The Need for Discipline-Based Education Research in Archaeology

Summary

Over the last several decades, STEM scholars have recognized the importance of developing and integrating discipline-based education research (DBER). As outlined by the National Research Council of the National Academies, the goals of DBER are to 1) understand how students learn discipline concepts, practices, and ways of thinking; 2) understand how students develop expertise; 3) identify and measure learning objectives and forms of instruction that advance students towards those objectives; 4) contribute knowledge that can transform instruction; and 5) identify approaches to make education broad and inclusive. Physicists, chemists, engineers, biologists, astronomers, and geoscientists have been among the first to adopt DBER, mostly at the undergraduate education level. Given research that demonstrates the effectiveness of instructional strategies derived from DBER, both at P-12 and undergraduate teaching, I call for archaeologists to adapt DBER, while developing infrastructure that supports and advances avenues of DBER and instructional implementation. Further, I argue that adopting DBER will be vital to sustain our field given current threats and actualized funding cuts.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 18757