Building Middle School Students' Understanding of Heredity and Evolution

探索研究preK-12计划（DRK-12）旨在通过研究和开发创新资源，模型和工具，显着提高preK-12学生和教师的科学，技术，工程和数学（STEM）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工作的基础上，这些研究和开发工作为拟议项目提供了理论和经验依据。该项目将开发和测试与下一代科学标准（NGSS）保持一致的中学年级遗传和进化课程单元的影响。该项目将通过调查两个课程单元的设计方式来促进科学教学，以纳入科学和工程实践，交叉概念和学科核心思想，NGSS所描述的科学学习的三个维度。该项目还将开发资源，支持教师实施新的单元。计划中的研究还将研究学生对进化的理解是否取决于在学习进化之前学习遗传的时间和时间。这个早期设计和开发项目将开发两个新的为期3周的中学课程单元，一个侧重于遗传，另一个侧重于进化。这些单元将包括嵌入式形成性和总结性评估措施以及在线教师支持材料。这些单元将作为课程学习进展的一部分开发，最终将跨越小学到高中。本课程的学习进程将整合遗传，进化，数据分析，科学解释的建设，基于证据的论证，模式识别，并推断因果关系。为了为单元的开发和迭代修订提供信息，该项目将在全国范围内进行测试和试点测试，选择具有广泛学生人口结构和地理位置的学校。该项目将包括对学生课程和教师教材进行三轮测试和修订。该项目还将调查学生对进化的理解，了解他们的理解如何受到遗传概念理解的影响。本计划的研究将围绕三个广泛的研究问题进行：（a）如何设计两个课程单元，以纳入科学学习和教育教师支持的三个方面，引导学生对遗传和进化的概念理解？(b)学生对进化的理解在多大程度上取决于进化单元之前遗传课程的长度和时间？（c）学生以何种方式学习遗传和进化？该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为是值得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的支持。

The Discovery Research preK-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. 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. This project will develop and test the impact of heredity and evolution curriculum units for middle school grades that are aligned with the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). The project will advance science teaching by investigating the ways in which two curriculum units can be designed to incorporate science and engineering practices, cross-cutting concepts, and disciplinary core ideas, the three dimensions of science learning described by the NGSS. The project will also develop resources to support teachers in implementation of the new modules. The planned research will also examine whether student understanding of evolution depends on the length and time of exposure to learning about heredity prior to learning about evolution. This Early Stage Design and Development project will develop two new 3-week middle school curriculum units, with one focusing on heredity and the other focusing on evolution. The units will include embedded formative and summative assessment measures and online teacher support materials. These units will be developed as part of a curriculum learning progression that will eventually span the elementary grades through high school. This curriculum learning progression will integrate heredity, evolution, data analysis, construction of scientific explanations, evidence-based argumentation, pattern recognition, and inferring cause and effect relationships. To inform development and iterative revisions of the units, the project will conduct nation-wide beta and pilot tests, selecting schools with broad ranges of student demographics and geographical locations. The project will include three rounds of testing and revision of both the student curriculum and teacher materials. The project will also investigate student understanding of evolution in terms of how their understanding is impacted by conceptual understanding of heredity. The research to be conducted by this project is organized around three broad research questions: (a) In what ways can two curriculum units be designed to incorporate the three dimensions of science learning and educative teacher supports to guide students' conceptual understanding of heredity and evolution? (b) To what extent does student understanding of evolution depend on the length and timing of heredity lessons that preceded an evolution unit? And (c) In what ways do students learn heredity and evolution?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.