WWW and Internet Dissemination of Biology and Computer Labs for Prospective Elementary Teachers and of a Biology Test for Conceptual Understanding

这个项目的目标是：1)传播为未来的小学教师开发的生物课。每节课包括一项动手实验室活动、一项以计算机为基础的知识构建活动和一份教师指南；2)开发和传播一项生物学概念理解的多项选择测试，这将有助于评估未来小学教师、其他非科学专业学生和生物专业学生的学习情况，以衡量一门课程内的进展情况和课程之间的比较；以及3)开发、完善和测试几门新的生物课程，旨在通过课堂上的人口研究为小学教师提供有关进化论的教学工具。生物课被组织成三本实验手册：分子生物学；组织生物学；以及3)种群生物学。每个生物实验室都配有由SemNet软件支持的“知识建构练习”。这些练习提供了以积极的、工作的心理模型的形式组织知识的指导方针，并包括个人工作和协作工作的混合。实验室将以印刷和电子两种形式提供。潜在用户包括未来小学教师的本科生教师、本科教育专业的本科生、职前和实习教师，以及其他感兴趣的人。该项目将开发一种两级多项选择测试，以衡量对生物学的概念理解。每个问题的第一部分将评估学生对生物现象的知识，例如预测胡萝卜被放入饱和盐水中的结果的能力。问题的第二部分要求学生解释S做出预测时的推理。这项测试将使用通常提供实验室练习的简要描述和结果(包括图形表示)的项目来开发，并作为k名学生的口译。最初获得的开放式回答将被转换为多项选择题，其中分心项代表常见的误解。

The goals of this project are to: 1) Disseminate biology lessons that have been developed for prospective elementary school teachers. Each of the lessons includes a hands-on laboratory activity, a computer- based knowledge construction activity, and a Teachers Guide; 2) Develop and disseminate a multiple choice test for conceptual understanding of biology that will be useful for assessing learning among prospective elementary school teachers, other non-science majors, and biology majors so as to measure progress within a course and comparisons among courses; and 3) Develop, refine and test several new biology lessons designed to provide tools to elementary school teachers for teaching about evolution through in-class studies of population. The biology lessons are organized into three laboratory manuals: Molecular Biology; Organismal Biology; and 3) Population Biology. Each biology laboratory is accompanied by "knowledge construction exercises" supported by the SemNet software. These exercises provide guidelines for organizing knowledge in the form of active, working mental models and include a mix of individual and collaborative work. Laboratories will be made available in both printed and electronic form. Potential users include undergraduate instructors of prospective elementary teachers, undergraduate education majors, pre-service and practicing teachers, and other interested persons. The project will develop a two-tiered, multiple-choice test to measure conceptual understanding of biology. The first part of each question will assess student knowledge about a biological phenomenon such as ability to predict the outcome when a carrot is placed in saturated salt water. The second part of the question asks the student to explain the reasoning s/he used to make that prediction. The test will be developed using items that typically provide a brief description of a laboratory exercise with results (including graphic representation), and that as k students for interpretation. Open-ended responses obtained initially will be converted to multiple choice items in which distracters represent common misconceptions.