SBIR Phase II: Collaborative game approach to support classroom instruction of difficult-to-teach science concepts

这个项目将使学生能够学习困难的科学概念，使用一种旨在显著增加学生参与度和理解力的协作游戏方法。这款游戏是为了改进光合作用和细胞呼吸的教学，这是高中学生在生命科学课程中的必修课。这些过程在很大程度上是看不见的，由一系列复杂和相互依赖的互动组成，很难教授。通过创建适合教育的互动工具来教授复杂的科学科目，该项目旨在增加中学生对STEM的参与和兴趣，并帮助他们建立核心科学知识和更高层次的思维技能，以应对21世纪的挑战。APP的内容和设计基于循证的教学方法，以有效地进行科学教学。开发一种更身临其境、更实用的学习方法，维护了国家科学基金会促进卓越科学教育的使命，并将有助于吸引更多的学生，并为以STEM为基础的职业做好准备。这项工作将为教师提供一种教学工具，传达基于化学的生物过程的准确细节，使他们能够在课堂上进行差异化教学，并确保所有学生，无论他们现有的知识和能力水平如何，都能够达到规定的国家和国家级生命科学标准。该项目建议开发和实现一个工作模拟器，为虚拟实验室学习环境产生科学准确的输出，通过该模拟器，学生可以通过反复尝试快速建立对科学方法的实际理解。这使得a)在学生的学习中引入合法的代理，以便他们的选择驱动学习，b)生成有意义的(非通用的)教学提示，准确地响应每个人如何与游戏交互，以及c)建立一个有价值的框架，基于他们与模拟器的多次真实交互来评估学生的学习。模拟器将使用数学模型来表示生物过程，以支持任意范围的假设。其他创新包括a)在课堂上区分教学的自动化工具，以帮助教师解决学生的一系列熟练程度，从补习到高级；b)扩展的设备到设备的学生交互，利用协作评估和辩论游戏；c)应用程序管理工具，使教师能够组织、监测和评估学生在这些协作活动中的个别参与；以及d)将相关的地理历史气候数据整合到每个参与者的“奖励花园”中，以建立能力并培养对量化分析活动的兴趣。将进行课堂测试，以验证我们的方法并证明其有效性。

This project will enable students to learn difficult science concepts using a collaborative gaming approach that aims to significantly increase student engagement and understanding. This game is being developed to improve the instruction of photosynthesis and cell respiration, which are required curriculum for high school students in life science courses. These processes are largely invisible, comprised of a complex and interdependent set of interactions, and difficult to teach. By creating educationally sound interactive tools to undertake complicated science subjects, the project aims to increase secondary student involvement and interest in STEM, and to help build the core scientific knowledge and higher-order thinking skills they will need to address the challenges of the 21st Century. The app content and design is based on evidence-based pedagogical approaches to effective science instruction. Developing a more immersive and practicable learning method upholds the NSF's mission to promote exceptional science education and will help attract and prepare more students for STEM-based careers. This work will provide teachers with an instructional tool that conveys accurate details of chemically-based biological processes, enable them to deliver differentiated instruction to their classes, and ensure that all their students, whatever their level of pre-existing knowledge and ability, are able to meet the prescribed national and state-level life science standards.The project proposes to develop and implement a working simulator that produces scientifically accurate output for a virtual lab learning environment, with which students can quickly build practical understanding of the scientific method through trial and error. This enables a) the introduction of legitimate agency into student learning so that their choices drive the learning, b) the generation of meaningful (non-generic) instructional prompts that respond precisely to how each individual interacts with the game, and c) the establishment of a valuable framework for assessing student learning based on their multiple authentic interactions with the simulator. The simulator will represent biological processes using a mathematical model in order to support an arbitrary range of hypotheses. Additional innovations include a) automated tools that differentiate instruction at the classroom level to help teachers address a range of student proficiencies, from remedial to advanced, b) expanded device-to-device student interactions that utilize collaborative assessments and argumentation games, c) app management tools that enable teachers to organize, monitor and assess individual student participation within these collaborative activities, and d) the integration of relevant geohistorical climate data into each player's "reward garden" in order to build aptitude and foster interest in quantitative analysis activities. Classroom testing will be conducted to validate our approach and demonstrate efficacy.