CAREER: Exploring Authentic Inquiry: Factors that Influence Students

这是一个研究和教学发展的五年计划，调查本科生通过探究性实验室练习学习科学过程的情况。了解科学知识的产生过程是许多科学课程标准和框架的重要组成部分。大多数科学教育标准和框架强调，学生需要自己进行科学探究，以了解科学的过程。为了将这些标准应用到课堂上，有必要回答以下问题：1)过程：本科生可以在教学实验室进行科学探究吗？2)结果：进行科学探究练习在多大程度上有助于学生理解科学的过程？3)重要特征：活动的变化如何影响学生对过程科学的学习？本项目将在以前工作的基础上，在技术简单但教育意义丰富的红白酵母实验室的实验背景下探索这些问题的答案。红白实验室是基于一种经过工程改造的面包酵母菌株。当这种菌株传播到培养皿上时，它会产生一个中心为红色，边缘为白色的斑块。学生们得到了新鲜的盘子和无菌牙签；他们的辅助是使用这些工具来解释为什么中心是红色的，边缘是白色的。在本实验中，学生提出自己的假设和模型，根据自己定义的变量设计自己的实验，并解释自己的数据。他们争论日期和对数据的解释，并利用这些论点来完善他们的实验。在这个实验环境中，学生可以自由地以一种与真正的科学调查具有许多认识论特征的方式来构建知识。在过去的5年里，PI与初级生物学学生一起使用和开发了这个实验室。这个实验室的描述将在今年秋天出版，这个实验室将作为NSF资助的ResearchLink2000项目的一部分进行传播。PI在生物系的教学职责包括教授两个学期的普通生物学系列课程，助教培训，以及担任生物系的教育资源。红白酵母实验室是本系列第一学期课程的第一个实验室。这项研究的结果将为PI教授的讲座、实验室和助教培训的发展提供信息，并将在国际上分发。该项目将分析课堂录像带和访谈，从以下四个方面分析实验室的过程和结果：(A)科学证据的性质是什么？(B)假设和实验数据是如何相互作用的？(C)科学家如何应对异常数据？(D)科学界如何解决思想冲突？组成这一项目的五项研究是以上述三项为基础的；这五项研究中的每一项都将在不同的背景下讨论这三个问题。研究将从制定过程和结果的衡量标准开始。他们还将检查过程(学生做了什么)和结果(他们从他们所做的事情中学到了什么)之间的耦合。剩下的研究将集中在实验室练习的操作对学生过程和结果的影响。这些操作将涉及真实实验的关键特征：选择经验性问题和变量；设计实验；修改技术；以及使用多种经验方法。本提案中提出的研究结果将有助于理解本科生的科学推理，并有助于理解以探究为基础的实验室练习的设计和评价。作为这些原则和做法的典范，该项目将制作一个经过全面测试的实验室练习和配套的教师培训材料，旨在交流对科学过程的理解。

This proposal is a five-year plan of research and instructional development investigating undergraduate biology students' learning of the process of science through an inquiry-based lab exercise. Understanding the process by which scientific knowledge is generated is an essential part of many science curriculum standards and frameworks. Most standards and frameworks for science education emphasize that students need to engage in scientific inquiry themselves in order to understand the process of science. In order to apply these standards in the classroom, it is necessary to have answers to the following questions:1) Process: Can undergraduate students perform scientific inquiry in a teaching laboratory?2) Outcome: To what extent does perfroming a scientific inquiry exercise help students to understand the process of science?3) Important Features: How do variations in the activity affect the students's learning of the process science?This project will build on previous work to explore answers to these questions in the context of a technically simple but educationally rich lab exercise, the Red and White Yeast Lab. The Red and White Lab is based on an engineered strain of baker's yeast. When this strain is spread on a petri plate, it produces a patch with a red center and a white edge. Students are given fresh plates and sterile toothpicks; their assisgnment is to use these tools to account for why the center is red and the edge white. During this lab, the students make their own hypotheses and models, design their own experiements based on variables that they define, and interpret their own date. They argue about date and the interpretation of data and use these arguments to refine their experiments. In this experimental environment, the students are be free to contruct knowledge in a manner that shares many epistemological features with authentic scientific investigation. The PI has used and developed this lab for the past 5 years with introductory-level biology students. A description of this lab will be published this fall and this lab will be disseminated as part of the NSF-Funded ResearchLink 2000 project. The PI's teaching responsibilities in the Biology department include teaching the two semester General Biology series, TA training, and acting as an education resource in the Biology department. The Red and White Yeast Lab is the first lab in the first semester course in this series. The findings of this study will inform the development of the lecture, lab, and TA training as taught by the PI and will be distributed internationally. The project will analyze classroom videotape and interviews to analyze the process and outcome of the lab in terms of these four issues:(a) What is the nature of scientific 'proof'?(b) How do hypotheses and experimental data interact?(c) How do scientists respond to anomalous data?(d) How are conflicts of ideas resolved in the scientific community? The five studies that compose this project are based on the three above; all three questions will be addressed in different contexts in each of the five studies. The studies will begin by developing measures of process and outcome. They will also examine the coupling between process (what the students do) and outcome (what they learn from what they did). The remaining studies will focus on the effects of manipulations of the lab exercise on students' process and outcome. These manipulations will involve key features of authentic experimentation: choosing experiemental questions and variables; designing experiments;revising techniques; and using multiple experiemtal methods. The findings of the studies presented in this proposal will contribute to the understanding of scientific reasoning in undergraduate students as well as and to an understanding of the design and evaluation of inquiry-based laboratory exercises. As an exemplar of these principles and practices, this project will produce a throughly-tested laboratory exercise and accompanying teacher training materials designed to communicate an understanding of the process of science.