ITR: Atomic-Scale Models in Two Year Colleges: Bridging Science and Technology with Atomic-Scale Models

该项目致力于利用技术在社区学院一级以有效和灵活的方式教授科学。随着需要科学和数学的工作越来越多，新兴的生物技术只是一个例子，未来的工人将被要求迅速学习新技能。美国国家科学基金会资助的分子工作台项目(REC 9980620)现已进入研究和测试的最后一年，已经开发出几个强大的原子级模型。这些模型一起被称为分子工作台，当与我们的模型对话的脚本语言，以及伯克利的WISE项目提供探究科学的在线项目时，可以阐明化学、生物和物理中一些最难教授的概念。社区大学不仅是职业培训的关键门户，对许多人来说，也是进入大学本身的关键门户。在科学课程中融入模型的强大互动性，不仅可以让学生掌握科学，还可以促进他们向专业课程的转移。这个项目的总体目标是开发和评估在两年制大学技术课程中遇到的真实世界情况下复杂的、交互的计算模型的使用。该项目将开发和评价灵活的原子尺度建模软件以及支持快速开发和部署利用该模型的教育材料的软件体系结构。分子工作台软件能够支持关键的物理和一些化学概念。它介于专业科学的严谨和良好教学所需的简单化之间。该项目建议开发建模软件的能力，以模拟化学键和光子相互作用，以及模拟较大生物分子的不同特征所需的新的计算和可视化算法(例如，活性部位的空间配体-受体相互作用)。该项目与科学顾问和一组社区大学教育工作者合作，不仅将增强分子工作台软件，还将使用这些模型开发课堂活动，并仔细评估它们的使用和效果。这项技术将在为期两年的大学课程中进行试点测试，提供一系列超级模型或脚手架模型，这些模型使用原子尺度模型来说明典型技术专业背景下的关键科学主题。原则调查人员将确定一组通常在这一级别的生物、化学和物理课程中教授的关键科学主题，并为每个主题生成基于专业项目中使用的技术和过程的超级模型。他们将利用加州大学伯克利分校开发的现有探究科学项目平台。基于网络的探究科学环境(WISE)支持学生在探究项目上进行协作。使用WISE，超级模型将被整合到完整的在线教学单元中，教职员工可以根据自己的需求进行调整，而不会对当前教学的组织或学习目标进行重大改变。然而，他们都将有一个一致的，原子尺度的方法，这可能是核心科学的新的跨学科方法的基础。这些材料将与两年制大学的教职员工和课程专家合作开发，包括斯普林菲尔德(MA)技术社区学院(STCC)和通过职业研究与发展中心(CORD)及其社区学院校长理事会在全美招聘的其他人员。作为其教育技术开放源码图书馆(OSLET)倡议的一部分，私人投资机构将把所有赠款支持的代码作为开放源码提供。

This project addresses using technology to teach science in an effective and agile manner at the Community College level. As jobs requiring science and math increase in numbers, the burgeoning bio-technologies being only one example, future workers will be asked to learn new skills rapidly. The NSF-funded Molecular Workbench Project (REC 9980620), now in its final year of research and testing, has developed several powerful atomic-level models. These models, together called the Molecular Workbench, when combined with a scripting language that 'talks with" our model, and with Berkeley's WISE program that delivers on-line projects in inquiry science, can illuminate some of the hardest-to-teach concepts in chemistry, biology and physics.Community Colleges are a critical gateway not only to career training but also, for many, to college itself. Infusing science courses with the powerful interactivity of models will allow students not only to master science, but facilitate their transfer to specialty courses. The overall goal of this project is to develop and evaluate the use of complex, interactive computational models in the real-world situations encountered in two-year college technical programs. The project will develop and evaluate flexible atomic-scale modeling software as well as the software architecture that supports the rapid development and deployment of educational materials that utilize this model. The Molecular Workbench software is capable of underpinning key physics and some chemistry concepts. It is situated between the rigor of professional science and the simplifications required by good teaching. This project proposes to develop the modeling software's capacity to model chemical bonds, and photon interactions as well as new computational and visualization algorithms needed to model different features of larger biomolecules (e.g. steric ligand-receptor interactions at active sites). Working together with science advisors and a set of community college educators, this project will not only enhance the Molecular Workbench software, but will also develop classroom activities using the models, and carefully evaluate their use and efficacy. This technology will be pilot tested in two-year college courses by providing a range of hypermodels, or scaffolded models, that use atomic-scale models to illustrate key science topics in the context of typical technical specialties. The principle investigators will identify a set of key science topics typically taught in biology, chemistry, and physics courses at this level and generate hypermodels for each that are based on technologies and processes used in specialty programs. They will capitalize on an existing platform for inquiry science projects that has been developed at the University of California, Berkeley. The Web-based Inquiry Science Environment (WISE) supports students as they work collaboratively on inquiry projects. Using WISE, the hypermodels will be integrated into complete online instructional units that faculty can adapt to their needs without significant changes in the organization or learning objectives of current instruction. They will all, however, have a consistent, atomic-scale approach that could be the basis of a new, interdisciplinary approach to the core sciences. The materials will be developed in collaboration with faculty at two-year colleges and curriculum experts, including Springfield (MA) Technical Community College (STCC) and others throughout the US recruited through the Center for Occupational Research and Development (CORD) and their Community College Presidents Council. The PIs will make all grant-supported code available as open source as part of their Open Source Library of Educational Technology (OSLET) initiative.