COE Faculty Profile

Dr. James A. Shymansky
E. Desmond Lee Endowed Professor
Division of Teaching and Learning

Email: shymanskyj@umsl.edu
Office: Suite 7 RCEW Bldg.
Phone: 314-516-5046

Dr. James A. Shymansky is the holder of the E. Desmond Lee Family Professor of Science Education II endowed professorship. He received his BS in Education from Bloomsburg State College, his MS in Physics from Indiana State University and his Ph.D. in Science Education from the Florida State University.

Before joining the UM-St. Louis faculty in 1997, he taught for 5 years in elementary, middle and high school in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Indiana and Florida and for 25 years at the University of Iowa.

He is currently directing the "Science Co-op Project," a 5 year project funded by the National Science Foundation to effect systemic changes in 37 rural school districts in Iowa and Missouri. In the project, school districts are serviced in regional cooperatives through which teacher inservice activities focusing on content, pedagogy, inquiry and assessment are organized.

His research has focused on factors influencing student performance in inquiry classrooms and has co-authored a major elementary science series, a multi-state set of science review books, and more than a dozens monographs and book chapters. He has published over 70 articles in refereed journals and delivered more than 150 papers at conferences. One of his co-authored articles, "The effects of new science curricula on student performance," was recently selected by a panel of science education researchers as one of thirteen "most influential articles published in the Journal of Research in Science Teaching's first 40 years."

Dr. Shymansky is past editor of the Journal for Research in Science Teaching, and currently serves as senior editor of the International Journal of Science and Math Education, a new journal published by the National Science Council of Taiwan and Kluwer Publishing of the Neterlands. He also currently serves on advisory boards for the National Geographic Society and Harcourt Educational Measurement Company.

• Instructional Design/Development
• Instructional Practices
• Instructional Technology
• Rural Education
• School/Teacher Effectiveness
• Science Education