R&D: Developing Contingent Pedagogies: Integrating Technology-Enhanced Feedback into a Middle School Science Curriculum to Improve Conceptual Teaching and Learning

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SRI is developing a formative assessment intervention that integrates existing classroom network technologies (GroupScribbles and Classroom Performance Systems), interactive formative assessments, and contingent curriculum activities to help teachers adjust instruction to improve middle school student learning of selected Earth science concepts (the rock cycle, forces that shape Earth's surface, and plate tectonics). To test the hypothesis that integrating response system technology, assessment, and curriculum can improve K-12 science teaching and learning, the project is developing and testing (1) pedagogical routines for teachers to follow when using classroom network technologies, (2) diagnostic questions for teachers to elicit student preconceptions, (3) decision rules for teachers to use alternative learning activities that supplement an existing geoscience curriculum, (4) training materials that prepare teachers to enact the intervention, and (5) research- and classroom-based instruments that measure changes in teacher instructional practice, student thinking, and student achievement. The intervention is being tested in two urban school districts located in two western states (Colorado and California) that have ethnically and economically diverse student populations.