GP-IMPACT: Improving Geoscience Education for Rural and First-Generation College Students through a Shared-Instruments Collaboration

GP-IMPACT：通过共享仪器合作改善农村和第一代大学生的地球科学教育

• 批准号: 1911347
• 负责人: Louis McDonald
• 金额: $ 30.6万
• 依托单位: West Virginia University Research Corporation
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2019
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2019-09-01 至 2023-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1911347&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: GP; IMPACT; Improving; Geoscience; Education

Part 1The West Virginia University's (WVU) Davis College of Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Design, Eberly College of Arts and Sciences Department of Geology and Geography, College of Education and Human Services and Center for Excellence in STEM Education are working together to develop regionally-relevant classroom activities and community-based participatory research projects to bridge the high school (HS) to college divide while creating the HS teachers needed to sustain such work past funding through WVUteach, WVU's HS STEM teacher preparation program. The researchers will create a new teacher licensure in Earth and Space Science (ESS) to increase the number of qualified geoscience teachers in West Virginia (WV) schools. The project brings together a leadership team with expertise in supervising undergraduate research and teaching in the geosciences, research on recruitment and retention to Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) majors and careers, and science teacher preparation provides a rich opportunity to develop a model of geoscience teacher development that can significantly change the way geoscience is taught in HS. The proposed evidence-based model assumes that students are more likely to engage in the geosciences if they have meaningful opportunities to engage with real-world problems using modern instruments incorporated into project-based instruction (PBI). If the model proves efficacious, the project team's close connections with UTeach leadership will allow dissemination throughout the 45 UTeach universities which currently enroll over 6,000 future STEM teachers, engaging this community in a potential long-term research project to study the impact on what is taught in geoscience classrooms and how that impacts students' choice of geoscience majors and careers.Part 2In 2017, over 50% of geoscientists at all degree levels (69% doctoral) reported having taken a HS geoscience course, demonstrating the importance of offering such courses at the HS level to participation in the field at the university level and beyond. The WV Department of Education adapted the Next Generation Science Standards and restructured the HS science curriculum to include an ESS class for all WV 9th graders. WVDE policy allows any teacher with science certification to teach ESS courses, as pathways to obtain ESS certification are limited. Yet teachers from other disciplines are unlikely to be able to expose students to geosciences career possibilities, and the largest producers of teachers in WV (including WVU) do not have an ESS Certification pathway. There is also a lack of direct access to analytical instruments that can connect PBI and 'real' science, in both HS and undergraduate courses. In a step toward solving this problem, this project will provide the WV teaching workforce with the ideal expertise to engage HS students in solving community-based problems through research projects using modern instruments incorporated into PBI to create a deeper sense of learning. These teachers' preparation will include utilizing PBI to engage HS students in conducting community-based research. Pre-service teachers will be prepared in undergraduate research, research methods and teaching methods courses to conduct in-situ geochemical analyses using portable X-ray fluorescence (pXRF) instruments to engage students in answering scientific questions, skills that they will bring to the classroom as pre-service and later, in-service teachers. Thus, teachers and students will be provided with access to easy-to-use, transportable devices to provide data relevant to many scientific questions of interest to students in the region. These devices will be shared in courses that prepare future geoscientists and STEM teachers and by teacher graduates, strengthening the geosciences pathway across HS and college. The proposed project will increase the number of HS students who arrive at college aware of geosciences majors and career opportunities by providing them with ESS teachers who can educate students about the nature of geoscience research and research methods. By integrating pXRF instruments into the proposed undergraduate research, research methods and teaching methods courses and into WV HS classrooms and creating a sense of place-based science, we will create a pipeline to encourage students to enter the geosciences. The project will enrich classrooms for mentor HS teachers who host participating preservice student teachers, providing these teachers professional development and exposing their students to enhanced community-based research projects using modern instruments, further increasing impact. This will be sustained after the project's conclusion as it will be embedded in the WVUteach program, producing licensed teachers prepared to engage their students in research.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.

第一部分西弗吉尼亚大学(WVU)戴维斯农业、自然资源与设计学院、埃伯利艺术与科学学院地质地理系、教育与公共服务学院以及STEM教育卓越中心正在共同努力，开发与地区相关的课堂活动和以社区为基础的参与性研究项目，以弥合高中与大学之间的鸿沟，同时培养维持此类工作所需的HS教师，过去通过西弗吉尼亚大学的HS STEM教师培训计划获得资金。研究人员将在地球和空间科学(ESS)创建一个新的教师资格证书，以增加西弗吉尼亚州(WV)学校合格的地球科学教师的数量。该项目汇集了一支在监督地球科学本科研究和教学、科学、技术、工程和数学(STEM)专业和职业的招聘和保留研究以及科学教师培训方面拥有专业知识的领导团队，为开发可显著改变HS教授地球科学的方式的地球科学教师发展模式提供了丰富的机会。拟议的循证模式假设，如果学生有有意义的机会使用现代工具参与到基于项目的教学(PBI)中来处理现实世界的问题，他们更有可能从事地球科学。如果模型被证明是有效的，项目团队与UTeach领导层的密切联系将允许在45所UTeach大学传播，这些大学目前招收6,000多名未来的STEM教师，让这个社区参与一个潜在的长期研究项目，研究对地球科学课堂上教授的内容的影响，以及这对学生选择地球科学专业和职业的影响。2017年，超过50%的所有学位水平的地球科学家(69%的博士)报告参加过HS地球科学课程，这表明在HS水平提供此类课程对于参与大学及以后的领域的重要性。西弗吉尼亚州教育部调整了下一代科学标准，并调整了HS科学课程，为所有西弗吉尼亚州9年级学生开设了ESS课程。WVDE政策允许任何拥有科学认证的教师教授ESS课程，因为获得ESS认证的途径有限。然而，来自其他学科的教师不太可能让学生接触到地球科学的职业可能性，而西弗吉尼亚大学(包括西弗吉尼亚大学)最大的教师生产者没有ESS认证途径。此外，在HS和本科课程中，也缺乏直接获得能够连接PBI和“真正”科学的分析仪器。作为解决这一问题的一步，该项目将为WV教师队伍提供理想的专业知识，通过将现代仪器融入PBI的研究项目，让HS学生参与解决以社区为基础的问题，以创造更深层次的学习感。这些教师的准备工作将包括利用PBI让HS的学生参与以社区为基础的研究。任职前教师将在本科研究、研究方法和教学方法课程中准备使用便携式X射线荧光(PXRF)仪器进行现场地球化学分析，以吸引学生回答科学问题，他们将作为任职前和之后的在职教师将技能带到课堂上。因此，教师和学生将能够使用易于使用的可移动设备，以提供与该地区学生感兴趣的许多科学问题有关的数据。这些设备将在培养未来地球科学家和STEM教师的课程中共享，并由教师毕业生分享，加强整个HS和大学的地球科学途径。拟议的项目将增加进入大学的HS学生的数量，他们知道地球科学专业和就业机会，为他们提供ESS教师，他们可以教育学生地球科学研究的性质和研究方法。通过将pXRF仪器整合到拟议的本科研究、研究方法和教学方法课程以及WV HS课堂，并创造一种基于地点的科学感，我们将创建一条渠道，鼓励学生进入地球科学领域。该项目将丰富指导教师的课堂，这些教师是参与的职前教师的东道主，为这些教师提供专业发展，并让他们的学生接触到使用现代工具的以社区为基础的强化研究项目，进一步增加影响。在项目结束后，这一点将持续下去，因为它将嵌入西弗吉尼亚大学教学计划，培养出准备让学生参与研究的合格教师。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。