Engaging Non-Science Majors in Inquiry through Backwards Faded Scaffolding Approach to Learning

国家的改革运动要求本科科学调查课程教师使用探究的原则来设计和提供科学教学。 这个天文学教育项目是迭代开发，现场测试，并传播一个以探究为导向的教学方法框架的概念“向后褪色脚手架”作为一个首要的教学主题。 在这种方法中，学生通过一些科学项目的指导，减少指导，在每个连续的项目。 减少从过程的末尾开始，并向后工作，因此术语“向后褪色的脚手架”。“这个项目是变革性的，因为教师需要的教学材料，侧重于教学科学作为探究，同时是实际的实施。该项目的目标是：根据旨在提高非理科专业本科生和职前教师参与科学探究的能力的现代教学方法，编制有效和易于执行的课程材料;确定学习者使用“后退式脚手架”参与探究在多大程度上影响他们对天文学和科学探究的概念理解;并通过专业会议介绍、参考出版物、互动网站以及与出版社的合作伙伴关系，向天文学教学界广泛传播该项目的成果和资源。评价方案是采用单组、多测量、准实验设计，探讨学生科学探究内容知识的强化。该项目的智力价值是迭代地创建和系统地评估一种创新的探究式教学方法，以促进本科STEM教育的研究文献。更广泛的意义是为教授提供新的，适应性强的，和评估良好的工具，与本科非-科学专业和未来的教师，其中大量不同的学生成功地进行有意义的和完全支持的科学调查。

National reform movements are calling for undergraduate science survey course faculty to design and deliver science instruction using the principles of inquiry. This astronomy education project is iteratively developing, field-testing, and disseminating an inquiry-oriented teaching approach framed by the notions of "backwards faded-scaffolding" as an overarching theme for instruction. In this approach, students are guided through a number of scientific projects, with reduced guidance in each successive project. The reduction starts from the end of the process and works backwards, and thus the term 'backwards-faded scaffolding.' This project is transformative in that faculty need instructional materials that focus on teaching science as inquiry while at the same time are practical to implement. The objectives of the project are to: create effective and easy-to-implement curriculum materials based on contemporary teaching methods designed to increase non-science majoring undergraduates' and pre-service teachers' abilities to participate in scientific inquiry; determine the extent to which learners' participation in inquiry using "backwards faded scaffolding" impacts their conceptual understanding of astronomy and of scientific inquiry; and widely disseminate the results and resources developed in this project to the astronomy teaching community through professional conference presentations, refereed publications, an interactive web site, and through a collaborative partnership with a publishing house. The evaluation plan is to use a single-group, multiple-measures, quasi-experimental design to explore students' enhanced content knowledge of science and inquiry. The INTELLECTUAL MERIT of the project is to iteratively create and systematically evaluate an innovative approach to inquiry-oriented teaching in order to contribute to the research literature on undergraduate STEM education.The BROADER IMPACTS are to provide professors with new, adaptable, and well-evaluated tools for working with undergraduate non-science majors and future teachers where large numbers of diverse students are successfully conducting meaningful and fully supported scientific investigations.