SBIR Phase I: A program to develop scientific reasoning skills in K-3 students

这个小企业创新研究(SBIR)第一阶段项目旨在开发一个创新计划，以激发小学生？培养他们对科学、技术、工程和数学(STEM)领域的兴趣和热情，并为他们在初中和高中阶段的STEM教育以及以后的职业和生活中取得成功做好准备。该计划旨在培养基本的科学推理、解决问题和批判性思维技能，这些技能对21世纪的学术成就和劳动力准备至关重要。根据美国劳工统计局的数据，到2025年，美国每十个新创造的就业岗位中就有八个需要一些STEM技能。因此，这项创新解决了提高学生STEM熟练程度和改善我国经济健康状况的迫切需要。该项目简单的数学和科学内容是对标准课程的补充，而不是取代标准课程，使其对小学教师具有吸引力，并支持在美国各地的学校广泛分发。该项目的主要创新是一项新颖的STEM教育计划，旨在培养小学生的科学推理能力，远远早于他们在初中和高中开始密集的内容导向的STEM教育。该项目基于教育研究人员最近的两项观察：小学生的推理能力很强，科学推理技能对学生的学业成绩有长期的积极影响。SBIR第一阶段项目的成功成果将通过证明在普通小学环境中实施早期科学推理发展计划的可行性来扩展这一先前的研究。使用所有孩子在日常生活中可以获得的共同事实和知识，这个项目将帮助学生发展科学推理技能：观察、预测和比较、发展假设、设计实验和得出结论。在SBIR第一阶段项目的六个月期间，将开发该课程的原型，120名二年级公立学校学生将参加为期十周的试点课程，将评估学生和教师的接受水平，并将测试开展全面随机对照试验(RCT)以研究该计划有效性的可行性。

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project aims to develop an innovative program to spark elementary school students? interest in and passion for science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields and to prepare them for success in STEM education at the middle and high school levels and in their later careers and lives. The program is designed to develop basic scientific reasoning, problem-solving, and critical-thinking skills that are central to academic achievement and workforce readiness in the twenty-first century. According to data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, eight out of every ten new jobs created in the United States through 2025 will require some STEM skills. The innovation thus addresses a critical need to raise students' STEM proficiency and improve the economic health of our nation. The program's simple math and science content supplements rather than replaces standard curricula, making it attractive to elementary school teachers and supporting widespread distribution to schools across the United States.The project's primary innovation is a novel program of STEM education that aims to develop scientific reasoning skills in elementary school students, long before they start intensive content-oriented STEM education in middle and high school. The project is based on two recent observations made by educational researchers: that elementary school children are quite capable of reasoning processes, and that scientific reasoning skills have a long-term positive impact on students' academic achievement. Successful outcomes of the SBIR Phase 1 project will extend this prior research by demonstrating the feasibility of implementing the early scientific reasoning development program in a regular elementary school environment. Using common facts and knowledge available to all kids in their everyday lives, this program will help students develop scientific reasoning skills: observing, making predictions and comparisons, developing hypotheses, designing experiments, and drawing conclusions. During the six-month period of the SBIR Phase I project, a prototype of the course will be developed, 120 second-grade public school students will participate in a ten-week pilot course, students' and teachers' levels of acceptance will be evaluated, and the feasibility of carrying out a full-scale randomized controlled trial (RCT) to study the program's efficacy will be tested.