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Carl Wieman, Why Not Try a Scientific Approach to Science Education 117As with all good educational technology, the effectiveness of goodsimulations comes from the fact that their design is governed by researchon how people learn, and the simulations are carefully tested to ensure theyachieve the desired learning. They can enhance the ability of a good instructorto portray how experts think when they see a real-life situation and providean environment in which a student can learn by observing and exploring. Thepower of a simulation is that these explorations can be carefully constrained,and what the student sees can be suitably enhanced to facilitate the desiredlearning. Using these various effective pedagogical strategies, my group andmany others have seen dramatic improvements in learning.Table 1 Comparison of Learning Results from Traditionally Taught Coursesand Courses Using Research-Based PedagogyTraditional InstructionRetention of information fromlecture:10% after 15 minutesGain in conceptual understanding:25%Beliefs about physicsand problem-solving:signifi cant dropResearch-Based InstructionRetention of information fromlecture:more than 90% after 2 daysGain in conceptual understanding:50-70%A small improvementInstitutional ChangeWe now have good data showing that traditional approaches to teachingscience are not successful for a large proportion of our students, and we havea few research-based approaches that achieve much better learning. The