CAREER: Supporting Elementary Science Teaching and Learning by Integrating Uncertainty into Classroom Science Investigations

这是一个教师早期职业发展计划项目，响应国家科学基金会范围内的活动，提供最负盛名的奖项，以支持有潜力在研究和教育中成为学术榜样的早期职业教师。它被提交给探索研究K-12项目，该项目旨在通过研究和开发创新资源、模型和工具，显著提高pre -12学生和教师对科学、技术、工程和数学的学习和教学。本研究的目标是通过开发、测试和完善一个框架和一套工具来改善基础科学的教学和学习，这些框架和工具可以战略性地将不确定性的形式整合到学生的经验学习中，而这些形式对科学家的意义构建至关重要。该框架将基于这样一种观念，即生产性的不确定性应该谨慎地融入学生的经验学习经验中，以支持他们参与科学实践和理解学科思想。为了重新定义实证调查的作用，本研究将重点关注学生寻求理解的经验和过程之间的过渡，课堂调查，证据和解释性模型作为意义构建的机会，以及如何将不确定性构建到这些过渡中。该项目的基本假设是，仔细实施这些形式的不确定性将有助于课程开发者和教师避免在K-8教室中普遍存在的过度简化的调查，这与真实的科学学习和K-12科学教育框架的建议形成鲜明对比（国家研究委员会，2012）。因此，该项目将寻求制定课程设计指南、教师工具、专业发展支持和四项详细调查，包括为二年级和五年级学生设计的包含生产性不确定性的课程、视频和评估，并为语言、文化和社会经济不同的学生设计。这项工作的假设是，如果仔细选择特定形式的科学不确定性，如果教师能够实施这些形式的不确定性，小学生将有更多的机会以与下一代科学标准（NGSS）一致的方式发展学科实践和想法（Lead States, 2013）。采用基于设计的研究，三个研究问题将是：(1)小学实证调查为我们可能战略性地构建不确定性提供了什么机会？(2)如何设计学习环境，使实证调查中的不确定性为学习提供机会？(3)在课堂上有持续的机会参与实证调查中的不确定性，学生在内容理解和论证、解释和调查的实践方面取得了什么进展？这项工作将包括三个设计周期：设计周期1将涉及两个由六名教师组成的小组，他们将调整课程以纳入不确定性，然后描述学生如何在实证调查中参与不确定性。设计周期2将包括同样的小组来实现和改进任务结构、工具和教师教学策略。在设计周期3中，教师和研究人员将进一步完善课程材料、评估和支持。该项目将与一个学区合作，并与教师小组一起进行设计研究，以开发：(1)基于研究的描述，并在小学早期和高年级的实证调查中提供学生理解机会的范例；(2)一套设计原则和工具，使教师能够引出并利用对调查中不确定性的理解；(3)四个初步调查，阐述了上述前两个产品的合并和举例。这些材料将通过网站和已建立的网络分发，以支持实施NGSS。一个咨询委员会将监督项目进展，并进行形成性和总结性评价。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This is a Faculty Early Career Development Program project responsive to a National Science Foundation-wide activity that offers the most prestigious awards in support of early-career faculty who have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education. It was submitted to the Discovery Research K-12 program, which seeks to significantly enhance the learning and teaching of science, technology, engineering and mathematics by preK-12 students and teachers through research and development of innovative resources, models, and tools. The goal of this study will be to improve elementary science teaching and learning by developing, testing, and refining a framework and set of tools for strategically incorporating forms of uncertainty central to scientists' sense-making into students' empirical learning. The framework will rest on the notion that productive uncertainty should be carefully built into students' empirical learning experiences in order to support their engagement in scientific practices and understanding of disciplinary ideas. To re-conceptualize the role of empirical investigations, the study will focus on the transitions between the experiences and processes students seek to understand, classroom investigations, evidence, and explanatory models as opportunities for sense-making, and how uncertainty can be built into these transitions. The project's underlying assumption is that carefully implementing these forms of uncertainty will help curriculum developers and teachers avoid the oversimplified investigations that are prevalent in K-8 classrooms that stand in stark contrast to authentic science learning and the recommendations of the Framework for K-12 Science Education (National Research Council, 2012). Accordingly, the project will seek to develop curriculum design guidelines, teacher tools, professional development supports, and four elaborated investigations, including sets of lessons, videos, and assessments that embed productive uncertainty for second and fifth graders and designed for use with linguistically, culturally, and socio-economically diverse students. The hypothesis of this work is that if specific forms of scientific uncertainty are carefully selected, and if teachers can implement these forms of uncertainty, elementary students will have more robust opportunities to develop disciplinary practices and ideas in ways consistent with the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) (Lead States, 2013). Employing Design-Based Research, the three research questions will be: (1) What opportunities for sense-making do elementary school empirical investigations afford where we might strategically build uncertainty?; (2) How can we design learning environments where uncertainty in empirical investigations supports opportunities for learning?; and (3) In classrooms with sustained opportunities to engage with uncertainty in empirical investigations, what progress do students make in content understandings and the practices of argumentation, explanation, and investigation? The work will consist of three design cycles: Design Cycle 1 will involve two small groups of six teachers in adapting their curricula to incorporate uncertainty, then describe how students engage around uncertainty in empirical investigations. Design Cycle 2 will involve the same small groups in implementing and refining task structures, tools, and teacher instructional strategies. In Design Cycle 3, teachers and researchers will further refine lesson materials, assessments, and supports. The project will partner with one school district and engage in design research with groups of teachers to develop: (1) a research-based description, with exemplars of opportunities for student sense-making within empirical investigations at both early and upper elementary grades; (2) a set of design principles and tools that allow teachers to elicit and capitalize on sense-making about uncertainty in investigations; and (3) four elementary investigations elaborated to incorporate and exemplify the first two products above. These materials will be disseminated through a website, and established networks for supporting implementation of the NGSS. An advisory board will oversee project progress and conduct both formative and summative evaluation.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.