Collaborative Research: Group-Based Cloud Computing for STEM Education Project

该项目将推进学生和教师创新技术体验（ITEST）计划的努力，以更好地理解和促进提高学生在科学，技术，工程或数学（STEM）领域追求职业生涯的动机和能力的做法，通过设计，开发，实施，并研究以小组为中心的STEM教学和学习的社会技术系统，与国家认可的服务前计划相一致。该项目将利用30多年的研究成果，展示基于生成设计原则的网络支持的基于小组的学习如何改善所有学习者的学习，跨越种族/民族背景。该项目还将提供活动设计和实施策略的详细分析，这将有助于职前教师制定更充分参与和社会支持的课堂学习方法，在以小组为中心的学习环境中使用真实的STEM实践。这项工作将是特别重要的，以推进知识领域的职前教师准备，因为很少有职前计划使用这种方法在准备教师的今天？的教室。 通过关注全国K-12教室中职前教师教授的12个模型活动的初步实施，本研究还将提供具体和定量的证据，表明基于小组的学习对职业生涯早期和入职年的教师都有吸引力，在真实的课堂中实施是可行的。基于研究的方法来创建和研究支持STEM生成性教学和学习的技术和材料。 与国家认可和扩大STEM教师准备和认证方法相关的网站将作为该项目的孵化器和试验台？的创新和发展努力。 计算思维，包括基于代理的建模，跨STEM领域的模拟以及对个人有意义的学习者收集的数据的地理空间推理将为该项目提供重要的科学基础。 这将通过开发一个高度互动和群体优化的，基于浏览器和云的，独立于设备的开源架构，并通过集成和扩展领先的计算工具来实现，包括NSF资助的NetLogo基于Web代理的建模语言和环境。该项目还将通过在公共领域公布其以技术为媒介的活动和材料，并通过收集关于这些技术和材料使用的强度和性质的大量定性和定量数据，来实现这一成果。总的来说，该项目将促进教育基础设施的发展，使STEM中的生成性教学和学习得以传播和有效采用。

This project will advance efforts of the Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) program to better understand and promote practices that increase students' motivations and capacities to pursue careers in fields of science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) by designing, developing, implementing, and studying a socio-technological system for group-centered STEM teaching and learning consistent with a nationally recognized pre-service program. The project will use results from more than 30 years of research to demonstrate how network supported, group-based learning grounded in principles of Generative Design can improve learning for all learners, across racial/ethnic backgrounds. The project will also offer detailed analyses of activity designs and implementation strategies that will help pre-service teachers to develop more fully participatory and socially-supported approaches to classroom learning, using authentic STEM practices in group-centered learning environments. This work will be particularly important to advancing knowledge in the field for pre-service teacher preparation, since few pre-service programs use this approach in preparing teachers for today?s classrooms. Through a focus on the initial implementation of twelve model activities taught by pre-service teachers in K-12 classrooms nationwide, this study will also provide concrete and quantitative evidence that group-based learning is both appealing to early-career and induction-years teachers, and that it is feasible to implement in real classrooms.The project takes a design-based research approach to creating and studying technologies and materials that support generative teaching and learning in STEM. Sites associated with a nationally recognized and expanding approach to STEM teacher preparation and certification will serve as incubators and testbeds for the project?s innovation and development efforts. Computational thinking, including agent-based modeling, and simulation across STEM domains as well as geo-spatial reasoning about personally meaningful learner-collected data will provides an important scientific foundation for the project. This will be achieved by developing a highly-interactive and group-optimized, browser- and cloud-based, device-independent and open-source architecture and by integrating and extending leading computational tools including the NSF-funded NetLogo Web agent-based modeling language and environment. The project will also achieve this outcome by publishing its technology-mediated activities and materials in the public domain and by capturing extensive qualitative and quantitative data on the intensity and nature of use of these technologies and materials. Collectively, the project will foster the growth of educational infrastructures to enable the dissemination and effective adoption of generative teaching and learning in STEM.