SBIR Phase I: Computer Science for All with Spreadsheet Modeling: Researching How Low-Cost Video Training for STEM Teachers Leads to High-Value Programming Skills for Students

该SBIR第一阶段项目将寻求解决如何将一种新的标准化方法整合到学生的计算机科学教学建模体验中，使用视频培训、教学材料和评估材料的组合，教师可以从在线平台访问这些材料。使用微积分或微分方程等数学方法，模拟现实行为的模型通常本身就很复杂。因此，许多教师没有认识到这些模型可以在电子表格程序上开发的许多可能的方法。虽然教师和学生已经可以访问并熟悉电子表格，但存在许多新的计算建模应用程序，可以从根本上改变学生学习科学、技术、工程和数学（STEM）作为独立学科的方式，将它们统一到一个教学建模体验中。该项目将开发和研究培训没有经验的教师的计算电子表格建模方法，旨在使教师能够通过亲自培训或开发和测试自己的学生经验，轻松地向学生传授电子表格建模经验。这将有助于根据下一代科学标准（NGSS）在课堂上扩大计算机科学的使用，并向高中生开放微积分和微分方程固有的现实建模能力，同时只使用代数方程。教师也将能够贡献新发展的想法，以获得作者的荣誉和补偿。本提案将寻求开发、调整和评估一种廉价的基于视频的示范和教师培训方案的有效性，目的是使这种教学方法能够快速、有效地向学生传授，并成为许多不同学校教师的自我采购。这将通过自动化培训来实现，以将成本保持在最低限度，并最大限度地节省教师的时间，并为电子表格上的计算建模的学生教学体验增加价值。对于典型的电子表格建模目标，学生遵循使用数值方法（如直线斜率，梯形面积，差分方程，欧拉方法）的程序，逐步在大量单元格（102-104）上建立一个真实的电子表格数学模型。通过这样做，与数值方法相关的误差远远低于与模型假设相关的误差，从而可以用线性假设对非理想的连续变化变量进行建模。电子表格的计算能力使线性化公式能够即时复制，当使用固定和相对的参考进行适当的模式时，可以产生数据透视表，其中的变量可以被学生利用查询和好奇心来研究他们从空白电子表格开始编程的模型而改变。通过构建各种与课程相匹配的应用程序，并使用经过仔细测试的教学法精心制作教学经验，教师将获得高价值技能，传授给学生，因此他们将能够首先编程，然后模拟，实验和解决STEM课程中各种新的定量电子表格建模场景中的问题。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。

This SBIR Phase 1 Project will seek to solve the problem of how to incorporate a new and standardized approach to computer science instructional modeling experiences for students using a combination of video training, instructional materials, and assessment materials that can be accessed by teachers from an online platform. Models that simulate realistic behavior are usually inherently complex using mathematics such as calculus or differential equations. As a result, many teachers do not recognize the many possible ways that these models can be developed on spreadsheet programs. While teachers and students already can access and have baseline familiarity with spreadsheets, there exists many new computational modeling applications that can fundamentally change the nature of the way students learn Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) as separate subjects by unifying them into one instructional modeling experience. This project will develop and investigate methods of training inexperienced teachers in computational spreadsheet modeling that are designed to enable easy to follow pathways for teachers to deliver spreadsheet modeling experiences to their students with in-person training or having to develop and test their own student experiences. This will serve to expand the use of computer science in classrooms in compliance with the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and open the realistic modeling capability intrinsic to calculus and differential equations, to high school students while exclusively using algebraic equations. Teachers will also be able to contribute newly developed ideas for authorship credit and compensation. This proposal will seek to develop, adapt, and assess the effectiveness of an inexpensive video-based demonstration and teacher training regimen that is intended to make delivering this instructional methodology to students happen quickly, efficiently and become self-sourcing by teachers from many different schools. This will be done by automating the training to keep cost to a minimum and maximize teacher time savings and the value added to the student instructional experience of computational modeling on a spreadsheet. For typical spreadsheet modeling objective students follow procedures employing numerical methods (such as slope of lines, areas of trapezoids, difference equations, Euler's Method) incrementally over large numbers of cells (102-104) to build a realistic mathematical model on a spreadsheet. By doing this, the error associated with the numerical approach drops well below the error associated with model assumptions making it possible to model non-ideal continually changing variables with linearity assumptions. The computational power of the spreadsheet enables instantaneous replication of the linearized formulas, which when pattered properly with fixed and relative references, can produce pivot tables in which variables can be altered by students using inquiry and curiosity to investigate a model that they programmed starting from a blank spreadsheet. By building from a variety of curriculum aligned applications and crafting the instructional experience using a carefully tested pedagogy, teachers will be provided with high value skills to pass on to their students, so they will be able to first program, then simulate, experiment and solve problems on a variety of new quantitative spreadsheet modeling scenarios in STEM classes.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.