CAREER: Job Embedded Education on Computational Thinking for Rural STEM Discipline Teachers

职业：农村 STEM 学科教师的计算思维工作嵌入教育

• 批准号: 1942500
• 负责人: Colby Tofel-Grehl
• 金额: $ 86.98万
• 依托单位: Utah State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2020-02-01 至 2025-07-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1942500&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: CAREER; Job; Embedded; Education; Computational

This project will develop a new way of engaging teachers in professional learning that is situated in their classrooms while they perform the tasks of their paid employment. Traditional professional development structures frequently place financial and professional pressures on teachers, which limits participation. Rural teachers in particular may have fewer opportunities due to barriers of distance, limited resources, and lack of available staff. In addition, they often rely on the income from second jobs to meet their financial obligations, meaning they are unable to take advantage of optional professional development opportunities offered after school hours, on weekends, or during summers because they cannot afford the lost income or travel time. Further, they are most likely to be underqualified and most likely to spend their entire teaching careers at their first district—prospectively teaching multiple generations of students from their community. The state of Hawaii has a high proportion of such rural schools and a shortage of STEM teachers — especially in the area of computer science. This project will investigate a professional development model using fading scaffolds (support that is gradually reduced over time) as part of participants’ paid summer school teaching. Through this model, 20 rural teachers will learn to integrate computational thinking, coding, and science content while working with students from their own communities, with 10 becoming master teachers supporting others throughout the state. Improving teachers’ ability to prepare students to benefit from opportunities in STEM and computing will advance students’ opportunities for future prosperity. This CAREER project will develop a professional development model that allows rural secondary teachers to learn and develop computational thinking related teaching skills with long-term support and scaffolds in place to both build their knowledge and the long-term capacity of their school districts. Using a design-based research approach, this project entails extensive participant interviews, video observations, and analysis of classroom artifacts. Cultural-historical activity theory analysis will be applied both collectively and within a comparative case study format to understand individual teacher development within the context of their own content and classrooms over time. These data will inform subsequent iterative design decisions to revise strategies and materials for greater meaningfulness and utility in supporting teachers' implementation of computer science and computational thinking applications. This project will enhance academic achievement of approximately 1000 students (predominantly Pacific Islanders, a group largely underrepresented in STEM fields with a unique cultural identity) in meeting the Next Generation Science Standards and Hawaii's computer science education standards. The CAREER program is a National Science Foundation (NSF)-wide activity that offers awards in support of junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research, excellent education, and the integration of education and research within the context of the mission of their organizations. This project is supported by NSF's Discovery Research PreK-12 (DRK-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.

该项目将开发一种新的方式，让教师在课堂上进行专业学习，同时完成他们的有偿工作任务。传统的专业发展结构经常给教师带来经济和职业压力，这限制了教师的参与。特别是农村教师，由于距离、资源有限和缺乏可用人员的障碍，机会可能更少。此外，他们经常依靠第二份工作的收入来履行他们的经济义务，这意味着他们无法利用课余时间、周末或夏季提供的可选专业发展机会，因为他们无法承受失去的收入或旅行时间。此外，他们很可能资历不足，而且很可能将整个教学生涯都花在他们的第一个学区——可能会教来自他们社区的几代学生。夏威夷州这样的农村学校比例很高，但STEM教师短缺，尤其是在计算机科学领域。本项目将研究一种专业发展模式，使用消退支架（随着时间的推移逐渐减少的支持）作为参与者有偿暑期学校教学的一部分。通过这种模式，20名农村教师将学习如何将计算思维、编码和科学内容整合起来，同时与来自自己社区的学生一起工作，其中10名将成为支持全州其他教师的大师教师。提高教师的能力，使学生从STEM和计算机领域的机会中受益，将为学生未来的繁荣创造机会。该CAREER项目将开发一种专业发展模式，使农村中学教师能够在长期支持和框架下学习和发展与计算思维相关的教学技能，以建立他们的知识和学区的长期能力。使用基于设计的研究方法，该项目需要广泛的参与者访谈，视频观察和课堂文物分析。文化历史活动理论分析将被集体应用，并以比较案例研究的形式来理解教师个人在他们自己的内容和课堂背景下的发展。这些数据将为后续的迭代设计决策提供信息，以修改策略和材料，从而在支持教师实施计算机科学和计算思维应用方面具有更大的意义和效用。该项目将提高大约1000名学生（主要是太平洋岛民，一个在STEM领域代表性不足的群体，具有独特的文化身份）的学术成就，以达到下一代科学标准和夏威夷的计算机科学教育标准。职业生涯计划是美国国家科学基金会（NSF）的一项全国性活动，旨在为那些通过杰出的研究、优秀的教育以及在其组织使命的背景下将教育和研究结合起来，体现教师学者角色的初级教师提供奖励。本项目由美国国家科学基金会发现研究PreK-12 （DRK-12）项目资助。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 -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。

项目成果

Rural teacher attitudes and engagement with computing and technology

农村教师对计算和技术的态度和参与

• DOI: 10.3776/tpre.2022.v12n2p179-196
• 发表时间: 2022
• 期刊: Theory & Practice in Rural Education
• 作者: Mendenhall, Melissa P;Tofel-Grehl, Colby;Feldon, David
• 通讯作者: Feldon, David

“There is no room for me, for a Hawaiian, in science”: Rightful presence in community science

– 对于我这个夏威夷人来说，科学没有立足之地 –：社区科学的合法存在

• DOI: 10.1002/tea.21849
• 发表时间: 2023
• 期刊: Journal of Research in Science Teaching
• 影响因子: 4.6
• 作者: Tofel‐Grehl, Colby

Designing STEM Classes for Hawaiian Youth’s Rightful Presence.

为夏威夷青少年的合法存在设计 STEM 课程。

• 发表时间: 2022
• 期刊: International Conference of the Learning Sciences
• 作者: Tofel-Grehl, Colby