Restructuring Middle School Science around Grand Challenges

该项目旨在围绕流行病、气候事件和生物多样性减少等重大挑战（GCs）重组中学科学教育。这些重大挑战影响到人们的生活，并可能影响到全球下一代的未来。围绕重大挑战进行科学教育可以激励学生学习，并为科学课程和评估提供有意义的背景。通过参与围绕gc的单元，中学科学教师和学生将有机会处理真实数据，参与基于证据的论证，并参与解决重大挑战。此外，根据这些GC单元开发的一致评估将帮助教育工作者和研究人员缩小评估与教学之间的差距。本项目将创造新的知识，了解以gc为导向的学习经历如何影响中学生对科学的兴趣、参与科学的动机，以及他们对科学思想和能力的学习。作为一项与以色列学校背景的比较研究，该项目还将创造有关国家评估背景和教师经验如何影响以gc为导向的学习经验的制定和结果的知识。该项目将追求以下三个目标：1)开发四个GC单元（每个单元持续3-4周），并将相关评估穿插在七年级的科学中。2)与中学科学教师合作制定、研究和修订GC单元。3)研究与GC单元相关的学生成绩，以及影响中学科学GC导向学习体验可行性和质量的因素。将采用混合方法研究设计，将学生成果的定量比较与课堂行为和教师和学生观点的案例研究结合起来。由于以色列独特的国家评估环境，最近采用了与以gc为导向的教学相一致的评估，因此研究将在美国和以色列进行。GC框架和课程将纳入文化响应和可持续教学法的原则，以支持不同学习者的学习。该项目还将创建一个新的全球网络，用于重新考虑和重组科学教育，以便在一个迅速变化的世界中更好地满足教师和学生的需求。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 project aims to restructure middle school science education around Grand Challenges (GCs) such as pandemics, climate events, and diminishing biodiversity. The grand challenges affect people's lives and can impact the future of the next generations across the globe. Anchoring science education around grand challenges can motivate students learning and provide a meaningful context for science curriculum and assessment. By engaging in the units around GCs, middle school science teachers and students will have opportunities to work with real data, engage in argumentation based on evidence, and take part in solutions to the grand challenges. In addition, aligned assessments developed with these GC units will help educators and researchers to close the gap between assessment and instruction. This project will create new knowledge about how GC-oriented learning experiences impact middle school students' interest in science, motivation to engage with science, and their learning of science ideas and competencies. As a comparative study with the Israeli school context, the project will also create knowledge about how national assessment contexts and teacher experience shape the enactment of and result from GC-oriented learning experiences. The project will pursue the following three goals: 1) Develop four GC units (each lasting 3-4 weeks) with associated assessments to be interspersed throughout 7th-grade science. 2) Collaborate with middle school science teachers to enact, study, and revise the GC units. 3) Research student outcomes associated with the GC units and factors that impact the feasibility and quality of GC-oriented learning experiences in middle school science. A mixed methods research design will be employed to couple quantitative comparisons of student outcomes with case studies of classroom enactments and teacher and student perspectives. Because of Israel's unique national assessment context, which has recently adopted assessments that align with GC-oriented teaching, research will take place in both the US and Israel. The GC framework and curriculum will incorporate principles from culturally responsive and sustaining pedagogies to support learning among diverse learners. The project would also create a new, global network for reconsidering and restructuring science education to better meet the needs of teachers and students in a rapidly changing world.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 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.