LabWrite: Instructional Modules Utilizing the Lab Report to Help Students Write and Visualize Science

该大学的一个跨学科教师团队正在领导一项为期12个月的规划工作，为开发四个商业上可行的教学模块奠定基础，这些模块可以更好地利用实验室报告，为本科生在科学思维和沟通实践中做好准备，包括口头和视觉。在硬拷贝，基于网络和/或CD-ROM格式的不同组合中，每个模块都针对与实验室报告任务有关的特定人群：本科生（包括职前教师），研究生助教，教师及其各自的教学机构中心。在这一为期一年的努力中，PI从事：（1）描述国家对这些材料的确切需求，以便改进最适合满足这些需求的方法;（2）创建、试点、修改和现场测试教学助理的LabWrite原型;（3）与潜在的商业出版商建立关系;（4）为全面开发寻求进一步的资金。该单元的大部分内容将在1999年夏季开发，在介绍性化学部分进行试点，并在1999年秋季转化为基于网络的原型，并在2000年春季在介绍性化学，工程，地质和动物学部分进行实地测试。PI包括三位全国公认的科学和技术修辞研究人员，以及数学，科学和技术教育系的图形通信研究员。该项目小组将与该大学的科学、工程和设计学院的咨询委员会以及麻省理工学院（Leslie Perelman）和密歇根大学Leslie Olsen的两位杰出教师合作，他们正在各自的机构中领导科学和技术交流改革教学。LabWrite系列旨在覆盖基于实验室的科学和工程课程的所有专业，包括准备成为教师的职前教师和研究生助教。 LabWrite的大部分内容都是为基于Web和CD-ROM的交付而设计的。

An interdisciplinary faculty team from the University is leading a 12-month planning effort to lay the basis for developing four commercially publishable instructional modules that better utilize the lab report to prepare undergraduates in the practice of scientific thinking and communication, both verbal and visual. In different combinations of hard copy, web-based, and/or CD-ROM format, each module is aimed at a specific population concerned with the lab report assignment: undergraduates (including pre-service teachers), graduate teaching assistants, faculty, and their respective institutional centers for teaching and learning. During this 1-year effort, the PIs are engaged in: (1) characterizing the precise national need for these materials in order to refine the approach most suitable to meet those needs; (2) creating, piloting, revising, and field-testing a prototype of LabWrite for Teaching Assistants; (3) building relationships with potential commercial publishers; and (4) seeking further funding for full-scale development. Most of the content for this module will be developed during the Summer 1999, piloted in introductory Chemistry sections and transformed into web-based prototypes during the Fall 1999, and field-tested in this web-based format in introductory Chemistry, Engineering, Geology, and Zoology sections in Spring 2000. PIs include three nationally recognized researchers in the rhetoric of science and technology and writing across the curriculum as well as a graphics communication researcher from the Department of Mathematics, Science, and Technology Education. The project team will work with an advisory committee of science, engineering, and design faculty from the University and with two distinguished faculty from MIT (Leslie Perelman) and University of Michigan Leslie Olsen who are leading efforts (one NSF-funded) at their own institutions to reform instruction in scientific and technical communication. The LabWrite Series is being designed to reach all majors in lab-based science and engineering courses, including pre-service teachers and graduate teaching assistants preparing to become faculty. Much of their content of LabWrite is intended to be designed for web- and CD-ROM-based delivery.