CCE: A Learning Progression-based System for Promoting Understanding of Carbon-transforming Processes

该项目由密歇根州立大学、国家地理学会、科罗拉多州立大学自然资源生态实验室(NREL)、伯克利评估与评估研究(BEAR)中心和AAAS 2061项目的科学教育工作者领导，包括加利福尼亚州、科罗拉多州、马里兰州、密歇根州和华盛顿州的学校，建立在先前研究进展的基础上，重点关注多个尺度上社会生态系统中的关键碳转化过程，包括细胞和有机新陈代谢、生态系统能量学和碳循环、碳封存和化石燃料燃烧。该项目使用迭代设计研究过程来开发和改进一套工具，用于推理和测试这些工具在地理和文化不同的学校中的效力。项目团队是：1.完善和验证涵盖初中和高中阶段的详细学习进展框架；最终，该框架将描述学生使用物质守恒和能量守恒等基本原理在多个尺度上对碳转化过程进行推理的能力的发展。2.提炼推理工具，使隐藏的科学原理--物质、能量和尺度--对学生可见；这些工具的力量在于它们在不同的过程、系统、尺度和课程背景下的灵活使用。3.制定和完善灵活的教学策略，使学生在环境科学素养的实践中接受认知见习：a)探究和辩论，b)解释和预测，c)关于环境问题的决策。4.使用和改进现有的终结性评估，开发和测试形成性评估工具；这些评估工具将为教师和研究人员提供有关其学生智力资源的即时信息，并将与学习进展框架联系起来。5.开发、实地测试和评估使用项目工具和制定项目原则的六个中学和六个高中单位的有效性；这些单位向学生介绍基本原则，让他们参与在生物尺度、景观尺度和全球尺度上对碳转化过程的推理。每个单元包括a)在线形成性评估和b)使用工具进行推理和教学策略的活动序列。6.以面对面和便利的在线形式开发、实地测试和评估专业发展材料；这些材料向教师介绍环境科学素养、评估工具、推理工具、教学策略、教材和活动方面的学习进展，并解决教师在使用学习进展和制定教学战略方面遇到的困难。主要项目成果将是对科学教育系统各级专业人员--课堂教师、专业开发人员和课程、标准和评估开发人员--有用的协调教学工具。

This project--led by science educators at Michigan State University, the National Geographic Society, the Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory (NREL) at Colorado State University, the Berkeley Evaluation and Assessment Research (BEAR) Center, and AAAS Project 2061, and including schools in California, Colorado, Maryland, Michigan, and Washington--builds on prior efforts with learning progressions, and is focused on key carbon-transforming processes in socio-ecological systems at multiple scales, including cellular and organismal metabolism, ecosystem energetics and carbon cycling, carbon sequestration, and combustion of fossil fuels. The project uses an iterative design research process to develop and refine a suite of tools for reasoning and test efficacy of those tools in geographically and culturally diverse schools. The project team is: 1. Refining and validating a detailed learning progression framework covering the middle and high school years; ultimately, the framework will describe the development of students' capacity to use fundamental principles such as conservation of matter and energy to reason about carbon-transforming processes at multiple scales. 2. Refining 'Tools for Reasoning' that make hidden scientific principles - matter, energy, and scale - visible to students; the power of these tools lies in their flexible use for different processes, systems, scales, and curricular contexts. 3. Developing and refining flexible teaching strategies that engage students in cognitive apprenticeship in the practices of environmental science literacy: a) inquiry and argumentation, b) explanations and predictions, and c) decision-making about environmental issues. 4. Using and refining existing summative assessments, and developing and testing formative assessment tools; these assessment tools will provide teachers and researchers with immediate information about their students' intellectual resources and will be linked to the learning progression framework. 5. Developing, field testing, and assessing the effectiveness of six middle school and six high school units that use project tools and enact project principles; the units introduce students to fundamental principles, engage them in reasoning about carbon-transforming processes at organismal scale, and at landscape and global scales. Each unit includes a) an online formative assessment and b) activity sequences that use tools for reasoning and teaching strategies. 6. Developing, field testing, and assessing professional development materials in both face-to-face and facilitated online forms; the materials introduce teachers to learning progressions in environmental science literacy, assessment tools, tools for reasoning, teaching strategies, and teaching materials and activities, and also address difficulties that teachers encounter in using learning progressions and enacting teaching strategies.The primary project outcomes will be coordinated instructional tools that are useful to professionals at all levels in the science education system--classroom teachers, professional developers, and developers of curricula, standards and assessments.