Partnering with Teachers on the Design of Inquiry for Socio-scientific Computational Thinking

由于STEM学科中强大的创新和计算应用，支持该项目的STEM+C计划解决了从低年级到高中（学前班）学生对现实世界，跨学科和计算准备的迫切需求。这个项目的重点是一个非常困难的问题，正在寻找解决方案。当今社会所面临的大多数重大挑战，如产生足够的能源、预防和治疗疾病、保持清洁水和食物的供应以及解决其他关键的环境问题，都是“社会科学”的。“将这些问题纳入科学教学的努力并没有完全成功，因为它们包括：（1）这些问题的内在复杂性，即使对成年人来说也很难推理;（2）教师在初始阶段的参与不足;（3）促进课堂讨论有争议的困难和不适，情感上充满问题，没有单一的正确答案。本项目将使用计算方法和计算思维以综合的方式解决这些问题。来自马里兰州和卡尔加里大学的研究人员将与教师合作，设计向中学生提供这些概念的策略。该项目通过向教师介绍计算思维和相关工具，解决课堂环境中的上述三个问题。教师将从一开始就作为全面合作伙伴参与该项目。广泛参与项目活动，然后将这些活动协作适应中学课堂，将有助于教师对STEM科目和社会科学思想以及以学习者为中心的教学法在这些问题上获得舒适感。在这个专业和课程开发计划的背景下，研究团队将解决旨在为理论建设提供信息的研究问题。 通过与来自多个地区的教师合作，该团队将对如何使调查适应教师和学生的当地情况提出见解。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得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来支持。

As a result of the powerful innovation and application of computing in STEM disciplines, the STEM+C program supporting this project, addresses an urgent need for real-world, interdisciplinary, and computational preparation of students from the early grades through high school (pre-K-12). This project focuses on a very difficult problem that is in search of a solution. Most major challenges that confront society today, such as generating sufficient energy, preventing and treating diseases, maintaining supplies of clean water and food, and addressing other critical environmental problems, are "socio-scientific." Efforts to integrate these issues into science instruction have not fully succeeded because they include (1) the intrinsic complexity of these issues, rendering them difficult to reason about even for adults; (2) inadequate involvement of teachers in initial phases and (3) the difficulty and discomfort of facilitating classroom discussions of controversial, emotionally fraught issues that don't have single right answers. This project will address these issues in an integrated way using computational methods and computational thinking. Researchers from the University of Maryland and the University of Calgary will collaborate with teachers to design strategies for providing these concepts to middle school students.This project addresses the three above mentioned issues in the classroom context by introducing computational thinking and associated tools to teachers. The teachers will be involved as full partners in the project from the beginning. Extensive engagement in the project activities, followed by collaborative adaptation of those activities to middle school classrooms will help teachers gain comfort with STEM subjects and with socio-scientific ideas and with learner-centered pedagogy about these issues. In the context of this professional and curriculum development plan, the research team will address research questions designed to inform theory building. By working with teachers from multiple locations, the team will develop insights for how to adapt the inquiries to teachers' and students' local contexts.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.