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，通过设计、开发、实施和研究一个以团体为中心的STEM教学和学习的社会技术系统，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。该系统与国家认可的职前计划相一致。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、基于小组的学习如何改善所有学习者的学习，不分种族/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，帮助职前教师在以小组为中心的学习环境中使用真正的STEM实践，开发更充分参与和社会支持的课堂学习方法。这项工作对于提高职前教师准备领域的知识尤其重要，因为很少有职前课程使用这种方法来为今天的教师做准备。年代的教室。本研究以全国K-12职前教师所教授的12项示范活动的初步实施为重点，也将提供具体和定量的证据，证明小组学习对早期职业教师和入职教师都有吸引力，并且在实际课堂中实施是可行的。该项目采用基于设计的研究方法来创建和研究支持STEM生生性教学和学习的技术和材料。与全国认可和扩展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测试平台。创新发展。计算思维，包括基于智能体的建模和跨STEM领域的仿真，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。这将通过开发一种高度交互的、组优化的、基于浏览器和云的、设备独立的和开源的体系结构，并通过集成和扩展领先的计算工具来实现，包括nsf资助的基于NetLogo Web代理的建模语言和环境。该项目还将通过在公共领域出版其以技术为媒介的活动和材料以及通过收集关于这些技术和材料的使用强度和性质的广泛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的生生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.