Pilot Study: Creating a Special Collection of NSF-Funded Learning Resources to Support Core Ideas in High School Biology

本项目将开发、实施和研究一个特殊的数字馆藏，以补充高中生物核心思想的教学。该系列将集中于目前在美国使用的大多数课程的基础概念。该集合也将作为一个模型，用于为教师和学习者的目标受众传播关于nsf支持的学习资源的信息。本项目以高中生物为研究对象，是因为：1)当代以教与学为基础的研究要求所有学生深入从事真正的科学实践。许多学校的教师都在积极地寻找在线资源来满足这一需求。2)学生几乎都选修了生物学。因此，教师正在寻求在线补充资源来区分他们的教学，以满足学生不同的学习需求。3)通过现有的合作伙伴关系，这个特殊的收藏可以整合到数字高中生物课程中，并可以研究它对教师和学习者的影响。各州和学区越来越多地要求教师在机构规模上使用开放教育资源，这是为了控制成本，需要更个性化的学习体验，需要调整课程以满足新的数学和科学标准的要求。美国国家科学基金会支持的教育材料的综合在线资源将通过向教师、学习者、家长和公众提供高质量、基于研究的STEM材料的开放访问来满足这一国家需求。直接的更广泛的影响将是丹佛公立学校的教师和800名学生获得300种高质量的生物资源，其中许多人来自非显性背景。它将为公众获取nsf资助的其他STEM领域的教育材料提供一个可扩展的模型，并可作为未来发展特殊馆藏的基础。长期影响将是教育工作者、学习者和公众更容易获得高质量的教育馆藏。工作将沿着两条轨道进行：在开发轨道上，将使用现有的基础设施工具来建立资源集合，以进行集合的开发、管理和维护。在研究轨道上，将进行研究，以解决扩大收集和改善多种受众的使用。发展轨道将：(1)制定政策和资源选择标准；(2)确定nsf资助的材料并评估其纳入的适宜性；(3)填充集合并描述资源；(4)配置和运营现有的收集开发和传播技术基础设施；(5)将收集的内容分发到多个开放教育知识库，并直接分发给教师和学生。研究轨道将产生设计指南和技术诀窍，将这个模型集合扩展到能够服务于多个受众和社区的更大的在线资源。项目活动将：(1)为更广泛的受众确定有助于存储库价值的因素，包括在利用数字馆藏支持数据密集型研究时要考虑的因素；(2)生成关于STEM教师和学生用户行为的新知识，并检查馆藏开发政策、资源选择标准、描述和使用之间的关系。

This project will develop, implement, and research a special digital collection to supplement the teaching of core ideas in high school biology. The collection will focus on concepts that underpin the majority of curricula currently in use in the United States. The collection will also serve as a model for a comprehensive source dedicated to disseminating information about NSF-supported learning resources for targeted audiences of teachers and learners. The project focus is on high school biology because: 1) The contemporary research base on teaching and learning calls for all students to be deeply engaged in authentic science practices. In many schools teachers are actively seeking online resources to meet this need. 2) Biology has near universal enrollment by students. Consequently, teachers are seeking online supplemental resources to differentiate their instruction to meet the diverse learning needs of students. 3) Through existing partnerships, this special collection can be integrated into a digital high school biology curriculum and its impact on teachers and learners can be studied. States and school districts increasingly are asking teachers to use open education resources on an institutional scale, driven by the desire to control costs, the need for more personalized learning experiences, and the need to adapt curricula to meet the demands of new math and science standards. A comprehensive online source of NSF-supported educational materials will address this national need by providing teachers, learners, parents, and the public with open access to high-quality, research-based STEM materials. The immediate broader impact will be access to 300 high-quality biology resources by Denver Public School teachers and 800 students, many of whom are from non-dominant backgrounds. It will provide a scalable model for public access to NSF-funded educational materials in other STEM domains and can serve as a foundation for future development of special collections. Longer term impacts will be more accessible, high-quality educational collections available to educators, learners, and the general public. Work will proceed along two tracks: in the development track, the collection of resources will be built using existing infrastructure tools for collection development, curation, and maintenance. In the research track, studies will be conducted to address scaling the collection and improving use for multiple audiences. The development track will: (1) Develop policies and resource selection criteria; (2) Identify NSF-supported materials and evaluate their appropriateness for inclusion; (3) Populate the collection and describe resources; (4) Configure and operate existing technical infrastructure for collection development and dissemination; and (5) Disseminate the collection to multiple open education repositories and directly to teachers and students. The research track will generate design guidelines and know-how for scaling this model collection to larger online sources capable of serving multiple audiences and communities. Project activities will: (1) Identify factors that contribute to repository value for broader audiences, including factors to be considered when instrumenting digital collections to support data-intensive research; and (2) Generate new knowledge on user behavior of STEM teachers and students, and examine the relationship between collection development policies, resource selection criteria, descriptions, and usage.