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

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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.