Hee-Sun Lee
Ph.D. Specialty Area: Science Education
What was your M.A. and/or Ph.D. specialty at Michigan?
MS ('95) in Physics from the University of Michigan
MA ('99) in Science Education from the University of Michigan
PhD ('03) in Science Education from the University of Michigan
What is your present position?
Assistant Professor in Math, Science, Technology, and Engineering Program, Department of Education, Tufts University
What is the title of your dissertation? Please provide a 2 -3 line overview of it. Also, please attach your abstract, if possible.
Title: Scaffolding elementary students’ authentic inquiry through a written science curriculum
Committee: Nancy B. Songer (Chair), Joseph Krajcik, Elizabeth A. Davis, & Philip Myers (Zoology)
Summary: This study addresses how to design and implement content-specific scaffolds in written curriculum materials to support upper elementary school students' strong methods of inquiry. This study compared different roles of faded and consistent content-specific scaffolds in supporting the development of scientific explanations for fifth and sixth grade students with diverse learning abilities. Results indicate that scaffolds do not reveal instructional benefits naturally to learners. Untimely fading of scaffolds negatively impacts students with the middle explanation ability while consistent support benefits students with all explanation abilities.
What did you learn in the program? Why was the program of value to you?
I tremendously benefited from the outstanding academic program in science education at Michigan. As School of Education features a great array of faculty expertise, I was able to acquire a spectrum of research skills from ethnographic interviews, large scale multi-variate analyses, to item response modeling techniques. Most exciting was learning about how to design and conduct research that matters in the real classroom. Despite initial difficulties I encountered including language and cultural differences, faculty and students at Michigan were really patient and helpful for me to make a successful transition from a clueless international student to a fully functional academic professional at a respected university in the US. I am very grateful to have Prof. Nancy Songer as an academic adviser who believed in me from the first day we met and continued to encourage and support my development as a researcher. I learned to respect myself while respecting others and collaborate with others while competing with them. I am no more afraid of anything.
Prior to coming to the SOE what did you do?
I taught science in Seong-San Middle School in Seoul, Korea, for two years. I started my graduate school as a phd student in Physics Department at Michigan. After my Masters' degree in physics, I switched to a science education program in School of Education.
