Building an Infrastructure for Research Collaborations

描述(由申请人提供)：植物研究和教育伙伴关系(PREP)成立，旨在促进高中生物学生、他们的老师和科学家之间的研究合作。科学家提供野生型(具有所有功能基因)和突变型(带有禁用基因)拟南芥植物的种子，教师和学生设计和进行调查，以帮助阐明禁用基因的功能。到目前为止，PREP已经在65名教师和30名科学家之间建立了多年的互惠互利的研究合作关系，涉及12000多名学生进行科学发现。预科课程还加强了学生在遗传学、植物生物学和科学探究方面的知识。然而，Prep在吸引学生进入农村学校和普通班级(与荣誉或高级课程相比)，以及确保学生在参与科学研究时发展科学推理技能方面面临挑战。在这里，我们建议开发PREP的新的和创造性的组成部分，使该国农村地区的学生和教师能够与地理上相距遥远的科学家合作进行研究，让参加普通生物学课程并被认为是“中等或低成就”的学生体验科学发现的兴奋，在整个调查过程中提高学生推理的复杂性，发展教师和科学家在合作进行研究时指导学生的能力，并确定这些活动是否以及如何影响(1)学生关于科学的知识、态度和信念以及他们的科学推理技能，以及(2)教师和科学家指导学生进行科学调查的能力。 我们建议通过建立PREP现有的基础设施来实现这些目标：参与的教师和科学家网络、项目网站以及我们的研究和评估结果。具体地说，我们将开发和形成性评估(阶段I)并传播总结性评估(阶段II)：(1)研究课程中新的预习和推理，(2)教师和科学家以吸引学生参与科学调查课程和导师教师计划的形式获得新的专业发展经验，以及(3)以虚拟互动和强化一个教师和一个科学家伙伴关系的形式的新合作战略。我们预计将有足够数量的学生参与，以进行准实验研究，以确定不同项目组成部分(即课程和协作战略)的影响，并确定当它们结合在一起时是否存在协同效应。 公共卫生相关性(由申请人提供)：建立研究合作基础设施将建立在植物研究和教育伙伴关系(PREP)现有基础设施的基础上，以鼓励成绩较差的高中生设计和进行生物医学界感兴趣的具有未知结果的新颖实验，确保学生在做出科学发现的同时学习生物学概念和科学推理技能，并建设全国各地的教师和科学家在科学研究方面指导学生的能力。通过这些活动，学生不仅可以增长他们的科学知识，而且还可以提高他们对科学作为一种思维方式和一个他们可以做出有意义贡献的领域的认识。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The Partnership for Research and Education in Plants (PREP) was established to foster research collaborations among high school biology students, their teachers, and scientists. Scientists provide seeds from wild-type (with all functional genes) and mutant (with a disabled gene) Arabidopsis thaliana plants, and teachers and students design and conduct investigations to help elucidate the function of the disabled gene. To date, PREP has established multi-year, mutually beneficial research collaborations between more than 65 teachers and 30 scientists, involving more than 12,000 students in making scientific discoveries. PREP has also enhanced student knowledge about genetics, plant biology, and scientific inquiry. Yet, PREP has faced challenges in engaging students in rural schools and general classes (vs. honors or advanced classes), and in ensuring that students develop scientific reasoning skills as they participate in doing science. Here we propose to develop new and creative components of PREP that enable students and teachers in rural areas of the country to collaborate in research with geographically distant scientists, engage students who are enrolled in general biology classes and considered to be "average or low achievers" to experience the excitement of scientific discovery, enhance the complexity of students' reasoning throughout their investigations, develop the capacity of teachers and scientists to mentor students as they collaborate in research, and determine whether and how these activities affect (1) students' knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs about science and their scientific reasoning skills, and (2) teachers' and scientists' abilities to mentor students in scientific investigation. We propose to accomplish these aims by building on PREP's current infrastructure: the network of participating teachers and scientists, project web site, and findings from our research and evaluation. Specifically, we will develop and formatively evaluate (Phase I) and disseminate summatively evaluate (Phase II): (1) new Pre-PREP and Reasoning in Research curricula, (2) new professional development experiences for teachers and scientists in the form of an Engaging Students in Scientific Investigation course and a Mentor Teacher Program, and (3) new collaboration strategies in the form of virtual interactions and intensive one teacher - one scientist partnerships. We anticipate involving sufficient numbers of students to conduct quasi-experimental studies to determine the impacts of different project components (i.e., curricula and collaboration strategies) and determine if there is synergy when they are combined. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE (provided by applicant): Building an Infrastructure for Research Collaborations will build on the existing infrastructure of the Partnership for Research and Education in Plants (PREP) to engage lower achieving high school students in designing and conducting novel experiments with unknown outcomes that are of interest to the biomedical community, ensure students learn biology concepts and scientific reasoning skills as they make scientific discoveries, and build the capacity of teachers and scientists across the country to mentor students in scientific investigation. Through these activities, students will not only grow in their science knowledge, but also in their awareness of science as way of thinking and as a field where they can make meaningful contributions.