MEDICAL MYSTERIES FROM HISTORY-- THE RECONSTRUCTORS

我们建议利用互联网的力量和网络游戏环境对中学生的吸引力来创造一种新型的科学学习资源。将医学发现的个案历史转化为“以问题为基础”的多媒体谜题，供学生解答。通过之前的研究，我们已经开发并实地测试了一个面向中学生的冒险系列游戏的工作模式。我们建议将该模式扩展到新的内容。学生将扮演一个在线重建者的角色，从过去寻找丢失的医学知识，解开特定疾病或医学发现的起源。每一集的学习目标将是多学科的。目标是通过参与虚拟实验，帮助学生建立发现的背景，并通过理解形成公共卫生政策所涉及的问题，使学生参与构建自己的知识。代表医学、生物学、科学史、教育和信息技术的经验丰富的团队将监督该项目，确保网站内容的完整性，并结合尖端技术。一个迭代原型的过程，重点关注教师和学生，将被用来使资源站点在教室、家庭和博物馆中令人兴奋、有教育意义和有用。实地测试将在代表社区横截面的学校进行，确保向目标人群适当提供材料。

We propose to leverage the power of the Internet and the appeal of on-line gaming environments for middle school students to create a new type of learning resource in science. Case histories of medical discovery will be transformed into "problem- based" multimedia mysteries for students to solve. Through prior research we have developed and field tested a working model for an adventure series that engages middle school students. We propose to extend the model to new content. Assuming the on-line role of a Reconstructor who seeks lost medical knowledge from the past, students will unravel the origins of specific diseases or medical discoveries. The learning objectives for each episode will be multidisciplinary. The goal is to engage students in constructing their own knowledge by participating in virtual experiments, by helping them establish a context for the discoveries, and by understanding issues involved in forming public health policy. An experienced team representing medicine, biology, history of science, education, and information technology will oversee the project, assuring the integrity of the site content, and incorporating cutting edge technology. A process of iterative prototyping, focusing heavily on teachers and students will be employed to make the resource site exciting, educational, and useful in classrooms, in homes, and in museums. The field tests will be conducted in schools, representing a cross-section of the community, assuring appropriate presentation of materials to target populations.