From Research to Practice: Redesigning AP Science Courses to Advance Science Literacy and Support Learning with Understanding

美国大学理事会寻求NSF的支持，以提高全国大学先修课程（AP）科学课程的教学质量。 根据国家研究理事会的报告“学习和理解：提高美国高中数学和科学的高级研究”的建议，该项目将建立AP生物学，化学，物理学和环境科学的课程，评估和专业发展框架。 《学习与理解》的建议呼吁关注每门科学的深度与广度，并“帮助学生对学科内容和统一概念实现深刻的概念理解。“大学理事会在创建新框架时将遵循的其他建议是：（1）阐明学生如何在每个领域学习的明确认知模型，（2）确定中期和长期学习成果，（3）描述可观察的绩效指标，（4）设计引出这些指标的结构化绩效任务，以及（5）训练教师运用他们对学习模式的理解来选择合适的教学活动。该项目还建立在一个规划活动（EHR 0332223）的基础上，该活动为AP生物课程的AP课程重新设计创建了一个过程。

The College Board seeks NSF support to improve the quality of teaching and learning in the nation's Advanced Placement (AP) science courses. Based on recommendations from the National Research Council's report "Learning and Understanding: Improving Advanced Study of Mathematics and Science in U.S. High Schools," the project will build frameworks for curriculum, assessment and professional development in AP Biology, Chemistry, Physics, and Environmental Science. Recommendations from Learning and Understanding call for focusing on depth versus breadth in each of the sciences, and "helping students achieve deep conceptual understanding of the content and unifying concepts of a discipline." Other recommendations that the College Board will pursue in creating the new frameworks are: (1) articulation of an explicit cognitive model of how students learn in each domain, (2) identification of intermediate and long-term learning outcomes, (3) description of observable performance indicators, (4) design of structured performance tasks that elicit those indicators, and (5) training teachers to use their understanding of the learning model to select appropriate instructional activities.The project also builds on a planning activity (EHR 0332223) that has created a process for AP course redesign of the AP Biology course.