CAREER: Teacher Knowledge, Beliefs, & Technology: Constructing Models of Change in Systemic Reform

本建议描述了一项研究计划，旨在探讨中学科学教师对嵌入式学习技术的探究性科学的知识、信念和态度与他们使用这些技术的课堂实践之间的关系。 本研究主要是关于教师转变的研究。 参与这项工作的教师是底特律公立学校大规模系统性变革计划的一部分，该计划由NSF赞助的底特律城市系统性计划（DUSI）和城市学校学习技术中心（LeTUS）联合进行。 在这种情况下，教师们都在学习如何使用新的课程材料和技术进行教学，他们接受了广泛的专业发展，以支持他们的学习。为了在以探究为基础的和技术增强的课程中取得成功，教师们需要学习新的科学内容（内容知识）;他们需要学习组织课堂的新方法（教学知识）;他们需要学习教授特定类型内容的新技术，例如使用建模工具帮助学生理解工厂燃烧的煤炭如何与空气结合产生酸雨，影响环境（教学内容知识）。 教师对技术的态度需要改变，他们对技术和新科学材料的自我效能感的信念需要提高。 DUSI和LeTUS试图通过包括认知（提供使用新方法的可行性和好处的证据），社会（学习和与同事分享）和上下文（提供系统支持的证据）机制的活动来帮助教师沿着这些维度进行改变。 目前，关于这些方面的变化如何单独或共同促进科学教学中技术的使用，人们还不太了解，本研究提出的主要问题是：1）教师对科学技术教学的知识、信念和态度是什么，它们如何随着时间的推移而变化？2)教师的课堂实践与技术有关，它们如何随着时间的推移而变化？3)教师的知识、信念和态度与他们的课堂教学实践和技术之间的关系是什么，这种关系如何随着时间的推移而变化？4)专业发展活动如何影响教师的知识、信念、态度和实践随时间的变化，以及如何重新设计这些活动以促进期望的变化？本研究旨在补充密歇根大学教育技术项目的教学计划。 本课程的学生将从教师的技术使用和认知的角度来探讨K-12环境中的技术研究。 这项研究也为研究生进行自己的调查提供了一个环境。这项工作对底特律的教师有直接的实际好处，研究结果将用于重新塑造专业发展活动，以更直接地解决他们在改革中的需求。

This proposal describes a program of research to explore the relationshipbetween the knowledge, beliefs, and attitudes held by middle school scienceteachers with respect to inquiry-based science with embedded learningtechnologies and their classroom practices with those technologies. At itsheart, this research is about the study of teacher change. The teacherswho will participate in this work are part of a large-scale systemic changeinitiative in the Detroit Public Schools, conducted jointly by theNSF-sponsored Detroit Urban Systemic Initiative (DUSI) and the Center forLearning Technologies in Urban Schools (LeTUS). In that context, theteachers are all learning how to teach with new curriculum materials andtechnology, and they receive a broad range of professional development tosupport them in this learning.To become successful with inquiry-based and technology-enhanced curricula,teachers will need to learn new science content (content knowledge); theywill need to learn new methods for organizing their classroom (pedagogicalknowledge); and they will need to learn new techniques for teachingparticular kinds of content, such as the use of modeling tools to helpstudents construct an understanding of how burning coal from factoriescombines with air to create acid rain that impacts the environment(pedagogical content knowledge). Teachers' attitudes toward technologyneed to change, and their beliefs in their own self-efficacy withtechnology and new science material needs to improve. DUSI and LeTUSattempt to help teachers change along these dimensions through activitiesthat include cognitive (providing evidence for the feasibility and benefitsof using new approaches), social (learning and sharing with colleagues),and contextual (providing evidence for the support of the system)mechanisms for change. There is little understanding at the present timeas to how these aspects of change work either separately or together tofoster the use of technology in science teaching.The main questions that this research asks are:1) What are teachers' knowledge, beliefs, and attitudes with respect toteaching science with technology, and how do they change over time?2) What are teachers' classroom practices with respect to technology, andhow do they change over time?3) What is the relationship between teachers' knowledge, beliefs, andattitudes and their classroom teaching practices with technology, and howdoes this change over time?4) How do professional development activities influence changes inteachers' knowledge, beliefs, attitudes, and practice over time, and howmight those activities be re-designed to foster desired changes?This research is designed to complement a program of instruction in theEducational Technology program at the University of Michigan. Students inthis program will approach the study of technology in K-12 settings fromthe perspective of teachers' technology use and cognition. The researchalso serves and as a setting for graduate students to conduct their owninvestigations.There are immediate practical benefits of this work for teachers inDetroit, where the results of the research will be used to re-shapeprofessional development activities to more directly address their needs inreform.