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

国家改革运动呼吁本科生科学调查课程教师使用探究性原则设计和教授科学教学。这个天文学教育项目正在反复开发、实地测试和传播一种探究式教学方法，其框架是“倒退-脚手架”的概念，作为教学的首要主题。在这种方法中，学生被指导通过一些科学项目，在每个连续的项目中指导减少。减少的过程从过程结束时开始，向后进行，因此有一个术语叫“倒退脚手架”。这个项目是变革性的，因为教员需要专注于将科学作为探究教学的教学材料，同时又是可实施的。该项目的目标是：根据现代教学方法编写有效和易于实施的课程材料，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；确定学生利用“倒退的脚手架”参与探究对他们对天文学和科学探究的概念理解的影响程度；并通过专业会议报告、参考出版物、互动网站和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开发的成果和资源。评价方案是采用单组、多措施、准实验设计，探索学生增强内容的科学知识和探究能力。该项目的智力价值是反复创建和系统地评估一种创新的以探究为导向的教学方法，以便为本科STEM教育的研究文献做出贡献。更广泛的影响是为教授提供新的、适应性强的、经过良好评估的工具，用于与本科非理科专业的学生和未来的教师合作，在那里，大量不同的学生成功地进行有意义的和得到充分支持的科学研究。

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.