Improving the Impact and Relevance of Introductory Science Courses: as a Learning Partner.

许多研究证据表明，学生对科学不再抱有幻想，是因为他们的科学课过分强调现象的微观模型和正式的分析方法，也未能将日常和科学推理结合起来。该项目将开发和评估一种新的科学教学方法，这种方法既严谨又务实，有用，对学生有吸引力。着力完善科学导论课程，吸引和留住学生，满足社会需要和工作需要。具体来说，我们将为科学课程确定既严格又有用的目标，制定既教育学生又告知教师的评估，调查教师、学生和计算机之间高效有效的课堂合作关系，并进行参与和坚持科学的纵向案例研究，这既是互动的，也是回顾性的。我们将以最近的教与学研究为基础，寻求为科学教育改革提供一个新的、更充实的研究基础。我们将以小组为单位对学生进行深入研究，以完善我们提出的解决方案。然后，我们将在由项目团队成员教授的中学课堂上测试这些解决方案。最后，我们将对从八年级到高中的学生进行纵向研究，以确定我们的方法和相关干预措施对坚持和参与科学课程和职业的影响。通过比较那些倾向于不参加选修科学课程的学生和那些渴望成为科学家的学生的信念和决定，我们将能够提供比其他调查更丰富的关于坚持和参与的理解。

Much research evidence suggests that students become disenchanted with science because their science classes overemphasize microscopic models of phenomena and formal methods of analysis and also fail to integrate everyday and scientific reasoning. This project will develop and evaluate a new approach to science teaching and learning that is rigorous as well as pragmatic, useful, and engaging for students. We will focus on improving introductory science courses so that they attract and retain students and meet the needs of society and the demands of the workplace. Specifically, we will identify goals for science courses that are both rigorous and useful, develop assessments that both educate students and inform teachers, investigate classroom partnerships between teachers, students, and computers that are both efficient and effective, and conduct longitudinal case studies of participation and persistence in science that are both interactive and retrospective. Building on our recent research on teaching and learning, we will seek to provide a new, more substantial research base for science education reform. We will refine our proposed solutions by conducting in-depth studies of students in small groups. We will then test these solutions in middle school classes taught by a project team member. Finally, we will study students longitudinally from the eighth grade through high school to determine the effect of our approach and related interventions on persistence and participation in science courses and careers. By comparing the beliefs and decisions of students who tend not to participate in elective science courses to those of students who aspire to be scientists, we will be able to provide a much richer understanding of persistence and participation than has been provided by other investigations.