CAREER: Exploring Authentic Inquiry: Factors that Influence Students

职业：探索真实探究：影响学生的因素

• 批准号: 9984612
• 负责人: Brian White
• 金额: $ 49.77万
• 依托单位: University of Massachusetts Boston
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2000
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2000-03-15 至 2005-02-28
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9984612&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: CAREER; Exploring; Authentic; Inquiry; Factors

This proposal is a five-year plan of research and instructional development investigating undergraduate biology students' learning of the process of science through an inquiry-based lab exercise. Understanding the process by which scientific knowledge is generated is an essential part of many science curriculum standards and frameworks. Most standards and frameworks for science education emphasize that students need to engage in scientific inquiry themselves in order to understand the process of science. In order to apply these standards in the classroom, it is necessary to have answers to the following questions:1) Process: Can undergraduate students perform scientific inquiry in a teaching laboratory?2) Outcome: To what extent does perfroming a scientific inquiry exercise help students to understand the process of science?3) Important Features: How do variations in the activity affect the students's learning of the process science?This project will build on previous work to explore answers to these questions in the context of a technically simple but educationally rich lab exercise, the Red and White Yeast Lab. The Red and White Lab is based on an engineered strain of baker's yeast. When this strain is spread on a petri plate, it produces a patch with a red center and a white edge. Students are given fresh plates and sterile toothpicks; their assisgnment is to use these tools to account for why the center is red and the edge white. During this lab, the students make their own hypotheses and models, design their own experiements based on variables that they define, and interpret their own date. They argue about date and the interpretation of data and use these arguments to refine their experiments. In this experimental environment, the students are be free to contruct knowledge in a manner that shares many epistemological features with authentic scientific investigation. The PI has used and developed this lab for the past 5 years with introductory-level biology students. A description of this lab will be published this fall and this lab will be disseminated as part of the NSF-Funded ResearchLink 2000 project. The PI's teaching responsibilities in the Biology department include teaching the two semester General Biology series, TA training, and acting as an education resource in the Biology department. The Red and White Yeast Lab is the first lab in the first semester course in this series. The findings of this study will inform the development of the lecture, lab, and TA training as taught by the PI and will be distributed internationally. The project will analyze classroom videotape and interviews to analyze the process and outcome of the lab in terms of these four issues:(a) What is the nature of scientific 'proof'?(b) How do hypotheses and experimental data interact?(c) How do scientists respond to anomalous data?(d) How are conflicts of ideas resolved in the scientific community? The five studies that compose this project are based on the three above; all three questions will be addressed in different contexts in each of the five studies. The studies will begin by developing measures of process and outcome. They will also examine the coupling between process (what the students do) and outcome (what they learn from what they did). The remaining studies will focus on the effects of manipulations of the lab exercise on students' process and outcome. These manipulations will involve key features of authentic experimentation: choosing experiemental questions and variables; designing experiments;revising techniques; and using multiple experiemtal methods. The findings of the studies presented in this proposal will contribute to the understanding of scientific reasoning in undergraduate students as well as and to an understanding of the design and evaluation of inquiry-based laboratory exercises. As an exemplar of these principles and practices, this project will produce a throughly-tested laboratory exercise and accompanying teacher training materials designed to communicate an understanding of the process of science.

本提案是一项研究和教学发展的五年计划，旨在通过基于探究的实验室练习，调查本科生物学学生对科学过程的学习。 理解科学知识产生的过程是许多科学课程标准和框架的重要组成部分。 大多数科学教育标准和框架强调，学生需要自己参与科学探究，以了解科学的过程。 为了在课堂上应用这些标准，有必要回答以下问题：1）过程：本科生可以在教学实验室进行科学探究吗？2)结果：进行科学探究练习在多大程度上有助于学生理解科学的过程？3)重要特征：活动中的变化如何影响学生对过程科学的学习？这个项目将建立在以前的工作，探索这些问题的答案在技术上简单，但教育丰富的实验室练习，红色和白色酵母实验室的背景下。 红色和白色实验室是基于面包酵母的工程菌株。 当该菌株在培养皿上扩散时，它产生具有红色中心和白色边缘的斑块。 学生们拿到了新的盘子和消毒过的牙签，他们的任务是用这些工具来解释为什么中心是红色的，边缘是白色的。 在这个实验中，学生们提出自己的假设和模型，根据他们定义的变量设计自己的实验，并解释自己的数据。 他们争论数据和数据的解释，并利用这些论点来完善他们的实验。 在这个实验环境中，学生可以自由地构建知识的方式，与真实的科学调查共享许多认识论特征。 PI在过去的5年里一直在使用和开发这个实验室，为入门级生物学学生提供服务。 该实验室的描述将于今年秋天发布，并且该实验室将作为NSF资助的ResearchLink 2000项目的一部分进行传播。 PI在生物系的教学职责包括教授两个学期的普通生物学系列，TA培训，并担任生物系的教育资源。 红色和白色酵母实验是本系列第一学期课程的第一个实验。 本研究的结果将为PI教授的讲座、实验室和助教培训的发展提供信息，并将在国际上分发。 该项目将分析课堂录像带和访谈，以分析这四个问题方面的过程和实验室的结果：（一）什么是科学的“证据”的性质？(b)假设和实验数据如何相互作用？(c)科学家如何应对异常数据？(d)在科学界如何解决思想冲突？ 组成本项目的五项研究是基于上述三项研究;所有三个问题将在五项研究中的每一项研究的不同背景下得到解决。 研究开始时将制定过程和结果的衡量标准。 他们还将研究过程（学生做什么）和结果（他们从他们所做的中学到什么）之间的耦合。 其余的研究将集中在实验练习的操作对学生的过程和结果的影响。 这些操作将涉及真实实验的关键特征：选择实验问题和变量;设计实验;修改技术;以及使用多种实验方法。 本提案中提出的研究结果将有助于理解本科生的科学推理以及对基于探究的实验室练习的设计和评估的理解。 作为这些原则和实践的典范，该项目将产生一个经过全面测试的实验室练习和配套的教师培训材料，旨在传达对科学过程的理解。