Crowdsourcing neuroscience: An interactive cloud-based citizen science platform for high school students, teachers, and researchers

当前学校科学教育的重点包括让学生参与科学实践和科学思想。该项目将通过开发一个基于云的平台来解决这一问题，该平台使高中生、教师和科学家能够在学校教室中进行原始的神经科学研究。在学生和教师使用该系统开始自己的研究之前，他们将通过提供自己的数据并与使用在线交互式系统的研究人员合作，参与现有的研究。当学生和教师体验了该系统后，他们将通过开发独立的调查并将其上传到互动平台，成为研究人员。学生发起和科学家发起的提案都将提交给平台，由学生和科学家进行同行评审，修改并纳入在线实验库。除了利用该平台进行自己的研究外，科学家们还将充当教育者和导师的角色，在实验库中添加可以作为学生模型的研究，并为教育资源中心提供科学内容。这个在线系统解决了科学教育中的一个关键需求，即让学生更充分、更真实地参与科学探究，在探索未知的过程中获得经验，而不是确认已知的东西。这项早期设计和开发研究以三个目标为指导：1)开发一个开放科学的公民科学平台，用于在课堂上进行人类大脑和行为研究；2)为高中开发一个远程神经科学学生-教师-科学家（STS）合作项目；3)评估该项目的设计、开发和实施及其对学生和教师的影响。在开发这个项目的过程中，项目团队将把两个迅速出现的趋势联系起来，一个是科学教育，另一个是科学。与当前科学教育的优先事项相一致，该项目将使学生和他们的教师参与到真实的、积极的探究中，通过利用他们进行真实的探究来学习科学实践，在这种探究中，对知识的探索是基于对原始问题的基于证据的答案。在科学方面，学生和他们的科学伙伴将通过预先注册他们的研究并在收集数据之前承诺分析计划来参与开放科学方法。在这个项目中，学生将主要使用反应时间和在线系统进行研究，包括研究他们自己的大脑功能。项目研究以三个研究问题为指导。一个在线公民神经科学STS平台如何：a)影响学生对神经科学和实验设计概念的理解和应用能力？b)影响学生对科学的兴趣和态度，包括对科学事业和应用的认识？c)影响教师对神经科学教学的态度，以及探究性策略的使用？以设计为基础的研究方法将用于与教师作为设计伙伴迭代设计可持续和可扩展的探究式神经科学课程。探索研究preK-12项目（DRK-12）旨在通过研究和开发创新资源、模型和工具，显著提高preK-12学生和教师对科学、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，为拟议的项目提供了理论和实证依据。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并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，被认为值得支持。

Current priorities in school science education include engaging students in the practices of science as well as the ideas of science. This project will address this priority by developing a cloud-based platform that enables high school students, teachers, and scientists to conduct original neuroscience research in school classrooms. Before students and teachers initiate their own studies using the system, they will participate in existing research studies by contributing their own data and collaborating with researchers using the online, interactive system. When experienced with the system, students and teachers will become researchers by developing independent investigations and uploading them to the interactive platform. Both student-initiated and scientist-initiated proposals will be submitted to the platform, peer-reviewed by students and scientists, revised, and included in the online experimental bank. In addition to conducting their own studies using the platform, scientists will act as educators and mentors by populating the experiment bank with studies that can serve as models for students and provide science content for the educational resource center. This online system addresses a critical need in science education to involve students more fully and authentically in scientific inquiry where they gain experience in exploring the unknown rather than confirming what is already known.This early stage design and development study is guided by three goals: 1) Develop an open-science citizen science platform for conducting human brain and behavior research in the classroom, 2) Develop a remote neuroscience Student-Teacher-Scientists (STS) partnership program for high schools, and 3) Evaluate the design, development, and implementation of the program and its impacts on students and tachers. In developing this project, the project team will link two quickly emerging trends, one in science education, and one in the sciences. Consistent with current priorities in science education, the project will engage students and their teachers in authentic, active inquiry where they learn scientific practices by using them to conduct authentic inquiry where a search for knowledge is grounded in finding evidence-based answers to original questions. On the science side, students and their science partners will participate in an open science approach by pre-registering their research and committing to an analysis plan before data are collected. In this project, students will primarily be using reaction time and online systems to do research that includes study of their own brain function. The project research is guided by three research questions. How does an online citizen neuroscience STS platform: a) impact students' understanding of, and abilities to apply neuroscience and experimental design concepts? b) Impact students' interests in, and attitudes toward science, including an awareness of science careers and applications? and c) Affect teachers' attitudes towards neuroscience teaching, and the use of inquiry-based strategies? A design-based research approach will be used to iteratively design a sustainable and scalable inquiry-based neuroscience curriculum with teachers as design partners. 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 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.