Closing Gaps: Connecting Assessment and Culture to Increase Achievement

该项目将推动学生和教师创新技术体验（ITEST）计划的努力，通过研究如何使科学评估和科学教学与夏威夷原住民更具文化相关性，更好地理解和促进提高学生在科学、技术、工程或数学（STEM）领域追求职业的动机和能力的实践。一项为期三年的设计和开发研究“缩小差距：将评估和文化联系起来以提高成绩”为理解技术如何促进教与学打开了新的大门。该项目侧重于技术丰富的学习环境如何改善不同土著学生的教学和评估实践。它结合了两种创新的学习技术——SimScientists和FieldScope，通过科学实践支持STEM教学和学习。Na Lei Na'auao夏威夷原住民特许学校联盟的教师在课堂上和生态系统主题的实地考察中使用这些创新技术。项目研究人员将研究每种技术的特点如何促进学习和加强评估。该项目解决了STEM学习的一个长期限制：学生缺乏相关和熟悉的经验，这些经验可以帮助他们建立基础知识。虽然每年都有支持STEM学习的新技术，但许多技术提供的信息是无法获取的，因为这些信息的背景是不熟悉的，与儿童自己的经验和直觉知识无关。这促进了脆弱的理解，而不是NGSS和工作环境所重视的那种知识。本项目探索如何设计适合当地环境的教育学习工具，同时又要足够标准化，以符合州和国家的指导方针。这些发现对于改善不同人群的测试开发实践可能是至关重要的。在不同土著社区进行测试的探索不足；很少有人知道如何调整评估以服务于评估内容和实践标准的双重作用，同时关注当地具体情况。该项目旨在提高STEM领域所有学生的教育水平。该项目旨在推动教育技术领域的发展，在技术丰富的学习环境中最大限度地发挥文化和背景多样性的效益。它解决了四个研究问题：(1)是否可以定制两种学习技术的特征，使其既与上下文相关又与标准化学习目标一致？(2)技术丰富的学习环境能否在教学与学习所在的文化之间建立显著的联系？(3)嵌入技术丰富的学习环境中的评估是否能够响应土著文化特有的认识和展示理解的方式？(4)在技术丰富的学习环境中嵌入的评估是否能够通过适当和充分的证据来支持学生对科学实践、核心思想和横切概念的理解？在一年级，该项目将与学生和教师进行初步可行性研究，以告知现有SimScientists模块和反思活动的修订。在第二年，该项目将修改现有模块，以增强其文化相关性，然后对修改后的模块进行小规模的可用性和可行性测试。在第三学年，定制模块将在12名教师中进行试点。数据收集和分析策略包括：(a)设计问卷；(b)焦点小组和可用性测试；(c)文化相关性、结构效度和创新影响的认知实验室；(d)美国科学促进会（AAAS）项目的前/后测试；(e)基准评估数据；(f)教师调查；(i)个案研究；(j)课堂和实地考察参与者的观察(k)差异项目功能；(1)协方差分析；(m)测试后得分（结果变量）的方差分析，以比较学生群体（通过干预模式）的均值及其先前的科学成就水平，以衡量评估的技术质量。项目的成功意味着学生将在他们一生中获得的知识与STEM领域重要的知识之间建立个人联系，为看到STEM职业的价值和可能性提供了额外的途径。

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 investigating ways to make science assessment and science instruction more culturally relevant to Native Hawaiians. Closing Gaps: Connecting Assessment and Culture to Increase Achievement, a three-year design and development study, opens new doors for understanding how technology can enhance teaching and learning. The project focuses on ways in which technology-rich learning environments can improve instruction and assessment practices for diverse indigenous students. It combines two innovative learning technologies -- SimScientists and FieldScope -- that support STEM teaching and learning through the practices of science. Teachers in the Na Lei Na'auao Native Hawaiian Charter School Alliance use these innovative technologies in their classrooms and on ecosystems-themed field trips. Project researchers will study how features of each technology can foster learning and enhance assessment. The project addresses a persistent limitation of STEM learning: students' lack of access to connected and familiar experiences that can help build foundational knowledge. Although new technologies to support STEM learning are available each year, many deliver inaccessible information because the context of the information is unfamiliar and does not relate to children's own experiences and intuitive knowledge. This promotes fragile understandings rather than the kinds of knowledge valued by NGSS and in work environments. This project explores how to design educational learning tools that can be adapted to a local context yet be standardized enough to align with state and national guidelines. Findings may prove critical in improving test development practices for diverse populations. Testing in diverse indigenous communities is underexplored; little is known about how assessments can be adapted to serve the dual role of assessing content and practice standards while attending to specifics of the local context. This project intends to enhance the educational advancement of all students in STEM areas.This project intends to advance the field of educational technology to maximize benefits of cultural and contextual diversity in technology-rich learning environments. It addresses four research questions: (1) Can features of two learning technologies be customized to be both contextually relevant and aligned with standardized learning goals?; (2) Can technology-rich learning environments be used to make salient connections between instruction and the culture in which learning is situated?; (3) Can assessment embedded into technology-rich learning environments be responsive to ways of knowing and demonstrating understanding unique to an indigenous culture?; and (4) Can assessment embedded in technology-rich learning environments support inferences about student understanding of the practices, core ideas, and crosscutting concepts of science with appropriate and sufficient evidence? In Year 1, the project will conduct initial feasibility studies with students and teachers to inform revisions to existing SimScientists modules and reflection activities. In Year 2, the project will revise existing modules to enhance their cultural relevance and then conduct small-scale usability and feasibility testing with the revised modules. In Year 3, the customized modules will be piloted with 12 teachers. Data collection and analysis strategies include: (a) design charrettes; (b) focus groups and usability testing; (c) cognitive labs for cultural relevance, construct validity and innovation impacts; (d) pre/posttest of American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) items; (e) benchmark assessment data; (f) teacher surveys; (i) case studies; (j) classroom and field trip participant observations (k) differential item functioning; (l) analysis of covariance; and (m) analysis of variance on posttest scores (outcome variable) to compare the means across student groups (by intervention mode) and their prior science achievement levels to measure the technical quality of the assessments. Project success means students will make personal connections between the knowledge they gain throughout the course of their lives and the knowledge that is important in STEM fields, offering additional ways to see the value and possibilities of STEM careers.