Teacher Professional Learning to Support Student Motivational Competencies During Science Instruction

科学教师认为培养学生的学习动机是一项紧迫的需求，但教师专业学习计划很少花时间帮助教师理解和应用激励原则在教学中。这个项目将汇集一个由研究人员和科学教师组成的多学科团队，以确定一套科学教师可以很容易地纳入他们的规划和教学的做法。该项目将设计、开发和测试一种基于研究的专业学习方法，以帮助中学科学教师在科学教学中有效地支持和维持学生的动机能力。该方法将包括使用涉及学生动机过程和如何支持这些过程的材料、衡量学生动机能力的评估工具、课程计划工具和教师自我评估工具。转化为实践将包括承认学生的多样性，并考虑如何促进在实践中结合具体情况的纪律和激励知识。该项目将重点放在中学科学课堂上，因为这一时期是小学和中学科学学习之间重要的动机桥梁。该项目将加强对教师教学知识(PCK)的理解，因为它将有关支持科学动机能力的知识作为PCK，而不是一般的教学知识。该项目由发现研究PREK-12计划(DRK-12)资助，该计划旨在通过研究和开发创新资源、模型和工具，显著提高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。这一早期设计和开发项目将反复开发和研究一种教师专业学习模式，该模式将帮助中学科学教师创建、修改和实施教学，将对学生动机能力的支持与科学课程标准中规定的科学实践、交叉概念和学科核心思想相结合。以设计为基础的研究方法将被用来开发和测试四种资源，教师将使用这些资源来明确地将对学生动机能力的关注纳入他们的课程计划努力中。这些资源将包括：1)关于学生动机过程的教育材料，以及如何支持他们的具体例子；2)易于实施的学生评估工具，供教师衡量学生的动机能力；3)计划工具，将动机实践纳入科学课程计划；以及4)教师自我评估工具。一个由教育研究人员组成的协作小组将与来自不同学区的科学教师合作，共同开发专业的学习方法和资源。这个项目将通过将激励过程从教育学生的隐含元素转移到教师可以制定的一套明确和有目的的策略来促进系统的变化。研究问题将集中在教师如何回应新开发的专业学习模式，以及学生如何回应通过实施该模式而开发的教学。该奖项反映了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。

Science teachers identify fostering student motivation to learn as a pressing need, yet teacher professional learning programs rarely devote time to helping teachers understand and apply motivational principles in their instruction. This project will bring together a multi-disciplinary team of researchers and science teachers to identify a set of practices that science teachers can readily incorporate into their planning and instruction. The project will design, develop, and test a research-based professional learning approach to help middle school science teachers effectively support and sustain student motivational competencies during science instruction. The approach will include use of materials addressing student motivational processes and how to support them, evaluation tools to measure student motivational competencies, lesson planning tools, and instruments for teacher self-evaluation. The translation to practice will include recognition of student diversity and consider ways to facilitate context-specific integration of disciplinary and motivational knowledge in practice. The project will focus on middle school science classrooms because this period is an important motivational bridge between elementary and secondary science learning. This project will enhance understanding of teacher pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) in that it frames knowledge about supporting motivational competencies in science as PCK rather than general pedagogical knowledge. This project is funded by the Discovery Research preK-12 program (DRK-12) that 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 early stage design and development project will iteratively develop and study a model of teacher professional learning that will help middle school science teachers create, modify, and implement instruction that integrates support for students' motivational competencies with the science practices, crosscutting concepts, and disciplinary core ideas specified in science curriculum standards. A design-based research approach will be used to develop and test four resources teachers will use to explicitly include attention to student motivational competencies in their lesson planning efforts. The resources will include: 1) educational materials about students' motivational processes with concrete examples of how to support them; 2) easy-to-implement student evaluation tools for teachers to gauge students' motivational competencies; 3) planning tools to incorporate motivational practices into science lesson planning; and 4) instruments for teacher self-evaluation. A collaborative group of educational researchers will partner with science teachers from multiple school districts having diverse student populations to jointly develop the professional learning approach and resources. This project will contribute to systemic change by moving motivational processes from an implicit element of educating students, to an explicit and intentional set of strategies teachers can enact. Research questions will focus on how teachers respond to the newly developed professional learning model, and how students respond to instruction developed through implementing the model.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.