PECASE: Bridging the Gap Between Theory and Practice in Teacher Education: Guided Interactive Virtual Environments (GIVEs) for Case-Based Learning

提案标题：PECASE：在教师教育中弥合理论与实践之间的差距：基于案例学习的引导式互动虚拟环境(GAVS)机构：新墨西哥大学这项PECASE提案的目的是研究如何帮助科学教师做好有效思考的准备，并将教育心理学原理应用于课堂体验。作者希望它有助于理解认知过程，以支持教师在课堂上解决新的和复杂的问题。该项目还对通过案例研究促进学生更高水平推理技能的教育技术设计具有启示意义。特别是，这个项目预计将有助于展示满足新墨西哥州印第安人和其他少数民族人口众多的学校的需求的方法。她将开发虚拟环境，让教师做好案例学习的准备，以便在日常生活中作为具体程序学习认知技能。虚拟环境允许一次专注于几个问题，从而减轻了教师的认知负担。这项研究将探索几个假设，即基于案例的方法如何提供帮助学生解决问题的高阶思维技能。研究人员将从教师那里收集关于学生表现的数据，方法是跟踪调查三组学生，每组为期三年。这些人将是该项目第三年的职前教师，并将作为教师跟随他们进入教室。一组人将作为对照组，其他人将接受调查员制定的培训计划。教育计划调查员的职业计划与本PECASE提案中概述的项目直接相关。研究人员感兴趣的是人们是如何思考和学习的，以及如何将这些知识应用到课堂上。这个项目非常紧密地融入了调查人员的职业计划。正如她在2002年12月12日给L·苏特的一封电子邮件中指出的那样，这个项目直接反映了我对教学的兴趣，这源于我致力于研究人们是如何思考和学习的。这些材料将被纳入她教授的本科课程，她计划根据她的研究结果开设特别的研究生课程。该项目最初是作为职业奖资助的，并于2004年9月转换为总统工程师和科学家早期职业奖(PECASE)奖。

Proposal Title: PECASE: Bridging the Gap Between Theory and Practice inTeacher Education: Guided Interactive Virtual Environments (GIVEs) for Case-Based LearningInstitution: University of New MexicoThe purpose of this PECASE proposal is to study how to help science teachers prepare to think effectively and apply principles of educational psychology to classroom experiences. The author expects it to contribute to understanding of the cognitive processes that support the teacher efforts to solve novel and complex problems in the classroom. The project also has implications for the design of educational technology that promote student higher level reasoning skills through case studies. In particular, this project is expected to help show ways of meeting the needs of the New Mexico schools with large populations of Native American and other minorities. She would develop virtual environments for preparing teachers with case learning so that cognitive skills are learned as concrete procedures in the context of everyday life. The virtual environments allow a focus on a few issues at a time thus reducing the cognitive load on the teachers. This study will explore several hypotheses about how case-based methods provide higher order thinking skills that help students solve problems. The researcher will collect data from teachers on student performance by following three cohorts of students for 3-years each. The cohorts will be pre-service teachers in year 3 of the project and will be followed into their classrooms as teachers. One cohort will serve as a control group to the others that will go through the training program developed by the investigator.Education PlanThe investigator's career plans are directly related to the project outlined in this PECASE proposal. The investigator is interested in how people think and learn and how to apply that knowledge to classrooms. This project is very closely woven into the investigators career plans. As she noted in an e-mail to L Suter on December 12, 2002, this project is a "direct reflection of my interest in teaching, which stems from my commitment to research how people think and learn." The materials will be incorporated into the undergraduate curriculum that she teaches and she plans to offer special graduate classes based on the result of her research.This project was originally funded as a CAREER award, and was converted to a Presidential Early Career Award for Engineers and Scientists (PECASE) award in September 2004.