DRK-12: Developing and Testing the Internship-inator, a Virtual Internship in STEM Authorware System

确保学生有机会体验STEM，因为它是由科学家，数学家和工程师进行的，在目前的学校环境中是一项复杂的任务。该项目将通过使STEM内容开发人员能够设计和定制虚拟实习，扩大初中和高中学生获得虚拟实习的机会。Internship-inator是一个authorware系统，用于开发和测试多个STEM学科的虚拟实习。在虚拟实习中，学生面临一个复杂的现实世界STEM问题，没有最佳解决方案。学生在项目团队中工作，阅读和分析研究报告，使用虚拟工具设计和执行实验，响应利益相关者和客户的要求，撰写报告，并提出和证明他们提出的解决方案。该项目的研究人员将与核心开发网络合作，开发和完善authorware，构建多达100个新的虚拟实习和70多个STEM内容开发人员的用户群。研究人员将反复分析authorware的性能，重点是优化效用和系统的可行性，以支持虚拟实习开发。他们还将研究虚拟实习在课堂上实施的方式，以确定STEM实习设计的质量和对学生学习的影响。Intership-inator建立在NSF对Syntern开发的十多年支持的基础上，Syntern是一个部署虚拟实习的平台，已用于中学，高中，非正式科学课程和本科教育。在目前的项目中，研究人员将招募两批STEM内容开发人员，以扩大他们目前的核心开发网络。一个设计研究的角度将被用来检查的方式，其中开发人员与组件的authorware和文件的影响，学生学习的虚拟实习。研究人员将使用定量人种学方法，将来自调查和访谈的定性数据与开发人员的定量互动以及学生使用和虚拟实习的试点和实地测试产品相结合。数据挖掘和学习分析将与分层线性建模，回归技术和倾向评分匹配相结合，以构建准实验研究设计。authorware和多个虚拟实习将为研究人员，开发人员和教师提供丰富的学习环境，以探索和支持学生学习重要的大学和职业准备内容和学科实践。 使用authorware的调查结果将告知STEM教育有关支持STEM内容和课程开发人员工作的authorware的重要设计特征。

Ensuring that students have the opportunities to experience STEM as it is conducted by scientists, mathematicians and engineers is a complex task within the current school context. This project will expand access for middle and high school students to virtual internships, by enabling STEM content developers to design and customize virtual internships. The Internship-inator is an authorware system for developing and testing virtual internships in multiple STEM disciplines. In a virtual internship, students are presented with a complex, real-world STEM problem for which there is no optimal solution. Students work in project teams to read and analyze research reports, design and perform experiments using virtual tools, respond to the requirements of stakeholders and clients, write reports and present and justify their proposed solutions. The researchers in this project will work with a core development network to develop and refine the authorware, constructing up to a hundred new virtual internships and a user group of more than 70 STEM content developers. The researchers will iteratively analyze the performance of the authorware, focusing on optimizing the utility and the feasibility of the system to support virtual internship development. They will also examine the ways in which the virtual internships are implemented in the classroom to determine the quality of the STEM internship design and influence on student learning. The Intership-inator builds on over ten years of NSF support for the development of Syntern, a platform for deploying virtual internships that has been used in middle schools, high schools, informal science programs, and undergraduate education. In the current project, the researchers will recruit two waves of STEM content developers to expand their current core development network. A design research perspective will be used to examine the ways in which the developers interact with the components of the authorware and to document the influence of the virtual internships on student learning. The researchers will use a quantitative ethnographic approach to integrate qualitative data from surveys and interviews with the developers with their quantitative interactions with the authorware and with student use and products from pilot and field tests of the virtual internships. Data-mining and learning analytics will be used in combination with hierarchical linear modeling, regression techniques and propensity score matching to structure the quasi-experimental research design. The authorware and the multiple virtual internships will provide researchers, developers, and teachers a rich learning environment in which to explore and support students' learning of important college and career readiness content and disciplinary practices. The findings of the use of the authorware will inform STEM education about the important design characteristics for authorware that supports the work of STEM content and curriculum developers.