Interactive STEM Education Competence in Teaching

在小学获得的数学和科学概念和技能是未来在STEM领域取得成功的基础，然而北卡罗来纳州东部和全国各地的学生都在努力在州和国家考试中表现出熟练程度。该项目旨在解决影响学生成绩的一个领域，即学科特定话语和论证的性质和作用。该项目的目的是实证探索沉浸式课堂模拟活动（ICSAs）对职前数学和科学教师话语使用能力和信心的影响。学生对学生和学生对教师的话语是基于标准的实践的关键组成部分，可以改善学习成果，也是标准文件中数学和科学教学实践的基本原则。教师通过提问促进解释和辩护，这对学生发展理解至关重要。话语是使内容对学习者有意义和相关性的关键因素，是参与、短期和长期学习成果和持久性的重要组成部分。传统的教学模拟活动，如点对点角色扮演，是有限的，简短的，具有挑战性的复制，以提供足够的练习，话语技能的发展。虚拟仿真提供了身临其境的交互式学习，并为考生提供了练习复杂技能的机会，这是典型的实地工作无法复制的，因此，可以实现基于实践的教师发展。这项纵向、混合方法研究将衡量使用icsa在方法课程、实践和实习中的影响，以提高学生的话语技巧，促进所有学生在数学和科学方面的学习和参与。当总体均值差为8.1，标准差为15.8，并且使用双侧双样本t检验（假设方差不相等），显著性水平（alpha）为0.050时，120个样本量达到80%的能力来拒绝等均值原假设。分析教师动作（ATM）工具将用于检查话语实践使用的言语行为（Correnti, et al., 2015）。ATM的结果将通过加权讨论评分（WDS）指南（Scherrer, 2013）和加权积极评分（WPS）来确定（Lee, 2016）。除了有机会在不让“真正的学生”在学习过程中面临风险的情况下发展教师实践之外，icsa的另一个好处是，可以更好地获得教师的实际学习，用于分析目的。该项目增加了利用数字媒体改进学习设计的研究，并开发了一个框架，使职前研究人员更好地准备在大学课堂上开发和使用话语。该项目响应了美国国家科学基金会（National Science Foundation）的“改善本科STEM教育”（IUSE）请求，征求关于“本科STEM教育面临的直接挑战和机遇”的提案，因为它涉及STEM学科内容和实践教师的准备。如果ICSA被证明是有效的，该项目将为全国的教师培训项目提供ICSA方案、指导方针和方法。这项重要的工作得到了IUSE项目和Robert Noyce教师奖学金项目的资助。

Mathematics and science concepts and skills acquired in elementary school form the foundation for future success in STEM fields and yet students in eastern North Carolina and across the nation struggle to demonstrate proficiency on state and national tests. This project seeks to address one area affecting student outcomes, the nature and role of discipline-specific discourse and argumentation. The goal of the project is an empirical exploration of immersive classroom simulation activities (ICSAs) on pre-service mathematics and science teachers' competence and confidence in discourse use. Student-to-student and student-to-teacher discourse are critical components of standards-based practices shown to improve learning outcomes and are also foundational tenets of mathematical and scientific pedagogical practices in standards documents. Teachers promote explanation and justification, critical for students to develop understanding, through questioning. Discourse is a key factor in making content meaningful and relevant for learners, an important construct for engagement, short- and long-term learning outcomes, and persistence. Traditional teaching simulation activities such as peer-to-peer role-play are limited, brief, and challenging to replicate to provide sufficient practice for discourse skill development. Virtual simulation provides immersive, interactive learning and gives candidates an opportunity to practice complex skills, which cannot be replicated with typical fieldwork, and thus, enables practice-based teacher development. This longitudinal, mixed methods study will measure the impact in methods courses, practica, and internship placements of the use of ICSAs on facility with discourse skills to promote learning and engagement of all students in mathematics and science. The sample sizes of 120 achieve 80% power to reject the null hypothesis of equal means when the population mean difference is 8.1 with standard deviations of 15.8, and with a significance level (alpha) of 0.050 using a two-sided two-sample t-test where the variances are not assumed equal. The Analyzing Teacher Moves (ATM) instrument will be used to examine discourse practices speech acts using (Correnti, et al., 2015). ATM outcomes will be determined with the Weighted-Discussion-Scoring (WDS) guide (Scherrer, 2013) and the Weighted-Positive-Scoring (WPS) adapted by Lee (2016). Along with the opportunity to develop teacher practice without placing "real students" at risk during the learning process, another benefit of ICSAs is improved access to teacher learning-in-action for analytical purposes. The project adds to a growing pool of research leveraging digital media to improve design for learning and develops a framework to better prepare pre-service researchers to develop and use discourse in their college classrooms. This project responds to the National Science Foundation's Improving Undergraduate STEM Education (IUSE) request for proposals addressing "immediate challenges and opportunities facing undergraduate STEM education," as it relates to the preparation of teachers of STEM disciplinary content and practices. Should ICSAs prove effective, this project will provide ICSA scenarios, guidelines, and approaches to teacher preparation programs across the country. This important work is supported with funding from the IUSE program and the Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship program.