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教师转变学习和实践，提高学生的科学成绩。PI调查了在史密森学会（Smithsonian Institution）开发的《科学、技术和儿童》（Science, Technology, and Children， STC）课程材料中添加附加内容，作为增加小学教师使用探究性方法的一种方式。教育覆盖层为教师提供额外的支持，以解决特定的科学内容。这些支持包括主题内容知识、教学内容知识、范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。该项目以生态系统和电路单位为目标。该研究将集中于以下方面：教师如何使用教育课程与(a)教师如何学习；(b)教师如何实践所学知识（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？该项目将采用准实验设计和观察性研究，将教师的学习和实践与学生的学习进行比较，在教师有教育课程材料支持和没有教育课程材料支持的情况下。PI打算利用一系列数据源（例如，课堂观察、访谈、教师和学生的评估和人工制品）来捕捉教育覆盖的影响。内容分析也将用于在定性数据分析中生成专题内容图，而层次线性建模和重复测量（ANOVA）将用于计算定量分析。这个项目的预期成果包括在小学阶段更好地教授探究的方法；说明性和叙事性形式的教育叠加；提高了教师学习的理论知识；教师学习的机会、他们的知识、他们的实践和学生的成果之间联系的经验痕迹。

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.