EDUCATION CAN BE A RESEARCH SUBJECT TOO, THROUGH SCIENTIFIC TEACHING.

In the last few decades, many important discoveries have been made in the field of education research. Few have been more influential than Dr. Donald Bligh’s discovery that lectures are an inefficient method for student retention of new information. In the years following Dr. Bligh’s discovery, science education in the US has witnessed a significant change in focus away from lecture-styled approaches that emphasize memorization towards interactive approaches focusing more on the training of skill competence. A range of research has employed the principles of scientific teaching with great success to investigate a wide array of different learning methods, resulting in the development of powerful education platforms such as active learning and authentic research experiences (AREs). This article reviews some of the education literature behind scientific teaching, active learning, and AREs, ending with a short commentary about the immense potential for the application of these systems in higher education in the Middle East, both as a process of improving educational outcome as well as enhancing the efficacy of pedagogy as a research subject.

Keywords:

scientific teaching, active learning, STEM education, authentic research experiences education research,

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