ natural learning proclivity; that
is, hypothetico-predictive. This hypothetico-predictive model recognizes the importance of
instructional techniques that have proven to be of value because these techniques support
the neurological basis of learning.

Cognitive.Load.and.Scaffolding.to.Support.Science.
Instruction

Cognitive load is instrumental to neurological cognitivism because it addresses the relation-

ship between long-term and short-term memory. The relationship between cognitive load
theory (Sweller, 1988) and expertise—that is, the novice-to-expert changes in cognitive
load—depends on the ease with which a person can access knowledge retained in long-term
memory. The transmission of that knowledge to working memory for incorporation of new
information and the processing of that new information is a default mechanism, according
to the hypothetical-predictive model.
Miller’s (1956) classic research into working memory maintains that it is limited to be-
tween five and nine chunks of information, research that is supported by subsequent work
(Bapi, Pammi, Miyapuram, & Ahmed, 2005; Gobet et al., 2001). If any of those chunks are
not connected to a knowledge structure in long-term memory, the chunk is forgotten and
replaced by new information. Thus, as students become more proficient at making the con-
nection between what is in working memory compared to long-term memory their level of
expertise—that is, position on the novice to expert scale—moves more toward expert. The
goal in experiential fields is to facilitate progression from novice to increasingly expert skill
(Holtz, 2002; Sternberg, 1984).
An essential element in such learning environments is scaffolding, which refers to supportive
structures, just as it does in industry. In learning science, scaffolding takes the form of learn-
ing objects that clearly illustrate or facilitate the illustration of key concepts, processes, and
theories (Quintana, Krajcik, & Soloway, 2002). From the perspective of science learning,
cognitive load can be reduced by scaffolding that eases the burden on working memory by
making available instructional aids. For example, in solving a physics problem, formulae
can be provided rather than committed to memory. The importance of scaffolding is to ease
cognitive load in the learning moment.

Practical.Work.and.Experiential.Learning

Experiential learning in the constructivist paradigm is understood to be active, non-theory

oriented knowledge construction. In this definition, experiential learning can occur in any
learning environment, at home or at work, and in essentially any level of complexity. Within

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of IGI Global is prohibited.
 Downng & Holtz

science education, a more precise term would be that of practical work. While students may
learn experientially, the content-driven manifestation of science learning is more closely
defined, as Chapter V explains in considerable detail. Practical work, while not one of the
national standards, is emergent as a theoretical framework and firmly established as a teach-
ing practice within the sciences. The history of practical work is clearly seen as far back as
in the guild apprenticeship models.

Cooperative.and.Collaborative.Learning

Collaborative learning implies a mutual reliance, shared contribution, and a combining of

knowledge sets into a greater whole that constitutes new knowledge. Too often, classroom-
based projects fall short of collaborative learning and are comprised of merely cooperative
learning. Whereas collaborative learning is mutually reliant and results in new knowledge,
cooperative learning is non-authentic, in that the failure of one member to contribute can
be overcome by the remaining members. In a true collaboration, the loss of one member’s
expertise changes the dynamics of the learning process and the quality of the final product. In
cooperative learning, the product itself can be completed without substantial loss of quality
as the group adjusts its learning process. In the sciences, true collaboration takes on yet a
more sophisticated dimension when students have the option to participate in collaboratories,
a formalized structure of longitudinal dimensions. Collaboration and collaboratories will be
discussed in more detail in Chapter VI.

Learning.Environments

When constructivist learning theorists describe the issue of students’ needs being met, it
takes on the role of a theoretical construct. In practice, meeting a student’s need can be as
simple as one recalled from a high school science class. In a traditional didactic environment,
where K, C, and F were compared, the teacher resorted to drawing three thermometers
in one beaker, showing the different measurements to illustrate comparative value. A teacher
versed in the hypothetical-predictive model would know that the student simply required
more and diverse transmission of facts to bring into congruence the mental hypothesis and
the presented content.
This indicates that flexibility in a learning environment, regardless of educational philosophy
or student learning style and preference is, perhaps, the single most important characteristic
of effectively developed pedagogy. Different authors maintain that problem-based learning,
case-based learning, inquiry-guided learning, project-centered learning, collaborative and
self-directed learning are all essential elements of a learning environment. In fact, the ability
of an instructor to use each of those modalities, sequentially or simultaneously, in response
to student learning needs and, equally, the structure of the content to be addressed is what
makes a learning environment effective.

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of IGI Global is prohibited.
Other documents randomly have
different content
 “It won’t as long as you’re a merry vagabond. But your situation as
such is not permanent, I think. Wouldn’t you like to go and strike
attitudes upon the sea?”
The gardener was intensely interested in what followed.
Mr. Samuel Rust was penniless, owing, as he frankly admitted, to
propensities which he shared with the common sieve. But in other
directions he was well supplied with blessings. He had, for instance,
a mother. And the mother—well, you know, she managed to scrape
along on nine thousand a year—what? The said mother, excellent
woman though she was, had refused to finance the Red Place. She
had not come within the radius of its blessing. She had no idea that it
was under the direct patronage of the gods, and that it promised a
fortune in every facet. Samuel had explained these facts to her, but
she had somehow gathered the impression that he was not
unbiassed. In her hand she held the life of the Red Place, and at
present held it checked. A little money for advertisement, a few
hundred pounds to set the heart of the place beating, and Samuel
Rust saw himself a successful man, standing with his gods on terms
of equality. But his mother had become inaccessible, she had in fact
become so wearied by the conversation of Samuel upon the subject
that she had made arrangements to emigrate to Trinity Islands,
somewhere on the opposite side of the world.
“And what is it to do with me?” asked the gardener, who suffered
from the drawbacks of his paramount virtue, enthusiasm, and never
could wait for the end of anything. “Do you want me to turn into an
unscrupulous rogue and dog her footsteps because——”
“You can have scruples or not as you choose,” said Mr. Rust. “But
rogue is a word that exasperates me. It’s much the same as ‘naughty-
naughty,’ and that is worse than wickedness. The wicked live on
brimstone, which is at least honest; but the naughty-naughty play
with it, which is irreverent. With or without your scruples, armed
only with the blessing and the promise of this place, I want you to
cross the Atlantic on the Caribbeania with my mother, and tell her
what it is the gods and I are waiting for. That is—just try and talk the
old lady round—don’t you know. Any old twaddle would do—what?”
The gardener produced two halfpennies, one of which he placed on
each knee.
 “And the fare first-class is ...” he said.
“I have a cousin whose only virtue is that he occasionally serves the
purpose of coin,” said Mr. Rust. “That is—I know a fellow I can bleed
to a certain extent—what? He is the son of—well, a middling K-nut at
the top of the shipping tree—what?”
The gardener had visions of an unscrupulous rogue, neatly packed
into a crate labelled champagne, being smuggled on board the
Caribbeania. Truly the pose had possibilities. The affair was,
however, vague at present, and the gardener retained, whatever the
rôle he was playing, an accurate mind and a profound respect for the
exactness of words.
“Will he stow me away?” he asked.
“Not in the way you mean. But there’ll be room for you on the
Caribbeania. Come down to Southampton with me now. There’s a
train at noon.”
“I have my own feet, and a good white road,” replied the gardener
in a poetic voice. “I’ll join you in Southampton this evening.”
“It’s thirty-five miles,” said Mr. Rust. “And the boat sails to-
morrow morning. However.... We haven’t discussed the business side
of the affair yet.”
“And we never will. I’ll take my payment out in miles—an excellent
currency.”
In spite of the distance of his destination, the gardener stood by
his determination to go by road. A friendly farmer’s cart may always
be depended on to assist the pose of a vagabond. It would have been
extremely hackneyed to approach the opening door of life by train.
So he left his blessing with the Red Place, and shook the hand of its
white master, and set his face towards the sea.
It was still early. The sun had set the long limbs of the tree-
shadows striding about the woods; the gorse, a tamed expression of
flame, danced in the yellow heat; the heather pressed like a pigmy
army bathed in blood about the serene groups of pines. There was
great energy abroad, which kept the air a-tingle. The gardener almost
pranced along.
Presently he came to a woman seated by the roadside engrossed in
a box of matches.
 “You again,” said the gardener to the suffragette, for he recognised
her by her hat. There was a bunch of promiscuous flowers attached
to her hat. They were of an unsuitable colour, and looked as though
they had taken on their present situation as an after-thought, when
the hat was already well advanced in years. A mariage de
convenance.
“Have you any matches?” was the suffragette’s characteristic reply.
“I never give away my matches to people with political opinions
without making the fullest enquiries,” replied the gardener. “People
are not careful enough about the future morals of their innocent
matches in these days.”
Forgetting the thirty-five miles, he sat down on the bank beside
her, and began to refresh Hilda by splashing the water into her pot
out of a tiny heathery stream that explored the roadside ditch.
“I can supply you with all particulars at once,” said the suffragette
in a businesslike voice. “I am going to burn down a little red empty
hotel that stands in the woods behind you. There is only one man in
charge.”
“You are not,” said the gardener, descending suddenly to
unfeigned sincerity.
“Certainly it is not the home of an Anti,” continued the suffragette,
ignoring his remark. “At least as far as I know. But you never can tell.
A Cabinet Minister might want to come and stay there any time;
there are good golf-links. I had hoped that the last affair, the burning
of West Grove—a most successful business—would have been my last
protest for the present. I meant to be arrested, and spend a month or
two at the not less important work of setting the teeth of the Home
Office on edge. But the police are disgracefully lax in this part of the
world, and though I left several clues and flourished my portmanteau
in three neighbouring villages, nothing happened. I do not like to
give myself up, it is so inartistic, and people are apt to translate it as
a sign of repentance. But the little hotel is a splendid opportunity.”
One of the drawbacks of posing yourself is that you are apt to
become a little blind to the poses of others. Also you must remember
that women, and especially rebellious women, were an unexplored
continent to the gardener.
 “You are not going to take advantage of the opportunity,” said the
gardener, refreshing Hilda so violently that she stood up to her knees
in water.
“I’ve heard the caretaker is constantly out ...” went on the
suffragette.
“Possibly,” admitted the gardener. “But if the house were twenty
times alone, you should not light a match within a mile of it. How
dare you—you a great strong woman—to take advantage of the weak
gods who can’t defend themselves.”
The great strong woman crinkled her eyes at him. She was
absurdly small and thin.
“Well, if you won’t lend me any matches, I shall have to try and do
with the three I have. I am going to reconnoitre. Good-morning.”
There is nothing so annoying as to have one’s really impressive
remarks absolutely ignored. I myself can bear a great deal of passing
over. You may with advantage fail to see my complexion and the cut
of my clothes; you may be unaware of the colour of my eyes without
offending me; I do not care if you never take the trouble to depress
your eyes to my feet to see if I take twos or sevens; you may despise
my works of art—which have no value except in the eyes of my
relations; you may refuse to read my writings—which have no value
in any eyes but my own,—all these things you may do and still retain
my respect, but when I speak you must listen to what I say. If you
don’t, I hate you.
The gardener felt like this, and the retreating form of the
suffragette became hateful to him. Somehow delightfully hateful.
“Come back,” he shouted, but incredible though it may seem, the
woman shrugged one shoulder at him, and walked on towards the
Red Place.
It was most undignified, the gardener had to run after her to
enforce his will. He arrived by her side breathless, with his face the
colour of a slightly anæmic beetroot. It is very wrong of women to
place their superiors in such unsuperior positions.
I hope I do not strike you as indulging my suffragettism at the
expense of the gardener. I am very fond of him myself, and because
that is so, his conceit seems to me to be one of his principal charms.
There is something immorally attractive in a baby vice that makes
one’s heart smile.
The gardener closed his hand about the suffragette’s thin arm.
“You will force me to take advantage of my privilege,” he said, and
looked at his own enormous hand.
The suffragette stood perfectly still, looking in the direction she
wanted to go.
“Turn back,” said the gardener. But she made a sudden passionate
effort to twist her arm out of his grasp. It was absurd, and very nearly
successful, like several things that women do.
The gardener’s heart grew black. There seemed nothing to be
done. No end could be imagined to the incident. His blue sea future
dissolved. He pictured himself standing thus throughout eternity,
with his hand closed around the little splinter of life she called her
arm. Time seemed to pass so slowly that in a minute he found he
knew her looks by heart. And yet he was not weary of them. I
suppose the feeling he found in himself was due to a certain reaction
from the exalted incident of the blue and golden young lady who had
divined the loneliness of the threepenny bit. For he discovered that
he did not so very much mind hair that had but little colour in it, and
that he found attractive a pointed chin, and an under lip that was the
least trifle more out-thrust than its fellow.
“Do you know why I want to stop you?” he said at last.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because you are not a woman, and don’t understand.”
“Because I am a man, and I understand.”
She was silent.
“Do you know what I mean?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t. I mean that I am a man, and I am not going to let you
go, because you must come with me to the uttermost ends of the
earth.”
“Why?”
“Because I love the shape of your face, you dear little thing.”
 The gods should not be disturbed. Also there was something very
potent in the impotent trembling of her arm.
There was an unnaturally long pause. Then she turned round.
“Let us discuss this matter,” she said, and gave him her
portmanteau to carry. The gardener loosed her arm and walked
beside her. Silence and a distance of a yard and a half were
maintained between them for some way.
The gardener was gazing in blank astonishment at that ass, the
gardener of three minutes ago. Into what foolery had he not
plunged?
If I could always be the Woman I Am, I should be a most rational
and successful creature. It is the Woman I Was who makes a fool of
me, and leaves me nervous as to the possible behaviour of the
Woman I Shall Be.
There was something in the way the suffragette’s neck slipped
loosely into her collar which took a little of the sting out of the
gardener’s regrets. But the little plain eyes of her, and the aggressive
manners of her, and the misguided morals of her—that was the
sequence in which the gardener’s thoughts fell into line.
As for the suffragette, her heart, in defiance of anatomy, had gone
to her head, and was thundering rhythmically there. She was
despising herself passionately, and congratulating herself
passionately. How grand—she thought: how contemptible—she
thought. For she was a world’s worker, a wronged unit seeking rights,
a co-heritor of the splendour of the earth, a challenger, a warrior.
And now, quite suddenly, she discovered a fact the existence of which
she had seldom, even in weak moments, suspected. She found that—
taken off her guard—she was a young woman of six-and-twenty.
“How laughable,” she thought—and did not laugh—“I’m as bad as
the ‘Oh my dear’ girls.”
“Now,” she said at last, “what did you mean by that?”
“Only that you look like a good friend,” replied the gardener, who,
poor vagabond, was blushing furiously. “Mightn’t we be friends?”
“I am a friend to women,” said the suffragette slowly. “I’m a lover
of women. But never of men. I wouldn’t stir an inch out of my way
for a man. Unless I wanted to.”
 “And do you want to?”
She looked at the gardener’s profile with the eyes of the newly
discovered young woman of six-and-twenty. Hitherto she had seen
him only with the militant eyes of armed neutrality. She looked at the
rather pleasing restlessness of his eyes, and the high tilt of his head.
His eyes were not dark with meaning, as the eyes of heroes of novels
should be, they were light and quick. The black pupils looked out
fierce and sharp, like the pupils of a cat, which flash like black sparks
out of the twilight of its soul. The gardener’s eyes actually conveyed
little, but they looked like blinds, barely concealing something of
great value.
Presently the suffragette said: “Can you imagine what you feel like
if you had been running in a race, and you had believed you were
winning. The rest were miles behind wasting their breath variously;
and then suddenly your eyes were opened, and you saw that you had
been running outside the ropes of the course, for you were never
given the chance to enter for the competition.”
“Good,” said the gardener enthusiastically. “So you’re tired of
running to no purpose, and you’re coming back to the starting-place
to begin again.”
“No,” said the suffragette, as firmly as though she had the
muscular supremacy and could start back that moment to pit her
three matches against the gods. “Never. There’s no such thing as
running to no purpose. It’s excellent exercise—running, but I’ll never
run with the crowd. There are much better things than winning the
prize. There’s more of everything out here—more air, more light,
more comedy, more tragedy. Also I get there first, you know. When
you get the law-abider and the church-goer in a crowd, they increase
its moral tone, but they lessen its power of covering the ground.”
“Personally I never was inside,” said the gardener, who had a
natural preference for talking about himself. “But then I am building
a path of my own.”
“Anyway, what did you mean originally?”
The gardener blushed again. He showered reproaches on himself.
“Only that we might walk into Southampton as friends. And if we
liked it.... Besides I owe you a shilling, and you’d better keep an eye
on your financial interests. My boat sails to-morrow. You know, it is
a nice shock to me to find that a militant suffragette is human at all.
When I held your arm, I was surprised to find it was not iron.”
“Did you say your boat sailed to-morrow?”
“I should have said, ‘Our boat sails to-morrow.’”
“There’s no time to walk. We’ll hire a car in Aldershot.”
So at sunset, side by side, they arrived in sight of Southampton’s
useful but hackneyed sheet of water.
Even then they had no plans. In youth one likes the feeling of
standing on empty air with a blank in front of one.
The suffragette paid for the car without question. “I am quite well
off,” she excused herself, as they traversed the smug and comfortless
suburbs of the town. “Has that shilling I lent you to invest brought in
any interest?”
“I hate money,” posed the gardener; “but I have a profession, you
know. I am a gardener.”
“And where is your garden?”
“I have two. This is one”—and he held up Hilda, who was looking
rather round-shouldered owing to the exertions and emotions of the
day—“and the world is the other. It also happens that I have had
three months’ training in a horticultural college.”
The gardener did not talk like this naturally, any more than you or
I do. But in addition to his many other poses he posed as being
unique. Unfortunately there is nothing entirely unique except
insanity. Of course there are better things than insanity. On the other
hand, it is rather vulgar to be perfectly sane.
The suffragette went to an hotel, and the gardener went to meet
Mr. Samuel Rust at their appointed meeting-place.
Mr. Rust looked even more colourless against the brownness of the
town than he had seemed against the redness of his place. He wore
town clothes, too, and one noticed them, which is what one does not
do with a well-dressed man. The ideal, of course, is to look as if the
Almighty made you to fit your clothes. There are a great many
unfortunates whose appearance persists in confessing the truth—that
the tailor made their clothes to fit them.
Mr. Samuel Rust, however, was not self-conscious. He escaped
that pitfall, but left other people to be conscious of his appearance for
him.
“Come along,” he said, skipping up to the gardener like a goat, or
like a little hill. “I’ve sounded my cousin on the telephone, and the
outlook is not otherwise than middling hopeful. He’s promised, in
fact, to ship you on board the Caribbeania. The question is—what
as? What can you do?”
“I am a gardener—in theory.”
“Unfortunately only facts are shipped on Abel’s line.”
“Then all is over. For I am just a sheaf of theories held together by
a cage of bones. There is no fact in me at all.”
“Don’t be humble. It’s waste of time in such a humiliating world.”
“I’m not humble”—the gardener indignantly repudiated the
suggestion. “I’m proud of being what I am. I am more than worthy of
the Caribbeania.”
“Then come and prove it,” said Mr. Rust, and dragged the gardener
passionately down the street.
The gardener found himself placed on the door-step of an aspiring
corner house. Mr. Samuel Rust stood on a lower step with his back to
the door. It is part of the code of shadows to pretend, when you have
rung the bell, that you do not care whether the door is opened or not.
The gardener, following the code of the socially simple, stood with
his nose nearly touching the knocker, and his eyes glued to the spot
where the head of the servant might be expected to appear. It
therefore devolved on him to draw Mr. Rust’s attention to the
eventual appearance of a black-frocked white-capped answer to his
summons.
“Ah!” exclaimed Samuel, “Mr. Abel in?”
The maid, with fine dramatic feeling, stepped aside, thus opening
up a vista, at the end of which could be seen Mr. Abel advancing with
both hands outstretched.
When people shake hands with both their hands and both their
eyes and all their teeth, and with much writhing of the lips, you at
once know something fairly important about them. They have
acquired the letter of enthusiasm without its spirit, and their effect
on the really enthusiastic is like the effect of artificial light and heat
on a flower that needs the sun.
 The gardener became as though he were not there. All that he
vouchsafed to leave at Mr. Rust’s side in the library of Mr. Abel was a
white and sleepy-looking young man, standing on one fourteen-inch
foot while the other carefully disarranged the carpet edge. The
gardener was not shy, though on such occasions he looked silly. He
was really encrusted in himself; loftily superior to Mr. Abel and his
like he hung, levitated by the medium of his own conceit, at a level
far above Mr. Abel’s house-top.
Fortunately Mr. Abel and Mr. Rust both took his aloofness for the
sheepishness to be expected of one of his age.
“This is the instrument of my designs, and the victim of your
kindness, Abel,” remarked Mr. Rust. “He doesn’t always look such an
ass. He is a gardener, by profession.”
“In theory,” added the gardener, whose armour of aloofness had
chinks. There is something practical about this inconsistent young
man which he has never yet succeeded in smothering, and to this
day, though he poses as being superbly absent-minded, his mind is
generally present—so to speak—behind the door.
“In theory,” repeated Mr. Abel, ecstatically amused. He made it his
business to shoot promiscuous appreciation at the conversation of
his betters, and though his aim was not good, he was at least gifted
with perseverance. If you shoot enough, you must eventually hit
something. Hereafter he kept his profile agog towards the gardener,
a smile hovering round that side of his mouth in readiness for his
guest’s next sally.
One pose in which the gardener has never approached is that of
the wag, and he made renewed efforts to unhook his mind from this
exasperating interview.
“Is there any opening for a gardener on the Caribbeania?” asked
Mr. Rust.
“A gardener ...” said Mr. Abel, looking laboriously reflective. “We
have no gardener as yet on board.”
“But is there a garden?” asked Mr. Samuel Rust acutely.
“A garden,” repeated Mr. Abel, ruminating intensely. “There is the
winter garden. And a row of geraniums on the promenade deck. And
some trellis work with ivy. Yes, there is certainly a garden.”
 “Then the thing is settled,” said Mr. Rust, and at these hopeful
words the gardener rose loudly from his chair.
“Wait a moment,” said Mr. Abel in the same voice as the voice in
which Important Note is printed in the Grammar Book. “What about
the salary?”
There was no reply and no sensation. The gardener was yearning
towards the door.
“Of course....” said Mr. Abel. “The position is not one of any
responsibility, and therefore could hardly be expected to be a paying
one. Your passage out....”
“I wouldn’t touch money. I hate the feel of it,” said the gardener
abruptly. That threw Mr. Abel into a paroxysm of humour.
On the door-step the gardener did a heroic thing. He turned back
and found Mr. Abel in the hall, completely recovered from his
paroxysm.
“What about——” began the gardener, with the suffragette in his
mind. “Dangerous to lose sight of her,” he thought.
“What about what?” asked Mr. Abel, and was again very much
amused by the symmetry of the phrase. He was a bright-mannered
man.
The gardener’s new pose lay suddenly clear before him.
“What about my wife?” he asked.
He was rather pleased with the sensation he made.
“Your wife?” exclaimed Mr. Rust and Mr. Abel in duet (falsetto and
tenor).
“What on earth did you do with her last night?” continued Samuel
solo.
“Can’t she ship as stewardess?” asked the gardener.
Poor suffragette! But in the eyes of men one woman is much the
same as another. Every woman, I gather, is a potential stewardess.
This is woman’s sphere when it takes to the water. The gardener
thought he knew all about women. All her virtues he considered that
she shared with man, but her vices he looked upon as peculiarly her
own.
 “The boat sails to-morrow,” Mr. Abel observed reproachfully. “The
stewardesses have been engaged for weeks.”
“Why can’t you leave her behind, what?” asked Mr. Rust. “Women
do far too much travelling about nowadays. There’s such a thing as
broadening the mind too far, you know. Sometimes, like elastic, it
snaps. A lot of women I know have snapped.”
“Yes,” said the gardener. “But it would be better for England if I
took her away.”
This spark nearly put an end to the career of Mr. Abel. He
squeezed the gardener’s hand in an agony of appreciation.
“I won’t go without her,” said the gardener, rather surprising
himself. He gave Mr. Abel no answering smile. He was too busy
reproaching himself.
“Abel,” implored Mr. Rust. “I simply can’t let old Mrs. Paul go
without some one to keep the Red Place in her line of thought. This is
obviously the man for the job. My career hangs on you. Be worthy.
That is—be a sport, now, what?”
“I’ll find your wife a berth,” said Mr. Abel, accompanying each
word with a dramatic tap on the gardener’s arm. “The boat is not
full.”
“Settled,” exclaimed Mr. Samuel, and after that, of course, escape
followed. The idea of dinner together hovered between the two as
they emerged into the principal street, but as both were penniless,
the idea, which originated chiefly in instinct, died.
The gardener went to call on the suffragette. He was conscientious
in his own way, and fully realised that the woman had a right to
know that she was now a wife, and, if not a stewardess, an intending
passenger on a boat bound immediately for the uttermost ends of the
earth.
He found the suffragette, looking sad, playing a forlorn game of
solitaire in forlorn surroundings in the little hotel sitting-room. With
her hat off she looked not so ugly, but more insignificant. Her hair
seemed as if it would never decide whether to be fair or dark until
greyness overtook it and settled the question. It had been tidied
under protest, and already strands of it were creeping over her ears,
like deserters leaving a fortress by stealth.
 The room was papered and ceiled and upholstered in drab, there
were also drab photographs of unlovable bygones on the walls, and
some drab artificial flowers in a drab pot on the table.
There are some colour schemes that kill romance. Directly the
gardener felt the loveless air of the place, he plunged headlong into
the cold interview. Like a bather who, on feeling the chill of the sea,
hastens desperately to throw it around him from head to foot.
“I have been telling lies,” said the gardener.
“I have been crying,” said the suffragette.
They each thought that it was thoughtless of the other to be so
egotistical at this juncture. There is nothing that kills an effect so
infallibly as a collision in conversation.
“I have been telling lies,” said the gardener, “about you.”
“I have been crying—about you.”
(These women....)
The gardener took a deep breath, recoiled for a start, and ran upon
his subject.
“I have told them that you are my wife, and that you are coming
with me on the Caribbeania, sailing to-morrow morning for Trinity
Islands.”
“Told who ... Caribbeania ... Trinity Islands ...” gathered the
suffragette, with a woman’s instinct for tripping over the least
essential point. And then she interviewed herself laboriously on the
subject.
There was ample motive for a militant protest, and that was a
comfortable thought. She was justified in throwing any article of the
drab furniture at the gardener’s sharp and doubtful face. This
creature had put himself in authority over her without the authority
to do so; he had decided to lead her to Trinity Islands, whereas her
life’s work lay in England. This cold and curious boy had twisted off
its hinges the destiny of an independent woman. She had hitherto
closed the door of her heart against to-morrow. She had momentarily
liked the idea of having a friend who loved the shape of her face,
especially as he was leaving the country to-morrow. The
unconventionality of the friendship had crowned as an ornament a
life of dreadful refinement. She had meant to step for a moment from
the lonely path, and now she found that her way back was barred—by
this impenetrable trifle. It was infuriating. But the suffragette
searched in vain for a trace of real fury in her heart. She tested the
power of words.
“It is infuriating,” she said.
“Yes,” said the gardener, not apologetically. “I quite see that.”
But she did not see it herself—except in theory.
“All the same,” said the gardener, “you are an incendiary, not
exactly a woman. Can’t two friends, an incendiary and a horticultural
expert, go on a voyage of exploration together? Mutual exploration?”
“One can be alone in couples,” thought the suffragette. “It would
be studying loneliness from a new angle. My life has been a lifeless
thing, run on the world’s principles; I shall try a new line, and run it
on my own principles.”
But, as I may have mentioned, she was a woman, so she said:
“What is to prevent my going back to that house in the woods now,
and burning it down—if I ever meant to do it?”
“Me,” said the gardener.
“But you can’t sit there with your eyes pinned to me until the boat
sails.”
“Unless you give me your word as a World’s Worker that you will
not leave the hotel, I shall stay here, and so will you.”
For quite a long time the suffragette’s upbringing wrestled with all
comers, but it was a hopeless fight from the first. There is no strength
in the principles created out of a lifeless past. Besides, the woman of
six-and-twenty was very much flattered and fluttered, whatever the
militant suffragette might be.
“I will come with you on your exploration tour,” she said, and her
voice sounded like the voice of the conqueror rather than the
conquered. “I will give my word as a—woman without principles that
I will not leave Southampton except to go on board the
Caribbeania.”
The gardener left her, he felt innocently drunk. He made his way
out of the amethyst light of electricity, into the golden light of the
outskirts of the town, and thence into the silver light of the
uncivilised moon. On the beach the tide was receding, despite the
groping, grasping hands of the sea, which contested every inch of the
withdrawal. The gardener stumbled upon the soft solidity of the sand
above high-water mark, and slept the sleep of the thoroughly
confused. He dreamt of a pearl-and-pink sea, and of unknown
islands.
I need hardly say, after all this preamble, that the suffragette and
the gardener sailed next day on the Caribbeania for Trinity Islands.
Mr. Samuel Rust, for some time before the boat started, was
conspicuous for a marked non-appearance on the wharf’s edge.
The gardener, who had a vague feeling that tears should be shed in
England on his departure, stood feeling a little cold at heart on the
starboard side of the main deck, looking at the tears that were being
shed for other people.
The suffragette, who was under the impression that her hand was
against all men, stood bleakly on the port side, looking at the hydro-
aeroplanes leaping self-consciously about the Solent in seven-league
boots. She was proud to stand thus aloof and unhampered on the
threshold of a novelty. The pride she had in her independence was
one of her compensations. This is a world of compensations, and that
is what makes it the hollow world it is sometimes. So seldom do we
get the real thing that in this age we congratulate ourselves upon our
compensations.
Mr. Samuel Rust made a late and dramatic appearance upon the
gangway after the first bell of preparation for departure had been
rung. His hat, inspired by the prevalent aviation craze, blew away.
But Mr. Rust’s thoughts were occupied with other things than the
infidelity of hats. He passed the gardener without noticing him, and
with restrained fervour addressed a square elderly woman, who
stood leisurely on the deck, surrounded by an officious maid, like a
liner being attended to by a tug.
Mr. Samuel Rust did not seem like the sort of person who would
have had a mother. He gave the impression of having been created
exactly as he stood, with one stroke of the Almighty Finger, and not
gradually evolved like you or me. You could imagine the gardener,
for instance, at every stage of his existence. You could picture those
light bright eyes under those scowling brows looking out of lace and
baby-ribbons in a proud nurse’s arms. You could see him as the
fierce little schoolboy, with alternately too much to say and too little.
You could imagine him as an old man, with that thick hair turned
into a white strong flame upon his head, and those already deep-set
eyes blazing out of hewn hollows above his abrupt cheek-bones. But
Mr. Samuel Rust seemed to have no past and no future.
He addressed the woman who, contrary to appearances, had
played an important part in the creating of him.
“I couldn’t let you go without saying good-bye to you, Mrs. Paul,”
he said.
“Of course you couldn’t,” said Mrs. Rust, and the words seemed
shot by iron lips from above a chin like a ship’s ram.
Something that might have usurped the name of a kiss passed
between them, and Mr. Samuel hurried to the impatient gangway. As
he passed the gardener he winked earnestly, conscious of his
mother’s eyes on the back of his head. The gardener, feeling
delightfully unscrupulous and roguish, made no sign.
The vulgarly tuneful swan-songs of Cockney emotion trailed from
the deck to the wharf and back again. The sound was like thin beaten
silver, becoming thinner as the distance increased. There were tears
among the women on land, and the shivering water blurred the
reflections of the crowd until they looked as though they were seen
through tears. The last song fainted in the air, the crowd on the
wharf ceased to be human, and became a long suggestion of many
colours, a-quiver with waving handkerchiefs.
The gardener looked at Mrs. Paul Rust. There was a tear following
one of the furious furrows that bracketed her hyphen of a mouth.
The south of England is a land that reluctantly lets her deserters
go. For full twelve hours she stands on tiptoe on the sea-line,
beckoning their return.
The gardener watched the land and felt the sea for long hours. He
felt no regret at having forsaken one for the other. For the moment
he prided himself on heartlessness, or rather on intactness of heart,
for he had left none of it behind. He was proud of the fact that he
loved no one in the world. He prided himself on his vices more than
on his virtues. There seems something more unique in vice than in
virtue.
 The gardener had the convenient sort of memory that is fitted with
water-tight doors. His mind conducted a process by which the past
was not kept fresh and green, nor altogether left behind, but
crystallised and packed away on shelves in a businesslike manner.
He could label it and shut it away without emotion. He shut away
England now, and rejoiced to do so. Poor grey silly England that I am
so glad to leave and so glad to see again....
The gardener turned presently to look for his garden, and found—
the girl Courtesy.
Her brilliant and magnetic hair.
Her broad face with the abrupt flush on the cheeks, that was an
inartistic accompaniment to the red of her hair, and looked as if
Nature had become colourblind at the moment of giving Courtesy
her complexion.
She herself looked herself—simple yet sophisticated.
“To think of seeing you here,” she said. “Who would have thought
it.”
The gardener was one of those who are never surprised without
being thunderstruck. He was very thorough in habit, and drank every
emotion to its dregs.
His manners fell in ruins about him. His hat remained upon his
head. His words remained somewhere beneath his tongue.
“I got a sudden invitation from a cousin in Trinity Island,”
explained Courtesy. “And Dad gave me my passage out as a birthday
present. I gave the threepenny bit to a porter, so I hope you don’t
want it back. Have you kept a halo for me in this Paradise?”
“There is the glassy sea,” replied the gardener, recovering. “And
the halo is just flowering. It is exactly the colour of your hair.”
“I hope the sea will be as you say,” said Courtesy, “for I’m a
shockin’ bad sailor.”
And at that moment the sea ceased to be totally glassy. You could
suddenly feel the slow passionate heart of the sea beating.
Courtesy did not look at the change in this poetic light at all. She
hurried along the deck and disappeared.
Even if you are a good sailor there is, apart from a natural pride in
your sailorship, little joy about a first day on board. The climate of
the English seas is not adapted to ocean travel. If I could steam
straight out of Southampton Harbour into the strong yet restrained
heat that I love, if I could glide from the wharf—mottled with regrets
—straight to the silver and emerald coasts of a certain land I know,
where the cocoanut palms lean out over the strip of immaculate
sand, to see their reflections in the opal mirror of the sea, I think I
should love the first day as much as I love its successors. And yet I
would not have the voyage shortened by a minute.
I wonder why nobody has ever brought forward as a conclusive
Anti-suffrage argument the fact that more women are sea-sick than
men on the first day of a sea-voyage. I can so well imagine the superb
line the logic of such a contention would take. If the basis of life is
physical ability, and if physical ability depends upon the digestion,
then must the strong digestion only constitute a right to citizenship.
To the wall with the weak digestion.
Mrs. Paul Rust and the suffragette were the only women who
scaled the heights of the dining saloon for that evening’s meal. Mrs.
Rust looked supremely proud of her immunity from sea-sickness; all
the men looked laboriously unaware that such a thing as sea-sickness
existed; the suffragette looked frankly miserable. The gardener was
obliged to remind himself casually from time to time that there was
no pose that included sea-sickness.
But any disastrous tendency he might have had to give too much
thought to his inner man was checked by the appearance of Mrs.
Paul Rust, the fortress he was there to besiege. She was a truly
remarkable woman to look at. The absence of her hat revealed a
surprise. Her hair was dyed a forcible crimson. And it might have
been mud-coloured like mine for all the self-consciousness she
showed. It was so profoundly remarkable that for a time one’s
attention was chained to the hair, and one forgot to study the
impressive general effect, of which the hair was only the culminating
point. Mrs. Rust’s only real feature was her chin, but no one ever
realised this. Her eyes and nose were too small for her face, and
seemed to fit loosely into that great oval; her mouth was only
redeemed by the chin that shot from beneath it. Altogether she
would have been sufficiently insignificant-looking had it not been for
her hair. She proved the truism that the world takes people at their
own valuation.
 It is always a surprise to me when a truism is proved true. I have
come across the rock embedded in these truisms several times lately
to my cost. And each time it bruises my knuckles and shocks me. It
almost makes one wonder whether, after all, the ancients
occasionally had their flashes of enlightenment.
The world thought of Mrs. Paul Rust what she thought of herself.
It is so often too busy to work out its own conclusions.
Of a modest woman with a heavy jaw, the world would have said,
“A dear good creature, but dreadfully underhung.” Of a well-chinned
woman with dyed hair, it said, “There goes a strong character.” The
hair did it, and the hair was dyed by human agency. Providence had
no hand in the making of Mrs. Rust’s forcible reputation. Nowadays
we leave it to our dressmaker, and our manicurist, and our milliner,
and our doctor, and our vicar, to make us what we are. This is an age
of luxury, and it is so fatiguing to assert a home-made personality.
Shall I go to my hairdresser and say, “Here, take me, dye me
heliotrope. Make an influential woman of me”?
The gardener did not quail before the terrifying outer wall of Mrs.
Rust’s fortress. Believing as he did that man makes himself, and that
the pose of victor is as easy to assume as any other, he was unaware
of the reality of the word ‘defeat.’ Whether woman also makes
herself, I never fully understood from the gardener at this stage. But
I gathered that woman takes the rôles that man rejects.
The gardener, as a protégé of Mr. Abel, who, on the Caribbeania,
was respected because he was not personally known, found himself
treated à la junior officer, streaked with a certain flavour of second-
class passenger, but distinctly suggesting ship’s orchestra. He was
allowed to have his meals in the first-class saloon, he was
occasionally asked about the weather by lady passengers, and the
captain and officers looked upon him good-naturedly, as a sort of
example of poetic licence.
It seemed a good thing when dinner was over. One had proved
one’s courage, and the strain was past. The suffragette, who had
given a proof rather of obstinacy than of courage, retired weakly to
her cabin. And the gardener stood on deck and looked at the sea,
while the moon followed the ship’s course with her eyes. A table
companion, an Anglican priest, with a weak chin and piercing eyes,
came and leaned upon the rail at the gardener’s side.
 “You smoke?” he asked, and you could hear that he was very
conventional, and that he believed that he was not.
A man-to-man sort of man.
“No,” said the gardener, and added, “I have no vices.”
He said this sort of thing simply to exasperate. The pose of
indifference to the world’s opinion is apt, sooner or later, to lead to
the pose of wilful pricking of the world’s good taste. The gardener
had a morbid craving for unpopularity; it was part of the unique
pose. Unpopularity is an excellent salve to the conscience; it is
delicious to be misunderstood.
The priest did not appear exasperated. He was tolerant. The man
who aims at unlimited tolerance, as a rule, only achieves the
absorbent and rather undecided status of spiritual blotting-paper.
But he is a dreadfully difficult man to anger.
I hate talking to people who are occupied in reminding their
conscience: “After all this is my sister, albeit, a poor relation. I must
be tolerant.” Then they pray for strength, and turn to me, spiritually
renewed, with a brave patient smile.
This was the priest’s pose.
“You have no vices?” he said, in a slow earnest voice. “How I envy
you!”
The gardener was more concerned with the varied conversation of
the sea. Each wave of it flung back some magic unspeakable word
over its shoulder as it ran by. But he answered the priest:
“You don’t really envy me, you would rather be yourself with
virtues than me without vices.”
The priest smiled the inscrutable smile of the vague-minded. “You
have a very original way of talking. You interest me. Yerce, yerce. Tell
me what you were thinking about when I came up.”
The gardener did so at once. Sometimes his imagination weighed
heavily upon his mind, and he expanded, regardless of his listeners.
“I was thinking about the things I saw,” he said. “Things that I
often see before I have time to think. Snapshots of things that even I
have never actually imagined. Do you know, wonders crash across
my eyes like a blow, when I am thinking of something else. Ghosts
out of my enormous past, I suppose. There was a very white beach
that I saw just now, with opal-coloured waves running along it, and a
mist whitening the sky. There were very broad red men in grey wolf-
skins, standing in the water, dragging dead bodies from the sea.
There were little children, blue and thin, lying dead upon the beach. I
know the way children’s ribs stand out when they are dead. I have
never seen a dead child, except those....”
“You ought to write fiction, yerce, yerce,” said the priest. “You have
a very strong imagination.”
“I have,” admitted the gardener. “But not strong enough to control
these visions that besiege me.”
The priest, who had preached more and known less about visions
than any one else I can think of, was constrained to silence.
Next morning the gardener found his garden. He saw it under
varied aspects and at varied angles, for a gold and silver alternation
of sun and shower chequered the Atlantic, and inspired the
Caribbeania to a slow but undignified dance, like the activities of a
merry cow. The high waves came laughing down from the high
horizon, and curtseyed mockingly at her feet.
There was a bay tree in a tub on either side of the entrance to the
garden, and the gardener, as he stood between them, surveying his
territory, slid involuntarily from one to the other and back again, as
the world wallowed. The garden was conventionally conceived, by a
carpenter rather than a gardener. Grass-green trellis-work, which
should belong essentially to the background, here usurped undue
prominence. Arches in the trellis-work, looking to the sea, gave
bizarre views, now of the heavy hurried sky, now of the panting sea.
Hanging drunkenly from the apex of each arch was a chained wicker
basket, from which sea-sick canariensis waved weak protesting
hands. A few creepers, lacking sufficient initiative for the task set
before them, clawed incompetently at the lowest rungs of the trellis.
A row of geraniums in pots shouted in loud brick-red at the farther
and more sheltered end of the garden. It was impossible to tolerate
the thought of Hilda associating with those geraniums. She was a
very vulnerable and emotional soul, was Hilda. Deep orange is a
colour beyond the comprehension of the vermilion and vulgar. A few
sodden-looking deck-chairs occupied the gardener’s territory, and
repelled advances. But on the farthest sat the suffragette. She was
crying.
 If you have ever crossed the Bay of Biscay while weakened by
emotion, you will not ask why she was crying.
The gardener dropped his pose between the bay trees, and did
something extraordinarily pretty, considering the man he was. He sat
on the next deck-chair to hers, and patted her knee.
“My fault ...” he said. “My fault....”
Of course he did not really believe that it was his fault, but it was
unusually gracious of him to tell the lie.
The suffragette turned her face from him. She had cried away all
her vanity. Her hair was lamentable, her small plain eyes were
smaller than ever, and her nose was the only pink thing in her face.
“I’m very morbid,” she said. “And that at any rate is not your
fault.”
“Don’t let’s think either about you or me,” said the gardener, and it
would have been wise had he meant it. “We have all our lives to do
that in, and it is a pity to do it in the Bay. When one’s feeling weak,
it’s easier to fight the world than to fight oneself.”
The suffragette was a grey thing, a snake-soul. To the eye of a grey
soul there is something forbidding about the many colours of the
universe, and you will always know snake-people by their defensive
attitude. It is an immensely lonely thing to be a snake, to have that
tortuous spirit, with no limbs for contact with the earth. And yet the
compensation is most generous, for there are few joys like the joy of
knowing yourself alone.
In cubes of blue, in curves of mauve,
They spotted up my firmament;
And with my sharp grey heart I strove
To stab the colours as they went.
“Lou-la ...” they said—“Lou-la, a thing
At war without a following.”
“Lou-la ...” they cried—and now cry I—
“At war without an enemy....”

“I can’t think how you dare to speak out your imagination,” said
the suffragette. “Most people hide it like a sin.”
He was always willing to be the text of his own oratory.
 “Imagination is my Genesis, and my Book of Revelations,” he
answered. “There is nothing with more power. It is stronger than
faith, for it can really move mountains. It has moved mountains, it
has moved England from my path and left me this clear sea.”
The suffragette walled herself more securely in. “I have no
imagination at all,” she lied, and then she added some truth: “I am
very unhappy and lonely.”
“The other day ...” said the gardener, “you were happy to be
independent and alone.”
“That’s why I’m now unhappy to be independent and alone. You
can’t discover the heaven in a thing without also tripping over the
hell. I like a black and white life.”
“Don’t think,” said the gardener suddenly, and almost turned the
patting of her knee into a slap. “It’s a thing that should only be done
in moderation. Some day you won’t be able to control your craving
for thought, and then you’ll die of Delirium Tremens.”
“It’s not such a dangerous drug as some,” smiled the suffragette.
“I’d rather have that craving than the drink craving, or the society
craving, or the love craving.”
“Better to have nothing you can’t control.”
“You hypocrite! You can’t control your imagination.”
“You’re right,” said the gardener after a pause. He was a curiously
honest opponent in argument. Besides, she had stopped crying, and
there was no special reason for continuing the discussion. Also Mrs.
Paul Rust at that moment appeared between the bay trees.
Mrs. Rust’s hair looked vicious in a garden, beside the geraniums,
which were at least sincere in colour, however blatant.
“Is this private?” she asked. There was something in the shy look
of the garden, and in the reproachful look of the gardener, that made
the question natural.
“No,” said the gardener. “This is the ship’s garden.”
“Good,” said Mrs. Paul Rust.
She always said “good” to everything she had not heard before. To
her the newest was of necessity the best. Originality was her ideal,
and as unattainable as most ideals are. For she was not in the least
original herself. She was doomed for ever to stand outside the door
of her temple. And “good” was her tribute of recognition to those
who had free passes into the temple. It owned that they had shown
her something that she would never have thought of for herself. For
nothing had ever sprung uniquely from her. Even in her son she
could only claim half the copyright.
The suffragette tried to rearrange her looks, which certainly
needed it. There are two sorts of women, the women before whom
you feel you must be tidy and the women before whom such things
don’t matter. Mrs. Rust all her life had belonged to the former, all her
life what charm she had, had lain in the terror she inspired.
For the first time the gardener questioned himself as to his plan of
attack. Hitherto he had pinned his faith to inspiration. He had left
the matter in the hands of his private god, Chance. His methods were
very simple, as well as bizarre. His mind was a tortuous path, but he
followed it straightforwardly, and never looked back. To do him
justice, however, I must say that he searched his repertoire for a
suitable point of conversational contact with Mrs. Rust. Finding
none, he dispensed with that luxury.
“I am the ship’s gardener,” he said, smiling at his intended victim.
Mrs. Rust was broad, and the deck-chair was narrow. It was some
time before a compromise between these two facts could be arrived
at, so the remark came upon her at a moment of some stress.
“Now, then, what was that you were saying?” she asked at last, in
an unpromising voice.
The gardener, who was very literal in very small things, repeated
his information, word for word, and inflection for inflection. “I am
the ship’s gardener.”
Mrs. Rust grunted. She showed no tolerance for the thing that was
not sensational. Nor had she any discrimination in her search for the
novelty. Still, energy is something.
“But I am only ship’s gardener in theory,” persisted the gardener.
“In practice I don’t even know where the watering-can is kept.”
“Then you are here under false pretences,” retorted Mrs. Rust a
little more genially, for his last remark was not everybody’s remark.
“I am,” said the gardener, suddenly catching a fleeting perspective
of the path to her good graces.
 “Good,” said Mrs. Rust, and turned her little bright eyes upon him.
When she opened her eyes very wide, it meant that she was on the
track of what she sought. When she shut them, as she often did, it
meant that she did not understand what was said. But it gave the
fortunate impression that she understood only too well. She was
instinctively ingenious at hiding her own limitations.
It was the end of that interview, but a good beginning to the
campaign.
The sea to some extent recovered its temper within that day.
Towards the evening, when slate and silver clouds, with their backs
to the Caribbeania, were racing to be the first over the horizon, the
garden was invaded by passengers, racing to be the first over the
boundary of sea-sickness. The silence of the unintroduced at first lay,
like a pall, along the deck-chairs, but a mutual friend was quickly
found in Mothersill, whose excellent invention was represented in
every work-bag. The bright noise of women discussing suffering
rippled along the garden. Abuse of the Caribbeania’s stewardesses
sprang from lip to lip. It was a pretty scene, and the gardener turned
his back on it, and went below to water Hilda.
The gardener’s cabin, which was impertinently shared by a couple
of inferior souls, was as square as a box, and furnished with nautical
economy. The outlook from its porthole was as varied in character as
it was limited in size. At one moment one felt oneself the drunken
brain behind the round eye of a giant, staring into green and white
obscurity; at another one blinked, as a mist of spray like shivered
opal spun up over one’s universe; again one enjoyed an
instantaneous glimpse of the flat chequered floor of the Atlantic; and
at rare intervals the curtain of the sky slid over the porthole, and the
setting sun dropped across the eye like a rocket.
Hilda sat wistfully on the recess of the porthole, leaning her
forehead against the glass. She had a bud, chosen to match
Courtesy’s hair. Just as Hilda’s stalk was necessary to hold her bud
upright, so Courtesy herself was necessary to support the
conflagration of her hair on the level of the onlooker’s eye. Both were
necessities, and both were artistically negligible.
The gardener looked around the cabin. There is something
depressing about other people’s clothes. There is something
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