Science in Education Program
Lesley/TERC Partnership

Try Science and the Science in Education Program was developed in collaboration with TERC, a leading educational research and development center located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. TERC has a strong, 35 year commitment to improving the teaching and learning of science and mathematics in schools and a strong commitment to using technology to support inquiry based learning.

Lesley's partnership with TERC began with a vision to develop a fully online master's degree program that would to help teachers bring inquiry-based science and a robust understanding of core science concepts to their students. Our goal is that teachers experience science from fresh and innovative perspectives. Lesley and TERC share a common mission, in that we imagine a future in which learners from diverse communities engage in creative, rigorous, and reflective inquiry as an integral part of their lives. The program is fully accredited and aligned with national science standards.

TERC led a two year research study entitled "A Comparative Study of On-Line and Face-to-Face Learning of Try Science," which was funded by the National Science Foundation. Professor Wynne Harlen was the lead researcher in this initiative to learn about the nature of inquiry-based learning in the online environment. Other members of the research team included Katherine Paget and Craig Altobello.

Available online is a copy of the Executive Summary, as well as the Full Research Report.

The Science in Education M. Ed. program was created in collaboration with TERC, an educational research and development organization in Cambridge, MA, with funding from the U.S. Department of Education, The Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education, FIPSE, and the National Science Foundation, NSF.