Development and Validation of a Mobile, Web-based Coaching Tool to Improve Pre-K Classroom Practices to Enhance Learning

来自低收入家庭的孩子进入幼儿园的学业往往落后于经济上较富裕的同龄人。提高幼儿园前(Pre-K)教师为所有学生提供高质量早期数学学习体验的能力，有可能缩小这种入学准备差距。这个项目将促进学前教师使用特定的教学策略，例如在教学活动中花更多的时间在数学内容上和听取儿童的意见，这些已被证明可以提高幼儿的学习和社交技能。为了加强教师对这些实践的使用，该项目采用了一种新的方法--一个移动网站，帮助与K前教师合作的教学教练。课堂质量实时经验反馈工具(CQ-REF)将引导教练观察教师在课堂上的具体实践，然后提供反馈，帮助教师评估他们的实践并制定改进目标。在实践中，CQ-REF满足了对高质量Pre-K课堂教学的可访问、实时反馈的需求。探索研究K-12计划(DRK-12)旨在通过研究和开发创新资源、模型和工具(RMT)，显著提高Pre-K-12学生和教师在科学、技术、工程和数学(STEM)方面的学习和教学。DRK-12计划中的项目建立在STEM教育的基础研究和先前的研究和开发努力的基础上，这些研究和开发工作为拟议的项目提供了理论和经验证明。与这一目标相一致，该项目的重点是开发一个新的实践者友好版本的CQ-REF，最初是作为评估课堂教学质量的研究工具，供教练和教师使用。在为期四年的项目开始时，该团队将收集高质量的课堂教学和辅导策略的范例。这些将被用来创建一个视频和其他材料的图书馆，教师和教练可以使用这些材料来建立一个有效的幼儿园前教学是什么样子的共同定义。在项目的第三年，该团队将与不同的学前班教师和他们的教练一起试验CQ-REF，以确定该工具的可用性和相关性。在这项验证研究中，教练将被随机分配到使用CQ-Ref工具或以他们通常的方式进行指导。一年后，将评估CQ-REF对教师实践和学生成绩的影响。感兴趣的结果包括教师和学生的课堂行为以及儿童在数学、识字和科学方面的执行功能和能力。同时，一个外部评估小组将检查指导是如何进行和使用的，以及参与者对指导过程的印象。在第四年，也就是最后一年，该团队将专注于基于先前工作的结果来改进工具，并将结果传播给研究人员和从业者观众。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Children from low-income families often enter kindergarten academically behind their more economically affluent peers. Advancing pre-kindergarten (pre-K) teachers' ability to provide all students with high-quality early math learning experiences has potential to minimize this gap in school readiness. This project will promote pre-K teachers' use of specific teaching strategies, such as spending more time on math content and listening to children during instructional activities, that have been shown to enhance young children's learning and social skills. To enhance teachers' use of these practices, the project takes a novel approach--a mobile website that helps instructional coaches who work with pre-K teachers. The Classroom Quality Real-time Empirically-based Feedback tool (CQ-REF) will guide coaches' ability to observe specific teacher practices in their classrooms and then provide feedback to help teachers evaluate their practices and set goals for improvement. Practically, the CQ-REF addresses the need for accessible, real-time feedback on high quality pre-K classroom teaching.The Discovery Research K-12 program (DRK-12) seeks to significantly enhance the learning and teaching of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) by preK-12 students and teachers, through research and development of innovative resources, models and tools (RMTs). Projects in the DRK-12 program build on fundamental research in STEM education and prior research and development efforts that provide theoretical and empirical justification for proposed projects. Consistent with this aim, this project focuses on developing a new practitioner-friendly version of the CQ-REF, originally designed as a research tool for evaluating the quality of classroom teaching, for use by coaches and teachers. At the beginning of the four-year project, the team will collect examples of high-quality classroom teaching and coaching strategies. These will be used to create a library of video and other materials that teachers and coaches can use to establish a shared definition of what effective pre-K teaching looks like. In year three of the project, the team will pilot the CQ-REF with a diverse range of pre-K teachers and their coaches to determine the tool's usability and relevance. In this validation study coaches will be randomly assigned to either use the CQ-REF tool or coach in their usual manner. After one year, the CQ-REF's impact on teacher practices and student outcomes will be assessed. Outcomes of interest include teacher and student classroom behavior and children's executive function and ability in mathematics, literacy and science. Concurrently, an external evaluation team will examine how the coaching is being conducted and used, and participants' impressions of the coaching process. In the fourth and final year, the team will focus on refining the tool based on results from prior work and on disseminating the findings to research and practitioner audiences.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.