Studying Robust-Design Strategies for Developing Innovations Effective and Scalable in Challenging Classroom Settings

这个项目研究了通过“稳健设计”策略开发的以技术为基础的课程创新在多大程度上有效地提高了学生在一系列具有挑战性的课堂环境中的教育结果。为了极端的可扩展性而发展一种干预措施--甚至是在其成功的一些条件被削弱或缺乏的情况下--需要在其预期实施的部分内容缺失的情况下“强化”其效力。开发一项能够适应大多数学校场所的创新需要设计干预措施，使其在相对贫瘠的环境中保持相当大比例的有效性，例如许多城区，在这些环境中，创新成功的一些重要条件缺失或减弱。在这种情况下，创新设计的主要方面将不会按照开发人员的预期实施，因此发展稳健设计策略并研究使用这些加固策略产生的干预措施在不适宜居住的条件下的有效性是重要的。本项目将评估这样一种极端可扩展性的策略。本项目将通过对多用户虚拟环境(MUVE)课程在一系列背景下的大规模实施的基于设计的研究来评估这种极端可扩展性的策略。每年，稳健设计方法都将借鉴先前实施的结果，以开发和研究更坚固的版本，在极端条件下提高效率。通过这项研究，该项目将开发和验证复杂的方法，以确定MUVE对四个选定的、不同的情境条件(教师专业发展参与程度、班级规模、学生以前的成就和学生参与度)的影响的敏感性，并用于评估MUVE的整体有效性。该项目还将产生1)稳健的设计启发式方法，以增加基于技术的教育创新的坚固性和可扩展性，以及2)极端的实施战略，以帮助在减弱或不具备成功条件的情况下实施基于技术的教育创新。

This project studies the extent to which a technology-based curricular innovation developed through "robust-design" strategies is effective in increasing students' educational outcomes across a range of challenging classroom settings. Evolving an intervention for extreme scalability - even into contexts in which some of its conditions for success are attenuated or lacking - requires "ruggedizing" its efficacy when parts of its intended enactment are absent. Developing an innovation capable of adaptation into most school sites involves designing interventions that retain a substantial proportion of their effectiveness despite relatively barren settings, such as many urban districts, in which some of the innovation's important conditions for success are missing or attenuated. Under these circumstances, major aspects of an innovation's design will not be enacted as intended by developers, so evolving robust-design strategies and studying the efficacy under inhospitable conditions of interventions produced using these ruggedized strategies is important.This project will assess such a strategy for extreme scalability This project will assess such a strategy for extreme scalability through design-based research on large-scale implementations of a multi-user virtual environment (MUVE) curriculum across a spectrum of contexts. Each year, robust-design methods will draw on the prior implementation's results to develop and study a further ruggedized version with increased effectiveness in extreme conditions. Through this research, the project will develop and validate sophisticated methodologies for determining the sensitivity of the MUVE's impact to four selected, varying contextual conditions (extent of teacher professional development involvement, class size, student previous achievement, and student engagement) and for assessing the MUVE's overall effectiveness. The project will also generate 1) robust-design heuristics for increasing the ruggedness and scalability of technology-based educational innovations, and 2) extreme-implementation strategies for aiding with the enactment of technology-based educational innovations under attenuated or absent conditions of success.