NSDL Future Directions

A Community Pauses to Consider…

Kaye Howe     Director, NSDL Resource Center

What experience and wisdom does the NSDL community bring to the innovative work of STEM education?  What are the means by which that wisdom and experience is put in the direct service of STEM education?

At the end of a decade rich in the development of the digital universe and its ubiquitous role in every aspect of our lives, it’s incumbent on us to articulate what we have learned and what directions that learning gives us.

The next two years are critical for demonstrating whether and how NSDL should play a continuing role in the quest for educational impact on STEM education. During that time, the Rand Corporation will evaluate the program as a whole. They’ll be carefully evaluating our collections, our metrics, our educational impact, among other areas. Those resonate with the September 2010 PCAST Report to the President—Prepare and Inspire: K-12 Education in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) for America’s Future— and its interest in content, assessment and data driven feedback to users. The Resource Center and Technical Network Services are funded for two more years to do the work of integration and support.  What elements of shared infrastructure and central coordination are essential to sustain or develop beyond 2012 in support of NSDL’s larger mission?

Our communal assessment of NSDL’s future directions is a work in progress.  To multiply our thinking beyond the Pathways and beyond the annual meeting, this group discussion and documentation area has been established.  We have, it seems clear, the means to impact STEM education. Do we have the will? We need a critical mass within NSDL who will say yes to that. Careful thought, on the part of the larger community, will help us know if we have that critical mass.