Contextual Research - Empirical -STEM Teaching and Learning - Investigating Teachers' Learning, Practice, and Efficacy Using Educative Curriculum Materials

该项目的目标是利用教育课程材料，帮助改变教师的学习和实践，提高学生在科学方面的成绩。PI调查添加叠加到科学，技术和儿童（STC）课程材料，由史密森学会开发，作为一种方式，以增加小学教师使用基于探究的方法。教育覆盖为教师提供额外的支持，以解决具体的科学内容。这些支持包括主题内容知识，教学内容知识，示例课程和其他教学补充。50名教师和1000名小学生将直接受益于这一努力。该项目的目标是生态系统和电路单元，研究将侧重于以下方面：教师使用教育课程与（a）教师如何学习;（B）教师如何实践所学内容（从而教师如何增加学生学习的机会）;（c）学生如何学习科学内容和跨科学学科的科学实践？PI将使用准实验设计和观察研究，比较教师的学习和实践与学生的学习，当教师得到教育课程材料的支持时，当他们没有。PI打算利用一系列数据源（例如，课堂观察、访谈以及教师和学生评估和人工制品）来捕捉教育覆盖的影响。在分析定性数据时，还将使用内容分析生成专题内容图，而分层线性模型和重复测量（ANOVA）将用于计算定量分析。该项目的预期成果包括：更好地在小学水平上教授探究的方法;以叙事和叙事形式的教育覆盖;提高教师学习的理论知识;教师学习机会，他们的知识，他们的实践和学生的结果之间的联系的经验痕迹。

The goal of this project is to use educative curricula materials to help transform teacher learning and practices and improve student outcomes in science. The PI investigates adding overlays to the Science, Technology, and Children (STC) curricula materials, developed by the Smithsonian Institution, as one way to increase the use of inquiry-based methods by elementary teachers. The educative overlays provide teachers with additional supports to address specific science content. These supports include subject matter content knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, sample lessons, and other instructional supplements. Fifty teachers and 1000 elementary students will benefit directly from this effort. The project targets units on ecosystems and electric circuits.The study will focus on the following: How does teacher use of educative curricula relate to (a) how a teacher learns; (b) how a teacher practice what is learned (and thus how a teacher increases opportunities for students to learn); and (c) how a student learns science content and about scientific practices across scientific disciplines?The PI will use a quasi-experimental design and an observational study to compare the learning and practice of the teachers to the learning of students when teachers are supported with educative curricula materials and when they are not. The PI intends to draw on a range of data sources (e.g., classroom observations, interviews, and teacher and student assessments and artifacts) to capture the impact of the educative overlays. Content analysis will also be used to generate thematic content maps in the analysis of qualitative data while hierarchical linear modeling and repeated measures (ANOVA) will be used to compute quantitative analyses. The intended outcomes of this project includes better ways to teach inquiry at the elementary level; educative overlays in both expository and narrative forms; improved theoretical knowledge of teacher learning; an empirical trace of connections among opportunities for teachers to learn, their knowledge, their practice, and the outcomes of their students.