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。该项目将开发和测试符合下一代科学标准(NGSS)的中学年级遗传和进化课程单元的影响。该项目将通过调查如何设计两个课程单元来纳入科学和工程实践、交叉概念和学科核心思想，从而推动科学教学，这是新一代科学研究计划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。这项计划中的研究还将检查学生对进化的理解是否取决于在学习进化之前了解遗传的时间长度和时间。这个早期的设计与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终结性评估措施和在线教师支助材料。这些单元将作为课程学习进程的一部分进行开发，最终将跨越小学年级到高中。这门课程的学习进程将整合遗传、进化、数据分析、构建科学解释、基于证据的论证、模式识别和推断因果关系。为了向这些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版和试点测试，选择具有广泛学生人口统计和地理位置的学校。该项目将包括对学生课程和教师材料进行三轮测试和修改。该项目还将调查学生对进化的理解，即他们的理解如何受到对遗传的概念理解的影响。本项目将进行的研究围绕三个广泛的研究问题进行：(A)如何设计两个课程单元，以结合科学学习和教师教育支持的三个维度，以指导学生对遗传和进化的概念理解？(B)学生对进化论的理解在多大程度上取决于进化论单元之前的遗传课的长度和时间安排？以及(C)学生通过什么方式学习遗传和进化？这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

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.