Collaborative Research: Connected Biology: three-dimensional learning from molecules to populations

探索研究K-12项目（DRK-12）旨在通过研究和开发创新资源、模型和工具（rmt），显著提高pre -12学生和教师对科学、技术、工程和数学（STEM）的学习和教学。DRK-12计划中的项目建立在STEM教育的基础研究和先前的研究和开发工作的基础上，为拟议的项目提供了理论和实证依据。本项目将通过设计、开发和检验体现下一代科学标准（NGSS）概念框架的生物学新课程单元的学习成果，为实现这一使命做出贡献。这个项目将开发的课程材料将集中在生命科学的两个核心研究领域：遗传学和自然选择的进化过程。这些传统上独立的主题将相互联系，并将旨在让学生参与NGSS定义的学科核心思想，横切概念以及科学和工程实践。一旦开发完成，课程材料将在网上提供给全国的高中生物课程。该项目将以两个主要研究问题为指导：1)当学生体验一套采用三维学习原理的连贯生物学学习材料时，学习进展如何？2)学生如何将对分子、细胞、有机体和进化之间关系的理解从一种生物现象转移到另一种生物现象？该项目将遵循一项迭代开发计划，包括设计、开发、测试和改进新课程模式元素的周期。项目团队将与大师教师合作设计学习序列，使用六个案例研究来提供遗传和进化过程如何相互联系的例子。在线数据探索环境将通过使学生能够模拟正在研究的现象和探索来自多个实验试验的数据来扩展学习，因为他们寻求模式并构建现象的因果解释。学生的学习将使用多种评估工具进行评估，包括对学生理解的多项选择评估、调查、课堂观察和访谈，以及来自在线学习环境的嵌入式评估和日志文件。

The Discovery Research K-12 program (DRK-12) seeks to significantly enhance the learning and teaching of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) by preK-12 students and teachers, through research and development of innovative resources, models and tools (RMTs). Projects in the DRK-12 program build on fundamental research in STEM education and prior research and development efforts that provide theoretical and empirical justification for proposed projects. This project will contribute to this mission by designing, developing, and examining the learning outcomes of a new curriculum unit for biology that embodies the conceptual framework of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). The curriculum materials to be developed by this project will focus on two areas of study that are central to the life sciences: genetics and the processes of evolution by natural selection. These traditionally separate topics will be interlinked and will be designed to engage students in the disciplinary core ideas, crosscutting concepts, and the science and engineering practices defined by the NGSS. Once developed, the curriculum materials will be available online for use in high school biology courses nationwide.This project will be guided by two main research questions: 1) How does learning progress when students experience a set of coherent biology learning materials that employ the principles of three-dimensional learning?; and 2) How do students' abilities to transfer understanding about the relationships between molecules, cells, organisms, and evolution change over time and from one biological phenomenon to another? The project will follow an iterative development plan involving cycles of designing, developing, testing and refining elements of the new curricular model. The project team will work with master teachers to design learning sequences that use six case studies to provide examples of how genetic and evolutionary processes are interlinked. An online data exploration environment will extend learning by enabling students to simulate phenomena being studied and explore data from multiple experimental trials as they seek patterns and construct cause-and-effect explanations of phenomena. Student learning will be measured using a variety of assessment tools, including multiple-choice assessment of student understanding, surveys, classroom observations and interviews, and embedded assessments and log files from the online learning environment.