Collaborative Research: INSTANCES: Incorporating Computational Scientific Thinking Advances into Education & Science Courses

计算科学结合计算机模拟和科学学科的知识来解决复杂的问题。 虽然十年前计算科学还很少见，主要出现在研究项目中，但如今，甚至在 K-12 教育中也建议将其作为一种有效的教学法，在背景下教授科学、数学和计算机科学。 然而，科学和数学教师往往没有为在 K-12 教室中使用计算机做好准备。 他们可能无法解释学生使用的计算机应用程序中发生的情况。 研究人员正在为计划成为 K-12 教师的学生开发一门新课程，名为《教师计算科学思维和建模》。 该课程旨在提供集成到科学问题解决范式中的实用计算以及对计算重要性的上下文理解。 这将使教师做好更充分的准备，让学生更了解情况并更广泛地参与计算机领域。 该项目代表了计算物理教育者、科学和数学教育者、教育基金会、计算生物学家和两名社区大学科学教师之间的多机构合作。 课程材料包括在线内容和一系列基于视频的模块。 学生的学习成果正在接受评估，结果正在全国科学和数学教师会议上传播。

Computational Science combines computer simulations and knowledge from a science discipline to solve complex problems. While a decade ago computational science was rare and found mainly in research programs, today it is recommended even for K-12 education as an effective pedagogy for teaching science, math and computer science in context. However, science and math teachers are often not prepared well for their work with computers in K-12 classrooms. They may not be able to explain what is occurring within the computer applications used by their students. The investigators are developing a new course for students who plan to be K-12 teachers, called Computational Scientific Thinking and Modeling for Teachers. The course is designed to provide practical computation integrated into the scientific problem-solving paradigm and a contextual understanding of the important of computation. This will lead to better prepared teachers, to better informed students and to broader participation in computing. The project represents a multi-institution collaboration among a computational physics educator, a science and math educator, an education foundation, a computational biologist and two community college science teachers. Course materials include online content and a collection of video-based modules. Student learning outcomes are being assessed and the results are being disseminated at national meetings for science and math teachers.