CAREER: Learning Entropy and Energy Project (LEEP)

由于缺乏足够的语言来谈论变化和变化的方向，科学课程从根本上限制了过度强调静态结构，如分类和记忆事件序列。与这些过于简单、静态的课程相比，学生生活的世界是复杂而动态的。一个根本的脱节之间创建学习者知道他们的世界和目前的静态为基础的科学，他们在学校里教。除了在学校课程和早期大学课程（例如早期非微积分科学）中走向变化链之外，一个完整的基于动力学的课程需要解决我们在周围世界中所经历的直接性。当我们早上起床时，能量总是从我们温暖的脚流向冰冷的地板，而不是相反。热力学第二定律熵定律是唯一能让学习者理解物理过程的直接性的科学定律。用完全基于动态的改革取代基于静态的课程，关键在于能够谈论变化，也在于能够谈论变化的方向。最近与早期引入变化数学相关的教育创新，例如运动检测器和强大模拟软件的使用，正在开始进入重大课程改革。不幸的是，熵相关的基础研究，材料开发，以及旨在促进所有学习者基于动态的理解的课程工作几乎不存在。这项资助旨在解决在追求基于动力学的改革中所缺失的这一关键要素。十多年基于熵的研究和创新使我相信熵的思想可以在科学教育的早期就被纳入到能量动力学的学习中，熵可以以一种跨学科、跨层次的方式教授（从非常小的到非常大的），朝着这个方向前进不仅可以提高学生对熵的理解，而且可以提高所有学生在几乎所有科学学习水平上更好地理解和成功的能力，is significantly显著advanced先进.虽然我打算让这项以熵为中心的工作影响从小学后期到广泛的本科科学课程的科学学习，但我的主要重点将是学生生活中相对于正规科学学习的两个关键时刻：高中早期和大学早期水平的工作。进入这些关头，许多学生“仍然在游戏中”，并有兴趣进一步科学研究。走出这些关口，许多学生决定离开，特别是来自代表性不足群体的学生。在这些级别教授的课程将作为基于熵的学习的有效性的测试平台和研究环境。在学校，我将主要关注国家规定的九年级综合物理和化学课程。在大学阶段，我将专注于一门新开发的本科科学课程，名为熵和能量，我将与一位研究物理学家共同教授，他也是完全重组和快速发展的新二级认证项目UTeach的联合主任。在新的UTeach计划中，像这样的领域课程将在大学层面上建立基于标准的教学模式。与学生学习相关的研究见解，如熵学习，将与我新开发的知识和学习课程相结合，这是所有UTEACH学生的第一个必修课程。通过在学校建立教师工作圈，通过在大学建立一个棕色袋子系列研讨会，通过研究报告和出版物，并通过开发学习熵和能量（LEEP）网站，这个项目旨在支持一个更大的对话，与学习的有效性和意义有关，并将熵作为走向动态的重要组成部分-为所有学生提供基础课程。

Absent an adequate language to talk about change and the direction of change, sciencecurricula are fundamentally constrained to over-emphasize static constructs liketaxonomies and memorized sequences of events. In contrast with these over-simplified,statics-based curricula, the world students live in is complex and dynamic. Afundamental disconnect is created between what learners know of their world and thecurrent statics-based science they are taught in school. In addition to moving toward amath of change strand in school curricula and early university curricula (e.g. early non-calculussciences), a full dynamics-based curriculum needs to address the directed-nesswe experience in the world around us. When we get up in the morning, energy alwaysflows from our warm feet to the cold floor and never the other way around. The secondlaw of thermodynamics the entropy law is the only law of science that allowslearners to understand the directed-ness of physical process. Replacing statics-basedcurricula with a full dynamics-based reform depends vitally on being able to talk aboutchange but also on being able to talk about the direction of change. Recent educationalinnovations related to the early introduction of the math of change e.g. the use ofmotion detectors and powerful simulation software are starting to find their way intosignificant curricular reform. Unfortunately, entropy related fundamental research,materials development, and course-work aimed at advancing the dynamic-basedunderstanding of all learners is all but non-existent. This grant is aimed at addressingthis critical missing element in pursuing dynamics-based reform.Over a decade of entropy-based research and innovation leads me to believe thatentropy ideas can be incorporated into learning about energy dynamics early on inscience education, that entropy can be taught in a way that is cross-disciplinary and cross-level(from the very small to the very large), and that moving in this direction not onlyadvances student understanding of entropy but that the ability of all students to betterunderstand and succeed, at virtually all levels of their science learning, is significantlyadvanced. Although I intend for this entropy-focused work to impact science learningfrom late elementary through the wide range of undergraduate science courses, myprimary focus will be on two critical junctures in students' lives relative to formalscience learning: early high school and early university level work. Coming into thesejunctures many students are "still in the game" and are interested in further sciencestudy. Coming out of these junctures many students decide to leave, especially studentsfrom under-represented groups. Courses taught at these levels will serve both astestbeds for the efficacy of entropy-based learning and as research settings. In schools, Iwill focus primarily on the state-mandated, ninth-grade Integrated Physics and Chemistrycourse. At the university level I will focus on a newly developed undergraduate sciencecourse titled Entropy and Energy that I will co-teach with a research physicist who is alsoCo-Director of the completely restructured and rapidly growing new secondarycertification program called UTeach. Domain courses, such as this, in the new UTeachprogram are to model Standards-based teaching at the university level. Researchinsights related to student learning as such learning with entropy will be integratedwith my newly developed Knowing and Learning course that is the first requirededucation course for all the UTEACH students. Through the establishment of a workcircle of teachers in schools, through the establishment of a brown-bag seminar series atthe university, through research presentations and publications, and through thedevelopment of a Learning Entropy and Energy (LEEP) website, this project is intendedto support a larger conversation related to the efficacy and significance of learning aboutand with entropy as a vital part of moving towards a dynamics-based curriculum for allstudents.