Building Middle School Students' Understanding of Heredity and Evolution

探索研究preK-12项目（DRK-12）旨在通过研究和开发创新资源、模型和工具，显著提高preK-12学生和教师对科学、技术、工程和数学（STEM）的学习和教学。DRK-12计划中的项目建立在STEM教育的基础研究和先前的研究和开发工作的基础上，为拟议的项目提供了理论和实证依据。该项目将开发和测试与下一代科学标准（NGSS）相一致的中学年级遗传和进化课程单元的影响。该项目将通过研究如何设计两个课程单元，将科学和工程实践、跨领域概念和学科核心思想（NGSS所描述的科学学习的三个维度）结合起来，从而推进科学教学。该项目还将开发资源，以支持教师实施新模块。计划中的研究还将检验学生对进化的理解是否取决于在学习进化之前学习遗传知识的时间和长度。这个早期设计和开发项目将开发两个新的为期三周的中学课程单元，一个侧重于遗传，另一个侧重于进化。这些单元将包括嵌入式形成性和总结性评估措施以及在线教师支持材料。这些单元将作为课程学习进程的一部分发展，最终将跨越小学到高中。本课程将整合遗传、进化、数据分析、科学解释的构建、循证论证、模式识别以及因果关系的推断。为了为单元的开发和反复修订提供信息，该项目将在全国范围内进行测试和试点测试，选择学生人口和地理位置范围广泛的学校。该项目将包括三轮测试和修订学生课程和教师教材。该项目还将调查学生对进化的理解，即他们的理解是如何受到遗传概念理解的影响的。本计划的研究主要围绕三个主要的研究问题：(a)如何设计两个课程单元，以结合科学学习和教育教师支持的三个维度，以指导学生对遗传和进化的概念理解？(b)学生对进化的理解在多大程度上取决于在进化单元之前的遗传课程的长度和时间？(c)学生如何学习遗传和进化？该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The Discovery Research preK-12 program (DRK-12) seeks to significantly enhance the learning and teaching of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) by preK-12 students and teachers, through research and development of innovative resources, models and tools. Projects in the DRK-12 program build on fundamental research in STEM education and prior research and development efforts that provide theoretical and empirical justification for proposed projects. This project will develop and test the impact of heredity and evolution curriculum units for middle school grades that are aligned with the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). The project will advance science teaching by investigating the ways in which two curriculum units can be designed to incorporate science and engineering practices, cross-cutting concepts, and disciplinary core ideas, the three dimensions of science learning described by the NGSS. The project will also develop resources to support teachers in implementation of the new modules. The planned research will also examine whether student understanding of evolution depends on the length and time of exposure to learning about heredity prior to learning about evolution. This Early Stage Design and Development project will develop two new 3-week middle school curriculum units, with one focusing on heredity and the other focusing on evolution. The units will include embedded formative and summative assessment measures and online teacher support materials. These units will be developed as part of a curriculum learning progression that will eventually span the elementary grades through high school. This curriculum learning progression will integrate heredity, evolution, data analysis, construction of scientific explanations, evidence-based argumentation, pattern recognition, and inferring cause and effect relationships. To inform development and iterative revisions of the units, the project will conduct nation-wide beta and pilot tests, selecting schools with broad ranges of student demographics and geographical locations. The project will include three rounds of testing and revision of both the student curriculum and teacher materials. The project will also investigate student understanding of evolution in terms of how their understanding is impacted by conceptual understanding of heredity. The research to be conducted by this project is organized around three broad research questions: (a) In what ways can two curriculum units be designed to incorporate the three dimensions of science learning and educative teacher supports to guide students' conceptual understanding of heredity and evolution? (b) To what extent does student understanding of evolution depend on the length and timing of heredity lessons that preceded an evolution unit? And (c) In what ways do students learn heredity and evolution?This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.