RAPID: Science Teachers as Public Health Educators: How Has the COVID-19 Pandemic Reshaped the Roles and Experiences of K-12 Science Teachers?

根据地平线研究公司的研究人员的说法，当全球健康危机出现时，各级学生都会向他们的科学老师寻求信息，有时甚至是安慰。（人权网）。科学教师发挥着至关重要的公共卫生职能，并成为国家应对工作的重要组成部分。自2020年以来，美国数万名科学教师帮助学生应对SARS-COV-2和COVID-19的现实。这不仅包括支持新出现的科学学习机会，还包括在全球大流行期间担任公共卫生教育者和倡导者。国际人权通过先前的一个快速项目探讨了科学教师在大流行期间的早期作用，该项目表明科学教师与学生一起参与了与大流行和公共卫生教育有关的各种教育活动。然而，全球大流行已近两年，科学教育方面出现了一些新的课题，包括疫苗和长期免疫，这些课题在大流行早期无法评估。这项研究将进一步了解科学教师在公共卫生危机期间调整教学中所发挥的作用，他们如何在大流行的整个过程中处理新出现的想法，以及大流行对科学教师本身的影响。这项研究将建立在先前的快速奖（2027397），并返回到科学教师在这种情况下研究的样本。HRI将收集调查数据，以探讨以下问题：（1）疫情如何继续影响教师的科学教学（例如，教学时间，教学策略），以及这种影响如何变化？(2)关于COVID的教学是如何演变的？在COVID的背景下，他们采取了哪些新的主题（例如，疫苗）？(3)现在哪些因素对科学教师关于COVID的教学产生了最大的影响，这些因素与2020年春季起作用的因素有何不同？(4)疫情对科学教师本身有何影响，包括工作量的增加、专业成长/发展的机会、身心健康和工作满意度？ 使用计划行为理论，调查将被构建，以确定预测教师是否采取的主题的因素。调查还将收集有关教师如何处理病毒及其与学生传播的数据。HRI将按学校、班级、学生和教师层面的变量对调查数据进行分类，以确定学生机会的模式。调查数据将通过与50名调查答卷人的访谈加以补充，以收集与感兴趣的结构有关的更深入的信息。研究结果将立即通过一份侧重于调查数据的初步报告、通过从业者和研究组织的介绍和传播予以分享;向CDC和NIH提供政策简报，以承认科学教师作为公共卫生倡导者的作用，并鼓励这些机构向科学教师提供资源，以支持这一作用。12在学习研究部的计划。探索研究PreK-12计划（DRK-12）旨在通过研究和开发新的创新和方法，显着提高preK-12学生和教师的科学，技术，工程和数学的学习和教学。DRK-12项目中的项目建立在STEM教育的基础研究以及为项目提供理论和经验依据的先前研究和开发工作的基础上。该奖项反映了NSF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。

When a global health crisis emerges, students at all levels turn to their science teachers for information and, at times, reassurance, according to researchers at Horizon Research, Inc. (HRI). Science teachers serve a critically important public health function and become an important part of the nation’s response efforts. Since 2020, tens of thousands of science teachers in the United States have helped students grapple with the reality of SARS-COV-2 and COVID-19. This includes not only supporting the emergent scientific learning opportunities, but also functioning as public health educators and advocates in the midst of the global pandemic. HRI explored the early role of science teachers during the pandemic with a prior RAPID project, which demonstrated that science teachers were engaged in a wide variety of educational activities with students related to the pandemic and public health education. However, now nearly two years into the global pandemic, there are a number of new topics that have arisen to explore with respect to science education, including vaccines and long-term immunity that were not able to be assessed early in the pandemic. This study will further the field's understanding of the role that science teachers play in adapting their instruction during a public health crisis, how they address emergent ideas throughout the unfolding of the pandemic, and the impacts that the pandemic has had on science teachers themselves. The research will build on the prior RAPID award (2027397) and return to the sample of science teachers studied in that context. HRI will collect survey data to explore the following questions: (1) How does the pandemic continue to influence teachers’ science instruction (for example, instructional time, instructional strategies), and how has that influence shifted? (2) How has teaching about COVID evolved? What new topics (for example, vaccines) have they taken up in thecontext of COVID? (3) What factors now exert the greatest influence on science teachers’ teaching about COVID, and how do those differ from the factors at play in the spring of 2020? (4) What are the impacts of the pandemic on science teachers themselves, including manageability of workload, opportunities for professional growth/development, physical/mental wellness, and job satisfaction? Using the Theory of Planned Behavior, the survey will be constructed to identify factors that predict whether teachers take up the topic. The survey will also collect data about how teachers address the virus and its transmission with their students. HRI will disaggregate survey data by school-, class-, student-, and teacher-level variables to identify patterns in student opportunities. Survey data will be supplemented by interviews with 50 survey respondents to gather more in-depth information related to the constructs of interest. Study findings will be immediately shared through a preliminary report that focuses on the survey data; presentations and dissemination through practitioner and research organizations; and policy briefs to the CDC and NIH to acknowledge the role of science teachers as public health advocates and encouraging those agencies to make resources available to science teachers to support this role.This RAPID award is made by the DRK-12 program in the Division of Research on Learning. The Discovery Research PreK-12 program (DRK-12) seeks to significantly enhance the learning and teaching of science, technology, engineering and mathematics by preK-12 students and teachers, through the research and development of new innovations and approaches. 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 the 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.