Integrated Science-Literacy in Urban Early Elementary Classrooms: Exploring Scientific Understandings and Discourse Genres

这是一个综合性的教育研究项目，围绕城市小学（1-3年级）课堂的综合科学与识字教学展开。它建立在芝加哥一年级和二年级教室几年的初步试点工作的基础上，已经产生了围绕两个科学主题的几次演讲和新兴学术出版物：物质（物质的不同状态，从一种状态到另一种状态的变化，水循环）和生物（不同环境中的植物和动物）。这项研究将有助于捕捉和理解在不同的城市儿童教室中，科学教学与读写能力相结合的复杂性。鉴于我们对小学的科学教育知之甚少，这样的研究是至关重要的。本研究的主要相关目标是调查教师和学生如何在综合单元中构建科学主题的共享知识；*语言科学：儿童和教师在将科学现象理论化、收集和分析经验证据并协调两者的过程中使用和发展的语言主题；*信息文本如何告知和扩展儿童对他们所探索的科学主题的理论和经验理解；*孩子们在探究过程中产生的文本（和图画）的种类；儿童的种族、文化和性别如何影响并与上述问题相互作用；*小学早期儿童（1-3年级）在理解科学和科学语言方面所采取的发展路线；*课程中共享和整合的家庭探索、成人-儿童探索和科学素养探索如何影响儿童科学和科学语言知识的发展，以及家庭成员参与这些家庭体验如何使他们能够促进和支持儿童在这些领域的教育；以及教师在实施这种整合单元时所面临的各种紧张关系。数据来源将包括：上述各种课堂活动和事件的录音带和录像带，以及项目工作人员会议的录音带、教师的研究期刊和大学研究人员的实地笔记。此外，还将收集教师和学生创作的书面文物（如概念图、海报、挂图）以及与综合科学素养调查有关的各种儿童绘画和文字。家庭成员对家庭探索的反应将通过调查收集。本研究的更广泛影响包括：(1)通过探索提高小学早期科学/素养教育的教学方法和综合课程材料，促进城市幼儿体验丰富而有意义的教与学的机会；(2)提高研究生和教师在科学素养教育方面的研究能力；(3)发现和理解促进所有美国人充分参与STEM企业的因素；(4)强调通过探索不同民族语言背景的低社会经济地位学生的科学素养和学习，提高和加强学生参与的途径；(4)通过以各种方式传播通过本研究获得的理解，为研究人员、政策制定者以及中小学和大学教育工作者提供信息。

This is a comprehensive program of educational research around teaching and learning of integrated science and literacy in primary (grades 1-3) urban classrooms. It builds on several years of preliminary, pilot work in 1st and 2nd grade Chicago classrooms that has resulted in several presentations and publications of emerging scholarship around two science topics' matter (different states of matter, changes from one state to another, the water cycle) and living things (plants and animals in different environments). This study will help to capture and understand the complexity of teaching and learning science integrated with literacy in diverse urban classrooms of young children. Such research is critical in the light of how little we know about science education in primary grades. The major interrelated objectives of the proposed research are to investigate: * how teacher and students construct shared knowledge on science topics in integrated units; * linguistic science language themes that children and teacher use and develop as they theorize about scientific phenomena, collect and analyze empirical evidence, and coordinate the two; * how informational texts inform and extend children's theoretical and empirical understandings of the science topics they explore; * the kinds of texts (and drawings) the children produce as part of their inquiries;how the children's ethnicity, culture, and gender influence and interact with the above issues; * the kinds of developmental routes that early elementary school children (grades 1-3) take in understanding science and the language of science; * how at-home, adult-child, science-literacy explorations that are shared and integrated in the curriculum affect children's development of science and science language knowledge, as well as how family members' involvement in these at home-experiences might enable them to foster and support children's education in these areas; and * the kinds of tensions that teachers confront in implementing such integrated units. Data sources will include: audio and video tapes of the various classroom activities and events described above, as well as audio-tapes of project staff meetings, teachers' research journals, and university-based researchers' field notes. In addition, written artifacts created by teachers and students (e.g., concept maps, posters, wall-charts) and various children's drawings and writings related to the integrated science-literacy inquiries are to be collected. Family members' responses to the at-home explorations will be gathered via surveys. The broader impacts of this research include: (1) promoting urban young children's opportunities to experience rich and meaningful teaching and learning, since the research explores pedagogical approaches and integrated curricular materials to enhance science/literacy education during the early elementary grades; (2) increasing the research capacity in science and literacy education of both graduate students and teachers; (3) uncovering and understanding factors that enhance the full participation of all Americans in the STEM enterprise; (4) highlighting approaches that can increase and strengthen participation by exploring scientific literacy and learning of low SES students of diverse ethnolinguistic backgrounds; and (4) informing researchers, policy-makers, and school- and university-based educators by disseminating in various ways the understandings gained through this study.