Collaborative Research: Adapting and Implementing a Geospatial High School Course in Career and Technical Education Clusters in Urban Settings

这是一个提交给学生和教师创新技术体验 (ITEST) 计划（计划征集 NSF 17-565）成功项目扩展和传播 (SPrEaD) 部分的合作项目，旨在更好地理解和促进提高学生在科学、技术、工程或数学 (STEM) 领域追求职业的动力和能力的实践。目标是通过调整和实施之前开发的地理空间学期（GSS）为期一年的双学分课程，扩大和传播支持高中水平空间思维的策略，该课程侧重于培养地理空间问题解决技能并将这些技能应用于学生选择的问题。 GSS 包括介绍性练习，旨在培养学生使用地理信息系统 (GIS) 分析空间问题的基本技能，支持学生从空间角度构建有意义的问题，识别和组织相关空间数据集，分析空间数据作为提出问题解决方案的证据，并公开展示他们的结果。 GSS 目前与詹姆斯·麦迪逊大学合作在弗吉尼亚州的高中授课。 GSS 的核心是空间思维技能的发展，即使考虑了数学和语言能力等其他相关变量，空间思维技能也能强烈预测 STEM 领域的成就、坚持和成就。因此，该研究的中心目的是在芝加哥公立学校 (CPS) 的六个职业和技术教育 (CTE) 集群中调整和实施 GSS 高中课程。该项目将从目前 STEM 职业中代表性不足的已确定群体中选择参与者。通过 GSS 课程，学生将参与跨多个学科的相关 STEM、社会科学和 CTE 主题，并参与相关实践，包括科学数据收集、分析、建模和解释。该项目将采用基于设计的实施研究 (DBIR) 方法，并根据芝加哥 CTE 计划的背景采用和调整 GSS 的核心要素。该研究将使用传播和规模的框架来研究扩展和传播课程的策略以及背景因素影响成功可能性的方式。它将解决关于 GSS 是否以及如何适应大型城市学区教授各种 CTE 相关技能的需求的两个研究问题：(1) 大型城市学区如何在没有开发商直接支持的情况下开发实施 GSS 所需的基础设施？ （2）我们能否开发基于课堂的空间推理评估，使其与过去研究中使用的基于研究的措施具有收敛有效性？为了解决前者，该项目将与芝加哥城市学院合作提供双重注册学分，并与教师共同设计开发一个针对 CPS 的 CTE 课程量身定制的实施模型，并得到持续专业发展实践的支持。为了回答后者，该项目将与教师共同设计，开发空间思维的课堂评估，并验证它们与基于研究的措施的相关程度。该项目将利用这些评估来调查芝加哥 GSS 的适应是否提供了与弗吉尼亚州已建立的 GSS 实施相媲美的结果。数据来源将包括课堂观察、学生作业产品的评分、教师访谈、学生人口统计数据以及学生在测试前和测试后评估中的表现增长。将使用例行汇报来解释所发生的情况并为下一个实施阶段规划预期事件。将采用混合方法对学生学习进行定量分析。作为 DBIR 研究，该项目将 (a) 在研究人员和从业者之间建立伙伴关系，重点关注从多个利益相关者的角度解决实践中持续存在的问题； (b) 通过 GIS 教育工作者、心理学家、实施研究人员、大型城市地区和社区学院的多方利益相关者伙伴关系，重点关注空间推理作为 STEM 实践基础的重要性； (c) 通过 GSS 教师领导者和芝加哥城市学院的 GIS 新课程，培养维持系统变革的能力。该项目将通过以下方式开发新的共同设计的课程材料：(a) 材料试点测试（1-2 年）； (b) 材料现场测试（第三年），重点是专业发展、实施研究（以检查该计划在各种学校背景下成功实施的程度）以及现场测试结果分析； (c) 测试专业发展和课程实施与 CTE 运作的整合，包括分析空间思维课堂评估的有效性和质量。这项工作的主要成果将是通过共同设计过程开发的以 GIS 为重点的高中 CTE 课程原型，以及专注于地理空间问题解决的 DBIR。外部顾问委员会将对计划的实施进行持续、独立和严格的审查，以评估形成性和总结性的进展。

This is a collaborative project submitted to the Successful Project Expansion and Dissemination (SPrEaD) strand of the Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) program (Program Solicitation NSF 17-565) to advance efforts to better understand and promote practices that increase student motivations and capacities to pursue careers in fields of science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM). The goal is to expand and disseminate strategies to support spatial thinking at the high school level by adapting and implementing the previously developed Geospatial Semester (GSS) one-year, dual-credit course focused on developing geospatial problem-solving skills and applying those skills to student-selected problems. GSS consists of introductory exercises to develop students' basic skills in using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for analyzing spatial problems, supporting students in framing a meaningful problem from a spatial perspective, identifying and organizing relevant spatial datasets, analyzing their spatial data as evidence for proposing solutions for their problem, and making a public presentation of their results. GSS is currently taught in high schools in Virginia in partnership with James Madison University. At the core of GSS is the development of spatial thinking skills, which are strongly predictive of achievement, persistence, and attainment in STEM fields, even after accounting for other relevant variables, such as mathematical and verbal aptitude. Thus, the central purpose of the study is to adapt and implement the GSS high school course in six Career and Technical Education (CTE) clusters in the Chicago Public Schools (CPS). The project will select participants from identified groups currently underrepresented in STEM occupations. Through the GSS course, students will engage with relevant STEM, social science, and CTE topics that cut across multiple disciplines, and engage in relevant practices, including scientific data collection, analysis, modeling, and interpretation. The project will adopt and adapt the core elements of the GSS for the context of Chicago CTE programs using a design-based implementation research (DBIR) approach. The study will use a framework of spread and scale to investigate the strategies for expanding and disseminating the course and the ways in which contextual factors influence the likelihood of success. It will address two research questions regarding whether, and how, the GSS can be adapted to the needs of a large, urban district teaching a variety of CTE-related skills: (1) How can large urban school districts develop the necessary infrastructure to implement GSS without the direct support of the developers?; and (2) Can we develop classroom-based assessments of spatial reasoning that have convergent validity with the research-based measures used in past research? To address the former, the project will partner with the City Colleges of Chicago to provide the dual enrollment credit, and engage in co-design with teachers to develop an implementation model that is tailored to CPS's CTE curriculum and supported by continuing professional development practices. To answer the latter, the project will engage in co-design with teachers to develop classroom assessments of spatial thinking and validate the extent to which they correlate with research-based measures. The project will use these assessments to investigate whether the adaptation of GSS in Chicago provides outcomes that are comparable to those of the established GSS implementations in Virginia. Data sources will include classroom observations, ratings of student work products, teacher interviews, student demographics, and growth in student performance on pretest and posttest assessments. A debriefing routine will be used to interpret what has happened and plan prospective events for the next implementation phase. A mixed-method approach will be employed to incorporate quantitative analysis of student learning. As DBIR research, the project will (a) form partnerships between researchers and practitioners focused on persistent problems of practice from multiple stakeholders' perspectives; (b) focus on the importance of spatial reasoning as foundational for STEM practice through a multi-stakeholder partnership of GIS educators, psychologists, implementation researchers, a large urban district and community college; and (c) develop capacity for sustaining change in systems through GSS teacher leaders and new courses in GIS at City Colleges of Chicago. The project will develop new co-designed curriculum materials through (a) pilot testing of materials (years 1-2); (b) field testing of materials (year 3) with emphasis on professional development, implementation research (to examine the extent to which the program is successfully implemented across a variety of school contexts), and analysis of field-test results; and (c) testing the integration of the professional development and course implementation into the CTE operations, including analysis of the validity and quality of spatial-thinking classroom assessments. The main outcome of this effort will be a high school GIS-focused CTE curriculum prototype developed through co-design processes, as well as DBIR focused on geospatial problem-solving. An external advisory board will provide ongoing, independent, and critical reviews of the implementation of the program to evaluate progress, both formative and summative.