EXP: Transforming High School Science via Remote Online Labs

PI试图更好地了解如何使在线远程实验室在高中科学课中有效地发挥作用，特别是关注教师的角色，因为他们促进了这些实验室周围的调查，以及如何支持教师的角色。解决的主要研究问题是了解远程实验室何时以及为什么能促进有效的学习和教学。项目小组正在解决这个问题的背景下，使用一个高中辐射实验室为几个不同的目的。他们在项目过程中不断完善学生和教师的材料，以便它们可以作为其他虚拟实验室体验的模型。正在改进的实验室期刊旨在包括在在线远程实验室中进行调查的脚手架，这些实验室通常适用于整个实验室环境。研究表明，访问远程实验室可以帮助学生更好地掌握他们的调查经验的现实比做模拟时，学生没有获得第一手的经验与物理现象;学生体验的现象更真实的时，进行实验使用远程实验室比使用模拟进行相同的实验。这表明，对于没有实验室设备的学校，以及对于那些在教室里进行调查过于危险或复杂的情况，在线远程实验室可以在促进内容学习和科学素养方面发挥强大的作用。如果我们真的希望我们的全体人口都有科学素养，然后，让每个青少年有机会参与有意义的实验室体验，让他们体验科学家的工作和科学家的推理是必不可少的。但是有许多高中没有设备允许这种情况发生。该项目为在远程实验室周围创建这种有意义的体验奠定了基础。一些这样的实验室有复杂的设备，这将是不适合在学校;一些有简单的设备，许多学校根本负担不起。远程实验室由个人或学生团队使用用户界面访问，该用户界面适合于学习者的发展，并且允许他们运行、改进和优化实验，并从远处观看真实的设备执行他们的指令。要使远程实验室在课堂上发挥作用，需要为教师提供各种工具，使教师能够在进行在线和远程调查时促进调查活动并监控班级中个人和团体的进展。该项目的重点是一个特定的远程在线实验室（一个盖革计数器），为高中生在该实验室周围创造有意义的经验，并确定教师需要有效地促进这种经验的工具。将学到的东西将适用于创建其他有意义的远程实验室体验，并以类似的方式使用其他远程实验室设施。

The PIs seek to understand better how online remote labs can be made to function effectively in high-school science classes, especially focusing on the roles of teachers as they facilitate investigations around those labs and how to support teachers in their roles. The big research issue addressed is coming to understand both when and why remote labs promote effective learning and teaching. The project team is addressing this question in the context of using a high-school radiation lab for several different purposes. They are refining student and teacher materials over the course of the project so they can serve as models for other virtual lab experiences. The lab journal that is being refined is designed to include scaffolding for carrying out investigations in online remote labs that will be generally applicable across laboratory contexts. Research shows that access to remote labs helps students better grasp the reality of their investigative experience than do simulations when students do not have access to first-hand experience with physical phenomena; students experience phenomena as more real when carrying out experiments using remote labs than when using simulations to carry out the same experiments. This suggests that for schools without lab equipment and for situations where investigations are too dangerous or sophisticated to be carried out in a classroom, online remote labs can play a powerful role in promoting both content learning and science literacy.If we truly want our full population to be scientifically literate, then giving every teen the opportunity to participate in meaningful laboratory experiences that allow them to experience what scientists do and how scientists reason is essential. But there are many high schools without the equipment to allow this to happen. This project lays the groundwork for creating such meaningful experiences around remote labs. Some such labs have sophisticated equipment that would be inappropriate in a school; some have simpler equipment that many schools simply cannot afford. Remote labs are accessed by individuals or student teams using a user interface that is developmentally appropriate for the learners and that allows them to run and refine and rerun experiments and watch from afar as real equipment carries out their instructions. Making remote labs work well in classrooms requires having the kinds of tools for teachers that will allow teachers to facilitate investigation activities and monitor the progress of individuals and groups in the class as they do their investigations online and remotely. This project's focus is on one particular remote online lab (a Geiger counter), creating meaningful experiences for high schoolers around that lab, and identifying the kinds of tools teachers need to facilitate such experiences effectively. What will be learned will be applicable to creating other meaningful remote lab experiences and using other remote lab facilities in similar ways.