Engaging Non-Science Majors in Inquiry through Backwards Faded Scaffolding Approach to Learning

通过落后的褪色脚手架学习方法让非科学专业的学生参与探究

• 批准号: 1312562
• 负责人: Stephanie Slater
• 金额: $ 19.71万
• 依托单位: Capitol College
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2011
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2011-07-15 至 2014-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1312562&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Engaging; Non; Science; Majors; Inquiry

National reform movements are calling for undergraduate science survey course faculty to design and deliver science instruction using the principles of inquiry. This astronomy education project is iteratively developing, field-testing, and disseminating an inquiry-oriented teaching approach framed by the notions of "backwards faded-scaffolding" as an overarching theme for instruction. In this approach, students are guided through a number of scientific projects, with reduced guidance in each successive project. The reduction starts from the end of the process and works backwards, and thus the term 'backwards-faded scaffolding.' This project is transformative in that faculty need instructional materials that focus on teaching science as inquiry while at the same time are practical to implement. The objectives of the project are to: create effective and easy-to-implement curriculum materials based on contemporary teaching methods designed to increase non-science majoring undergraduates' and pre-service teachers' abilities to participate in scientific inquiry; determine the extent to which learners' participation in inquiry using "backwards faded scaffolding" impacts their conceptual understanding of astronomy and of scientific inquiry; and widely disseminate the results and resources developed in this project to the astronomy teaching community through professional conference presentations, refereed publications, an interactive web site, and through a collaborative partnership with a publishing house. The evaluation plan is to use a single-group, multiple-measures, quasi-experimental design to explore students' enhanced content knowledge of science and inquiry. The INTELLECTUAL MERIT of the project is to iteratively create and systematically evaluate an innovative approach to inquiry-oriented teaching in order to contribute to the research literature on undergraduate STEM education.The BROADER IMPACTS are to provide professors with new, adaptable, and well-evaluated tools for working with undergraduate non-science majors and future teachers where large numbers of diverse students are successfully conducting meaningful and fully supported scientific investigations.

国家改革运动要求本科科学调查课程的教师运用探究的原则设计和传授科学教学。这个天文学教育项目正在迭代开发、实地测试和传播一种以探究为导向的教学方法，该方法以“向后褪色脚手架”的概念为框架，作为教学的总体主题。在这种方法中，学生通过一系列科学项目进行指导，每个后续项目的指导减少。这种减少从过程的最后开始，并向后工作，因此有了“向后褪色脚手架”这个术语。这个项目具有变革性，因为教师需要的教学材料侧重于将科学作为探究性的教学，同时又能实际实施。该项目的目标是：根据现代教学方法，设计有效且易于实施的课程材料，旨在提高非科学专业本科生和职前教师参与科学探究的能力；确定学习者使用“向后褪色脚手架”参与探究对他们对天文学和科学探究的概念性理解的影响程度；通过专业会议报告、评审出版物、互动网站以及与出版社的合作伙伴关系，向天文学教学界广泛传播本项目的成果和资源。评估计划采用单组、多测量、准实验设计来探索学生在科学和探究方面增强的内容知识。该项目的智力价值在于迭代创建和系统评估一种以探究为导向的创新教学方法，以便为本科STEM教育的研究文献做出贡献。更广泛的影响是为教授提供新的、适应性强的、评估良好的工具，用于与非科学专业的本科生和未来的教师合作，在这些地方，大量不同的学生正在成功地进行有意义的、得到充分支持的科学研究。