ECR DBER DCL: Describing the Neurobehavioral Effects of Modeling-Based Instruction in Undergraduate Life Sciences Education

该项目旨在通过在本科生命科学教育中开展学习的神经生物学基础研究，为国家利益服务。这个1级STEM学习和学习环境项目旨在扩大对生命科学本科生基于模型的教学的影响人群以及他们如何受到影响的理解。建模对STEM专业至关重要，国家标准要求在各级STEM教育中进行建模教学。尽管行为研究表明，基于建模的教学增强了STEM学习，但在理解什么机制使其有效以及哪些学生从这种教学方法中受益最大方面存在严重差距。拟议的项目借鉴了认知科学中有关STEM专业知识的知识。具体地说，当学科专家与生物系统交互或创建生物系统模型时，他们不断地进行错误检查，以评估模型的可信度，同时阻止与任务无关的信息。在评估模型时，专家大脑的特定区域会被激活。这些区域包括外侧前额叶和前扣带回区域，它们与错误检测和抑制有关。这些观察表明，错误检查和抑制是发展STEM专业知识的不可或缺的大脑功能。然而，目前尚不清楚还不是学科专家的STEM本科生在基于建模的教学中是否使用类似的过程和相关的神经系统。错误检查和抑制是否会影响学生对学科和建模知识的长期记忆也尚不清楚。更深入地了解基于建模的教学如何使学生受益以及对谁最有效，可以用来开发更有效的STEM教学，以满足所有学生的需求。这个项目的目标是(A)描述生命科学本科生在模型评估过程中从事错误检测和抑制的性质和程度，以及(B)确定这些过程如何与长期知识保持相关。与学生的访谈将有助于描述错误检测的类型和程度。使用功能磁共振成像进行的大脑扫描将确定功能性神经反应。一年教学后的对比访谈和神经学扫描将确定发现错误的能力的差异如何预测概念性知识和基于模型的知识的长期保留。这项研究的结果将在研究会议上和通过同行评议的文献传播。这项研究将为生命科学本科生基于建模的学习教学案例研究的发展提供参考。该项目是由内布拉斯加-林肯大学和密歇根州立大学联合开展的，并得到了EHR核心研究(ECR)计划的支持，该计划支持推进STEM学习和学习环境的基础研究、扩大STEM的参与以及STEM劳动力发展的工作。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project aims to serve the national interest by conducting basic research about the neurobiology of learning in undergraduate life sciences education. This Level 1 STEM learning and learning environments project aims to broaden understanding of who is affected by modeling-based instruction in undergraduate life sciences, and how they are affected. Modeling is vital to STEM professions and national standards call for modeling instruction at all levels of STEM education. Despite behavioral work indicating that modeling-based instruction enhances STEM learning, there is a critical gap in understanding what mechanisms make it effective and which students benefit most from this instructional approach. The proposed project draws on the body of knowledge about STEM expertise from cognitive science. Specifically, as disciplinary experts interact with or create models of biological systems, they continuously engage in error checking to evaluate a model’s credibility and simultaneously inhibit information that is irrelevant to the task. Specific regions of the experts' brains become activated as they evaluate models. These regions include the lateral prefrontal and anterior cingulate regions, which are linked to error detection and inhibition. These observations suggest that error checking and inhibition are integral brain functions for development of STEM expertise. However, it is not known whether undergraduate STEM students, who are not yet disciplinary experts, use similar processes and associated neural systems during modeling-based instruction. It is also not yet known whether error checking and inhibition influence students’ long-term retention of disciplinary and modeling knowledge. A deeper understanding about how modeling-based instruction benefits students and for whom it is most effective may be used to develop more effective STEM instruction to meet the needs of all students. The goals of this project are to (a) describe the nature and extent to which undergraduate life sciences students engage in error detection and inhibition during model evaluation, and (b) determine how these processes are associated with long-term knowledge retention. Interviews with students will enable characterization of the types and extent of error detection. Brain scans using fMRI will determine the functional neural responses. Comparative interviews and neurological scans after one year of instruction will determine how variation in ability to detect errors predicts long-term retention of conceptual and model-based knowledge. Results from this research will be disseminated at research conferences and through peer-reviewed literature. The research will inform development of a modeling-based instruction case study on learning for undergraduate life science students. The proposed project is a joint effort between the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and Michigan State University and is supported by the EHR Core Research (ECR) program, which supports work that advances fundamental research on STEM learning and learning environments, broadening participation in STEM, and STEM workforce development.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.