CAREER: Teacher Knowledge, Beliefs, & Technology: Constructing Models of Change in Systemic Reform

本提案描述了一项研究计划，旨在探索中学科学教师对基于探究的科学与嵌入式学习技术及其课堂实践之间的知识，信念和态度之间的关系。从本质上讲，这项研究是关于教师变化的研究。参与这项工作的教师是底特律公立学校大规模系统性变革计划的一部分，该计划由美国联邦政府资助的底特律城市系统性计划（DUSI）和城市学校学习技术中心（LeTUS）联合实施。在这种情况下，教师们都在学习如何使用新的课程材料和技术进行教学，他们接受了广泛的专业发展来支持他们的学习。要在探究性和技术强化课程中取得成功，教师需要学习新的科学内容（内容知识）；他们需要学习组织课堂的新方法（教学知识）；他们还需要学习教授特定内容的新技术，例如使用建模工具来帮助学生理解工厂燃烧的煤如何与空气结合产生影响环境的酸雨（教学内容知识）。教师对技术的态度需要改变，他们对自己对技术和新科学材料的自我效能感的信念需要提高。DUSI和letus试图通过活动帮助教师沿着这些维度进行改变，这些活动包括认知机制（为使用新方法的可行性和益处提供证据）、社会机制（学习和与同事分享）和情境机制（为支持系统提供证据）。目前，对于这些变化是如何单独或共同促进科学教学中技术的使用，人们知之甚少。本研究提出的主要问题是：1)教师在科技教学方面的知识、信念和态度是什么，它们是如何随着时间的推移而变化的？2)教师的课堂实践与技术有关，它们如何随时间变化？3)教师的知识、信念和态度与他们使用技术的课堂教学实践之间的关系是什么？这种关系如何随着时间的推移而变化？4)随着时间的推移，专业发展活动如何影响教师的知识、信念、态度和实践的变化，如何重新设计这些活动以促进期望的变化？这项研究旨在补充密歇根大学教育技术项目的教学项目。本课程的学生将从教师对技术的使用和认知的角度来研究K-12环境中的技术。这项研究也为研究生进行自己的调查提供了一个环境。这项工作对底特律的教师有直接的实际好处，研究结果将用于重新塑造专业发展活动，以更直接地满足他们在改革中的需求。

This proposal describes a program of research to explore the relationshipbetween the knowledge, beliefs, and attitudes held by middle school scienceteachers with respect to inquiry-based science with embedded learningtechnologies and their classroom practices with those technologies. At itsheart, this research is about the study of teacher change. The teacherswho will participate in this work are part of a large-scale systemic changeinitiative in the Detroit Public Schools, conducted jointly by theNSF-sponsored Detroit Urban Systemic Initiative (DUSI) and the Center forLearning Technologies in Urban Schools (LeTUS). In that context, theteachers are all learning how to teach with new curriculum materials andtechnology, and they receive a broad range of professional development tosupport them in this learning.To become successful with inquiry-based and technology-enhanced curricula,teachers will need to learn new science content (content knowledge); theywill need to learn new methods for organizing their classroom (pedagogicalknowledge); and they will need to learn new techniques for teachingparticular kinds of content, such as the use of modeling tools to helpstudents construct an understanding of how burning coal from factoriescombines with air to create acid rain that impacts the environment(pedagogical content knowledge). Teachers' attitudes toward technologyneed to change, and their beliefs in their own self-efficacy withtechnology and new science material needs to improve. DUSI and LeTUSattempt to help teachers change along these dimensions through activitiesthat include cognitive (providing evidence for the feasibility and benefitsof using new approaches), social (learning and sharing with colleagues),and contextual (providing evidence for the support of the system)mechanisms for change. There is little understanding at the present timeas to how these aspects of change work either separately or together tofoster the use of technology in science teaching.The main questions that this research asks are:1) What are teachers' knowledge, beliefs, and attitudes with respect toteaching science with technology, and how do they change over time?2) What are teachers' classroom practices with respect to technology, andhow do they change over time?3) What is the relationship between teachers' knowledge, beliefs, andattitudes and their classroom teaching practices with technology, and howdoes this change over time?4) How do professional development activities influence changes inteachers' knowledge, beliefs, attitudes, and practice over time, and howmight those activities be re-designed to foster desired changes?This research is designed to complement a program of instruction in theEducational Technology program at the University of Michigan. Students inthis program will approach the study of technology in K-12 settings fromthe perspective of teachers' technology use and cognition. The researchalso serves and as a setting for graduate students to conduct their owninvestigations.There are immediate practical benefits of this work for teachers inDetroit, where the results of the research will be used to re-shapeprofessional development activities to more directly address their needs inreform.