Professional Development to Support an Elementary School Science and Integrated Language Curriculum

这个国家多样化和快速变化的学生人口统计包括英语学习者的增加，这是增长最快的学生人口。这种人口结构的变化凸显了促进和培养支持所有学生（包括英语学习者）学习语言的科学课堂的重要性。为了满足这一需求，该项目将严格研究科学与综合语言课程（SAIL），这是一个为期一年的五年级课程，与当前的科学课程标准相一致，重点关注英语学习者。SAIL的设计原则是基于当前关于儿童科学学习和第二语言习得的研究。课程包括四个单元，侧重于核心的、驱动性的问题(例如，我们的垃圾去哪儿了？（或为什么流星会落下？），以此来锚定感兴趣的关键物理和生命科学概念。SAIL课程最初是在先前的DRK-12拨款下开发的，使用了开发、现场测试和改进的迭代周期。该项目有三个主要目标。首先，该团队将制定一项教师专业发展计划，以支持课堂实施SAIL。其次，该项目将开发和验证研究干预措施及其对教师和学生的影响所需的工具。第三，进行准实验实地试验，评估SAIL干预对教师和学生的影响。该团队将花费第一年的时间来完善和迭代开发SAIL专业开发包，以及在现场试验中使用的措施。接下来是准实验研究，其中包括15所小学的治疗组。通过对学校、教师和学生的倾向性得分进行匹配，得到15所小学的匹配对照组。五年级科学教师将参加2年，而两组五年级学生将分别参加1年。措施将侧重于学生的科学学习，特别关注英语学习者和教师教学实践的观察。数据将使用多层模型进行分析，考虑学生嵌套在教师内部，而教师嵌套在学校内部。在项目完成时，团队将产生：(1)一份完整的专业发展计划，以支持教师实施SAIL课程；(2)严格研究干预措施及其对教师和学生的影响所需的措施；(3)通过严格的准实验实地研究，进一步证明SAIL干预措施对教师和学生的潜在影响。探索研究项目（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。

The nation's diverse and rapidly changing student demographics includes the rise of English learners, the fastest growing student population. Such demographic shifts highlight the importance of promoting and fostering science classrooms that support language learning for all students, including English learners. To help address this need, this project will rigorously study the Science and Integrated Language (SAIL) curriculum, a yearlong fifth-grade curriculum aligned to current science curriculum standards with a focus on English learners. SAIL is grounded in design principles that are based on current research on children’s science learning and second language acquisition. The curriculum includes four units that focus on central, driving questions (e.g., What happens to our garbage? or Why do falling stars fall?) to anchor the key physical and life science concepts of interest. The SAIL curriculum was originally developed with a prior DRK-12 grant using iterative cycles of development, field testing, and refinement. The project has three main objectives. First, the team will develop a teacher professional development program to support classroom implementation of SAIL. Second, the project will develop and validate the instruments needed to study the intervention and its impacts on teachers and students. Third, a quasi-experimental field trial will be conducted to assess the SAIL intervention’s impacts on teachers and students. The team will spend first year refining and iteratively developing the SAIL professional development package along with the measures to be used in the field trial. This is followed by the quasi-experimental study, which includes a treatment group of 15 elementary schools. A matched comparison group of 15 elementary schools will be obtained using propensity score matching at the school, teacher, and student levels. Fifth-grade science teachers will participate for 2 years, while two cohorts of fifth-grade students will participate for 1 year each. Measures will focus on student science learning with particular attention to English learner students and observations of teachers’ instructional practices. Data will be analyzed using multi-level models accounting for nesting of students within teachers which, in turn, are nested within schools. At the completion of the project the team will have produced: (1) a fully documented professional development program to support teacher implementation of the SAIL curriculum, (2) measures needed to rigorously study the intervention and its impacts on teachers and students, and (3) further evidence of the potential effects of the SAIL intervention on teachers and students through a rigorous quasi-experimental field study.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.