CAREER: Representational Tools to Support Understanding of Complex Biological Systems

职业：支持理解复杂生物系统的代表性工具

• 批准号: 0133533
• 负责人: Cindy Hmelo-Silver
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Rutgers University New Brunswick
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2002
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2002-05-01 至 2009-04-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0133533&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: CAREER; Representational; Tools; Support; Understanding

Life science is often about understanding complex systems- from human body systems to ecosystems to evolution. These are hard to understand because it requires understanding how structures relate to functions and what the behaviors of the system are. Some interactions between parts are invisible and have a time sequence that makes them difficult to perceive. Even adults struggle to learn about complex systems. Yet such understanding is often critical to scientific analysis. These difficulties may be aggravated by the static depictions found in typical textbooks that focus on structures without considering the dynamic behaviors and function. One possible approach to teaching about complex systems involves the use of a conceptual representation drawn from Structure-Behavior-Function (SBF) theory but we need to first investigate how people come to understand complex biological systems. Much of life science instruction tends to focus on structural aspects of complex systems. I will use this framework to develop both static (hypermedia) and dynamic approaches (a simulation construction kit, the virtual construction kit - the VCK) to help middle-school students learn an SBF schema, and in particular, support their understanding of system behaviors and functions. This research addresses three main questions: 1) What does it mean to understand a complex system?; 2) How can providing an explicit conceptual representation (i.e., SBF) support learning about complex systems?; and 3) How can dynamic representational tools (i.e., hypermedia and the VCK) support learning about this conceptual representation?The teaching plan has three main components. First, there will be an opportunity for a research mentorship for graduate and undergraduate students as they become involved in research and instructional design. Second, I will contribute to masters and doctoral course development through developing and enhancing existing graduate course offerings in Cognition and Technology and Model Development and Reasoning in Science. Third, there will be an impact on preservice teacher training. Because the VCK models can be used as windows into children's thinking, this work will provide contexts that will be integrated into preservice teacher education.

生命科学通常是关于理解复杂的系统-从人体系统到生态系统再到进化。 这些很难理解，因为它需要理解结构与功能的关系以及系统的行为是什么。部分之间的一些交互是不可见的，并且具有时间顺序，使得它们难以感知。即使是成年人也很难学习复杂的系统。 然而，这种理解往往是科学分析的关键。这些困难可能会加剧静态的解释发现，在典型的教科书，侧重于结构，而不考虑动态行为和功能。 关于复杂系统的教学的一种可能的方法涉及使用从结构-行为-功能（SBF）理论中提取的概念表示，但我们需要首先研究人们如何理解复杂的生物系统。许多生命科学教学往往侧重于复杂系统的结构方面。我将使用这个框架来开发静态（超媒体）和动态方法（模拟构建工具包，虚拟构建工具包-VCK），以帮助中学生学习SBF模式，特别是支持他们对系统行为和功能的理解。 本研究提出了三个主要问题：1）理解一个复杂系统意味着什么？2)如何提供一个明确的概念表示（即，支持复杂系统的学习？以及3）动态表示工具（即，超媒体和VCK）支持学习这种概念表示？教学计划有三个主要组成部分。 首先，将有研究生和本科生的研究导师的机会，因为他们成为参与研究和教学设计。 其次，我将通过开发和加强现有的研究生课程在认知和技术和模型开发和推理科学的发展，以促进硕士和博士课程的发展。第三，会对副校长的培训产生影响。因为VCK模型可以被用作儿童思维的窗口，这项工作将提供的背景下，将被整合到副教师教育。