Building Environmental and Educational Technology Competence and Leadership Among Educators: An Exploration in Virtual Reality Professional Development

美国许多最脆弱的生态系统位于社区附近，K-12学校的教师和学生几乎没有培训机会。路易斯安那州湿地就是这样一个例子。关注这些受威胁的自然环境及其与洪水的联系，将把科学、技术、工程和数学(STEM)的概念放在现实世界的背景下，与生活在这些地区的学生联系在一起，同时整合虚拟现实技术。这项技术将使缺乏实地考察资源的农村和城市学校的学生沉浸在模拟的实地体验中。这一探索性项目将围绕三个具体领域提供多年暑期培训和学年支持，以支持当前初中和高中STEM教师的专业成长和发展：(1)以环境科学为主题的内容；(2)在课堂上实施虚拟现实(VR)；(3)为教师发展支持社区。这一项目的结果将促进教师在专业发展中最有效的组成部分的知识，以便将新知识融入课堂。该项目将为STEM地区的教师和学生带来与当地相关的虚拟现实体验，这些地区的妇女和少数民族在STEM中的参与率历来较低。通过与合作伙伴建立新的合作伙伴关系，该项目的成果将在非正式和正式的教育环境中广泛分享，包括提高公众科学素养和公共参与的公共外展活动。该项目将扩大对多层次专业发展计划对提高STEM教师自我效能的影响的理解。这个项目将增加与整个研究问题相关的领域知识：参加多年专业发展(PD)计划的农村和城市学校的中学STEM教师有什么经验？该项目将为路易斯安那州东南部的两组十名教师提供教学支持和PD。每年夏天，教师将完成为期两周的混合式学习PD培训，在学年期间，教师将参与行动研究社区，包括PD会议和每月的关键朋友小组会议。教师将在当地开展VR培训，以扩大教师将这一技术整合到课程中的基础，因此将采用纵向的岗前设计来分析所提出的方法是否会提高教师的自我效能感、教学实践、技术整合和领导力。该项目的发现将提高对如何将创新的基于地点的技术经验带入课堂并通过公共活动分享的理解。该项目由美国国家科学基金会的发现研究预科K-12(DRK-12)项目支持，该项目位于教育与人力资源局。DRK-12旨在通过研究和开发创新的资源、模式和工具，显著提高K-12学前班学生和教师的科学、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工作的基础上，为拟议的项目提供了理论和经验上的证明。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。

Many of the nation's most vulnerable ecosystems exist near communities with scant training opportunities for teachers and students in K-12 schools. The Louisiana wetlands is one such example. Focusing on these threatened natural environments and their connection to flooding will put science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) concepts in a real-world context that is relatable to students living in these areas while integrating virtual reality technology. This technology will allow students in rural and urban schools lacking resources for field trips to be immersed into simulated field experiences. This exploratory project will support the professional growth and development of current middle and high school STEM teachers by providing multiyear summer training and school year support around three specific areas: (1) environmental sciences themed content; (2) implementing virtual reality (VR) in the classroom, and (3) development of a support community for the teachers. Findings from this project will advance the knowledge of the most effective components in professional development for teachers to incorporate new knowledge into their classrooms. This project will bring locally relevant VR experiences to teachers and students in areas where there is historically low participation of women and underrepresented minorities in STEM. Through new partnerships formed with collaborators, the results of this project will be shared broadly in informal and formal education environments including public outreach events for an increase in public scientific literacy and public engagement.This project will expand the understanding of the impact that a multi-layered professional development program will have on improving the self-efficacy of teachers in STEM. This project will add to the field’s knowledge tied to the overall research question: What are the experiences of secondary STEM teachers in rural and urban schools who participate in a multiyear professional development (PD) program? This project will provide instructional support and PD for two cohorts of ten teachers in southeastern Louisiana. Each summer, teachers will complete a two-week blended learning PD training, and during the academic year, teachers will participate in an action research community including PD meetings and monthly Critical Friends Group meetings. A longitudinal pre-post-post design will be employed to analyze whether the proposed method improves teacher’s self-efficacy, instructional practices, integration of technology, and leadership as the teachers will deploy VR training locally to grow the base of teachers integrating this technology into their curriculum. The findings of this project will improve understanding of how innovative place-based technological experiences can be brought into classrooms and shared through public engagement.This project is supported by NSF's Discovery Research PreK-12 (DRK-12) program, in the Directorate for Education & Human Resources. 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.