Investigating Deliberative Argumentation in Large-Lecture Biology

现代生物学研究迅速产生新的、复杂的、广泛的信息。新知识的不断流动使得向未来的生物学家传授完整的知识体系变得不可能，更不用说教育有知识的公众了。相反，现代生物学教学越来越强调科学实践的教学，比如解释数据和从证据中辩论。这些主题一直是实验室生物学课程的范围。然而，将它们嵌入到大型入门讲座课程中有可能吸引更多的学生，特别是那些为了满足通识教育要求而参加入门课程的学生，以及那些为进入STEM专业做准备而参加第一堂科学课的学生。本项目将研究将慎重论证纳入大型生物课的方法和措施。慎重论证强调合作方法和积极寻找替代解释，这是研究科学家广泛使用的实践。教学生参与这些实践可以让他们“像科学家一样思考”，并鼓励他们坚持把科学作为大学专业，并考虑在STEM领域从事职业。大型的入门讲座课程通常是看门人课程，高失败率使学生不愿继续学习STEM专业。更令人不安的是，这些课程的不及格率对于代表性不足的少数民族学生来说往往高得不成比例。在这些课程中加入深思熟虑的论证是一种策略，可以帮助学生对他们学习的主题有一个概念性的理解，这反过来可能会帮助学生获得更好的成绩并通过课程，为坚持STEM专业提供动力。在课堂上推广改善科学教与学的做法，有助于让学生留在STEM领域，这符合培养知情公民和建设更大科学队伍的国家利益。这个为期三年的探索和设计项目的目标是增加关于科学家的修辞实践，特别是审议论证，如何在大型生物学课程中实施和利用学习核心概念的知识。使用Asterhan和Schwarz的论证学习框架，该项目将重点关注学生的个人特征（即有效参与论证所需的内容知识和技能），论证任务设计和支持（即教师脚手架和话语指导）。该项目旨在通过实现四个目标来确定在大型讲座生物学中应该如何组织审议性论证以支持学生的学习：1)优化课前活动以支持审议性论证；2)细化和论证课堂论证活动的可行性；3)制定和验证协商论证的措施；4)在本科生物大讲堂导论课程中进行论证活动试点。通过这样做，拟议的研究将为未来的功效和有效性研究奠定基础，通过建立在大型讲座生物学入门中以论证为学习方法的可行性和潜力。项目人员将采用准实验设计来确定有效的课前活动，为学生的论证做准备（目标1）。基于迭代设计的研究（DBR）方法将用于测试和改进大型讲座生物学的论证环节设计（目标#2）。该项目打算开发并验证审议论证的度量（目标#3），以通知迭代论证会议设计。项目工作将以一项试点研究结束，该研究将采用重复测量实验设计来确定论证干预的潜在影响（目标#4）。拟议中的研究将拓宽人们对“什么有效”的理解，以创建以学生为中心的本科大型生物学课程。具体而言，该项目将提供证据，证明两项课前活动在为学生主动学习指导做准备方面的有效性，并确定论证学习的关键教学支持。该研究的目的是通过创建一个稳健的和可复制的审慎论证的措施，以推进知识在论证领域。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。

Modern biology research rapidly generates new and complex expansive information. This flux of new knowledge makes it impossible to teach a complete body of knowledge to future biologists, much less to educate an informed public about biology. Instead, modern biology instruction increasingly emphasizes teaching of scientific practices, such as interpreting data and arguing from evidence. These topics have long been the purview of laboratory biology courses. However, embedding them into large introductory lecture courses has the potential to reach more students, especially those who enroll in the introductory courses to fulfill general education requirements and those taking their first science classes as they prepare to enter a STEM major. This project will develop approaches and measures to incorporate deliberative argumentation into large-lecture biology classes. Deliberative argumentation emphasizes collaborative approaches and active searches for alternative explanations, which are practices that are widely used by research scientists. Teaching students to take part in these practices lets them "think like a scientist" and encourages them to stick with science as a college major and to consider a career in a STEM field. Large introductory lecture courses often serve as gatekeeper courses, with high failure rates that discourage students from continuing in STEM majors. Even more troubling is that failure rates in these classes are often disproportionately high for underrepresented minority students. Incorporating deliberative argumentation into these classes is a strategy to help students develop a conceptual understanding of the topics that they study, which may in turn help students to earn better grades and pass the course, providing motivation to stick with a STEM major. Promoting practices in the classroom that improve the teaching and learning of science can help to retain students in STEM, which supports the national interest of developing an informed citizenry and building a larger scientific workforce.The goal of this three-year Exploration and Design project is to increase knowledge about how the rhetorical practices of scientists, specifically deliberative argumentation, can be implemented and leveraged for learning core concepts in large-lecture biology courses. Using Asterhan and Schwarz's argumentation-to-learn framework, the project will focus on individual characteristics of students (i.e. content knowledge and skills necessary to productively engage in argumentation), argumentation task design, and supports (i.e. teacher scaffolds and discourse instructions). The project is designed to determine how deliberative argumentation should be structured in large-lecture biology to support student learning by accomplishing four aims: 1) Optimize pre-class activities to support deliberative argumentation; 2) Refine and demonstrate feasibility of in-class argumentation activities; 3) Develop and validate measures of deliberative argumentation; and 4) Pilot argumentation activities in large-lecture introductory undergraduate biology courses. In doing so, the proposed research will lay the foundation for future efficacy and effectiveness studies by establishing the feasibility and potential of an argumentation-for-learning approach in large-lecture introductory biology. Project personnel will adopt a quasi-experimental design to identify effective pre-class activities for preparing students for argumentation (Aim #1). An iterative design-based research (DBR) approach will be used to test and refine the design of argumentation sessions for large-lecture biology (Aim #2). The project intends to develop and validate a measure of deliberative argumentation (Aim #3) to inform the iterative argumentation session design. Project efforts will conclude with a pilot study, which will apply a repeated measures experimental design to determine the potential impact of the argumentation intervention (Aim #4). The proposed research will broaden understanding about "what works" in creating student-centered undergraduate large-lecture biology courses. Specifically, the project will generate evidence regarding the efficacy of two pre-class activities in preparing students for active learning instruction and to identify key instructional supports for argumentation-to-learn. The study is designed to advance knowledge in the field of argumentation by creating a robust and replicable measure of deliberative argumentation.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.