CAREER: Representational Tools to Support Understanding of Complex Biological Systems

生命科学通常是关于理解复杂的系统--从人体系统到生态系统再到进化。这些很难理解，因为它需要了解结构如何与功能相关，以及系统的行为是什么。部件之间的一些相互作用是不可见的，并且具有使它们很难被感知的时序。即使是成年人也很难了解复杂的系统。然而，这样的理解往往对科学分析至关重要。这些困难可能会因为典型教科书中的静态描述而变得更加困难，这些教科书只关注结构，而不考虑动态行为和功能。教授复杂系统的一种可能的方法是使用从结构-行为-功能(SBF)理论中提取的概念表征，但我们需要首先调查人们如何理解复杂的生物系统。生命科学的大部分教学倾向于关注复杂系统的结构方面。我将使用这个框架开发静态(超媒体)和动态方法(模拟构造工具包，虚拟构造工具包-VCK)来帮助中学生学习SBF模式，特别是支持他们对系统行为和功能的理解。本研究涉及三个主要问题：1)理解一个复杂系统意味着什么？2)提供一个明确的概念表征(即SBF)如何支持对复杂系统的学习？以及3)动态表征工具(即超媒体和VCK)如何支持对这种概念表征的学习？该教案由三个主要部分组成。首先，将有机会为研究生和本科生提供研究指导，因为他们参与了研究和教学设计。其次，我将通过发展和加强现有的认知与技术、模型开发和科学推理的研究生课程，为硕士和博士课程的发展做出贡献。第三，这将对职前教师培训产生影响。由于VCK模型可以被用作了解儿童思维的窗口，这项工作将提供将被整合到职前教师教育中的背景。

Life science is often about understanding complex systems- from human body systems to ecosystems to evolution. These are hard to understand because it requires understanding how structures relate to functions and what the behaviors of the system are. Some interactions between parts are invisible and have a time sequence that makes them difficult to perceive. Even adults struggle to learn about complex systems. Yet such understanding is often critical to scientific analysis. These difficulties may be aggravated by the static depictions found in typical textbooks that focus on structures without considering the dynamic behaviors and function. One possible approach to teaching about complex systems involves the use of a conceptual representation drawn from Structure-Behavior-Function (SBF) theory but we need to first investigate how people come to understand complex biological systems. Much of life science instruction tends to focus on structural aspects of complex systems. I will use this framework to develop both static (hypermedia) and dynamic approaches (a simulation construction kit, the virtual construction kit - the VCK) to help middle-school students learn an SBF schema, and in particular, support their understanding of system behaviors and functions. This research addresses three main questions: 1) What does it mean to understand a complex system?; 2) How can providing an explicit conceptual representation (i.e., SBF) support learning about complex systems?; and 3) How can dynamic representational tools (i.e., hypermedia and the VCK) support learning about this conceptual representation?The teaching plan has three main components. First, there will be an opportunity for a research mentorship for graduate and undergraduate students as they become involved in research and instructional design. Second, I will contribute to masters and doctoral course development through developing and enhancing existing graduate course offerings in Cognition and Technology and Model Development and Reasoning in Science. Third, there will be an impact on preservice teacher training. Because the VCK models can be used as windows into children's thinking, this work will provide contexts that will be integrated into preservice teacher education.