CCMS Conference Participation, 2004
Association for the Education of Teachers of Science (AETS) International Conference, Nashville, TN, January 8-11, 2004
Curricula in the Classroom: Modules for Preparing Teachers to Evaluate and Modify Curriculum Materials. Edward L. Smith, David Fortus, Kristin L. Gunckel (MSU), Joseph Krajcik (UM), and Jo Ellen Roseman (AAAS)
National Association for Research in Science Teaching (NARST)
Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC, April 1-4, 2004
Sessions/Symposia, Presentations, and Posters
Creating Components for the Next Generation of Curriculum Materials at the Intersection of Research and Practice: Processes that Shape the Earth. A. Caldwell and S. Kesidou (AAAS); Light. S. Kesidou (AAAS); and The Solar System. L. Kurth and S. Kesidou (AAAS)
Supporting Preservice and New Elementary Teachers with CASES. Elizabeth A. Davis, Debra Petish, and Julie Smithey (UM)
Aligning Science Assessment Items with Content Standards. George DeBoer and Lisa Ann Scott (AAAS & UM)
Science education reform efforts have prompted curriculum developers to align their materials closely with national content standards. But, despite these efforts, the goals of the reform movement will not be realized if student assessments are not also aligned with these content standards. High quality assessment items are needed in curriculum materials to probe student understanding of ideas in the content standards, and they are needed to determine the overall effectiveness of innovative curriculum materials and to conduct fine grained research on those materials. Project 2061 of the American Association for the Advancement of Science has developed a procedure for analyzing the alignment of individual assessment items to content standards. The procedure will be illustrated using examples from ongoing curriculum development projects. The results will demonstrate the need for using highly aligned assessment items when making judgments about what students do and do not know.
An Analysis of College Students' Conceptions of Molecular Genetics: Affordances and Constraints for Learning and Conceptual Change. Ravit Golan Duncan and Brian Reiser (NU)
Understanding concepts in molecular genetics is a crucial part of developing scientific literacy. However, learning genetics is challenging for students and most current instructional strategies fail to engender deep understandings of key concepts in the domain. We analyzed college students' conceptions of the nature of the genetic information and the mechanisms that mediate genetic effects with the goal of determining the ways in which students' conceptions affect their ability to learn novel concepts in the domain. Our preliminary findings suggest that students' conceptions of the nature of the genetic information are less constrained than the canonical scientific understanding. That is, students assume genes code not only for proteins, but also for structures and functions at other organization levels (cells and tissues). Furthermore, these conceptions do not feature proteins as a central mediator of genetic effects—a key concept in molecular genetics. Such understandings of the genetic information and the mechanisms that mediate its effects are less conducive to the comprehension of molecular genetic examples presented in class. Students often fail to interpret instructional examples as cases of protein-mediated genetic phenomena and provide mechanistic explanations of genetic phenomena that do include a reference to proteins.
Developing a Method for Determining Needs for Educative Curriculum. Jay Fogleman, Lisa Ann Scott, and Joe Krajcik (UM)
Advances in learning theory, the introduction of national and local standards that focus on both content and inquiry, and the introduction of accountability measures such as high-stakes testing have resulted in unprecedented pressure on teachers to improve science instruction in American classrooms. In order help address this pressure, researchers are developing curriculum units that focus on standards-based learning goals (McNeill et al, 2003). In addition to providing succinct learning goals based on standards and a coherent sequence of learning activities, these curriculum materials are also designed to be educative for teachers (Ball & Cohen, 1996), supporting their understanding of inquiry-rich learning environments with background information embedded in the unit's teacher's guide.
Exploring the Biographies of Prospective Secondary Science Teachers: Evolving Perspectives on Equity. Magnia George (UM)
The aim of this study was to explore and examine the influences on the philosophies of "science for all" held by science students preparing to become teachers of science. Biographical and phenomenological methodologies were used to elicit the perspectives of prospective teachers enrolled in a secondary science, mathematics, and computer science teacher education program that emphasizes pedagogical approaches for diverse learners. Qualitative interpretative content analysis was used to describe prospective teachers' views expressed during conversations about multiculturalism and equity issues in science education. These conversations revealed that prospective teachers undergo a type of situational dissonance, based on their own experiences as high-achieving and advanced students, and their evolving expectations for science teaching and learning. "Critical moments" such as these are indicative of the need for teacher educators to aid prospective secondary science teachers in reflecting on their prior knowledge and experiences to facilitate their reconstruction of a reformed vision of science education, one that includes a "science for all" philosophy. This paper introduces a dialogic conceptual framework that offers a roadmap for how this journey might be undertaken.
The Nature of Science in Curriculum Materials and Possible Implications for Achieving Scientific Literacy. Kristin Gunckel (MSU)
This paper characterizes the portrayals of the nature of science depicted implicitly through the activities in three different types of science curriculum materials. A set of criteria was developed to analyze the degree to which each curriculum material portrayed science as Category I) Facts and Concepts; Category II) Application and Reasoning; and/or Category III) Sociocultural Construction of Knowledge. The materials were also analyzed using the Project 2061 Instructional Materials Analysis criteria. Results show that the mass market text portrays the nature of science as fact-based-on-authority, while the material designed to enhance conceptual understanding portrays science as fact-based-on-authority but useful for model-based reasoning about phenomena. The material designed to provide more authentic science inquiry experiences portrays science as a sociocultural endeavor where scientific knowledge is constructed from evidence by a community of validators. Comparisons to results of Project 2061 analyses show that the material that rates highly using Project 2061 criteria does not engage students in many important aspects of the nature of science. Similarly, the material that engages students in the social construction of knowledge does not rate as highly using the Project 2061 criteria. This result has important implications for achieving scientific literacy.
Urban middle school students' use of various representations of chemical reactions. Mary Heitzman, Joseph Krajcik, & Elizabeth A. Davis (UM)
Power in Science Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Professional Development. Felicia Moore (MSU)
Mapping for Curriculum Coherence. J. Roseman, L. Kurth, S. Kesidou, and L. Stern (AAAS)
Curricula in the classroom: Modules for preparing teachers to evaluate and modify curriculum materials. Ed Smith, David Fortus and Kristin Gunckel (MSU), Joe Krajcik (UM), and Jo Ellen Roseman (AAAS)
Support for Discourse Practices in Inquiry Science: A Multidimensional Perspective. Carrie Tzou and Brian Reiser (NU)
A driving theme in current science education reform is inquiry as a way of teaching and learning science for all students. Students are engaged in complex cognitive tasks such as forming a research question and creating models. However, because science is a social endeavor that involves communication, inquiry may also require students to engage in unfamiliar social practices. Because of these social interactions, inquiry also challenges students to use language in new ways. I characterize inquiry as a Discourse that carries with it certain values, beliefs, and ways of viewing the world. Therefore, inquiry poses challenges to students on cognitive, social, and linguistic levels. In this study, I explore the ways in which we can analyze teachers' support of inquiry practices according to cognitive, social, and linguistic dimensions. I also look at how teachers vary in supporting these practices and how this variation can inform our understanding of inquiry practices as multidimensional. I propose an analytical framework for characterizing the ways in which teachers vary in their support of inquiry practices, and suggest that the major variation falls along three dimensions: cognitive, social, and linguistic demands of inquiry practices.
American Educational Research Association (AERA)
Annual Meeting, San Diego, CA, April 12-16, 2004
Symposia, Papers, and Posters
Science Teachers Becoming Adept with Promoting Inquiry Using Technology. William Bobrowsky and Joseph Krajcik (UM)
In this study, we explore the necessary components needed for success in using technology in classrooms and what that means for student achievement. One of technology's main issues, that of access, is solved by issuing a palm computer to each student. In addition, we center our palm use around established curriculum, and provide professional development on technology and learning to our teachers. This allows the teachers to engage students in inquiry learning using the palm computers and the applications designed for classroom use. In this comparative study of palm and traditional classrooms with the same teacher, we have found that teachers and students learn to use the technology quickly and that the work of students is more thoughtful. While there is no significant differences on their early test scores, we see successes in other ways, namely teacher motivation to engage in thinking about their own practice, and student work on some artifacts is of a higher quality than those of students in traditional classrooms.
Classroom Impact of a Handheld Modeling and Animation Tool. Hsin-Yi Chang, Lisa Scott, Chris Quintana, and Joseph Krajcik (UM)
This study introduces Chemation, a handheld application developed for middle school students learning chemistry concepts. We report on an initial study to examine the impact of Chemation on classroom activities and determine the added value over physical ball-and-stick models. Six teachers and their seventh grade students participated in this study. Data collected include classroom videos and observations, teacher and student interviews, and reviews of student artifacts (e.g., chemical models). The results of this study provide insight into future revisions for Chemation and the affordances and constraints of handheld tools for classroom activities.
Supporting Inquiry-Oriented Science Teaching: Design Principles for Educative Curriculum Materials. Elizabeth A. Davis and Joseph S. Krajcik (UM)
Science teachers must teach meaningful content while ensuring that all of their students are successful. To meet these expectations, curriculum materials have been suggested as a way for promoting teachers' learning. This paper focuses on the design of educative curriculum materials, asking, How can curriculum materials be designed to be most helpful for a range of teachers? Designers need to think systematically about how educative features may support teachers in engaging in particular learning processes and in addressing particular learning challenges. Toward these ends, the authors develop and provide rationales for an initial group of nine design heuristics. These design heuristics cover a range of teaching activities, in the arenas of subject matter knowledge as well as pedagogical content knowledge for science topics and science inquiry. The heuristics are grounded in the challenges teachers face and are illustrated by examples from existing curriculum materials intended to be educative for teachers. In light of these design heuristics, the authors conclude with an exploration of some of the challenges in the design of educative curriculum materials, such as the tensions between providing guidance and choice.
An Improved Framework for the Design of Inquiry-Based Learning Environments: The Synthesis of Learning for Use and Understanding by Design. Ravit Golan Duncan (NU) and Adam Tarnoff
Although recent education reforms have clearly articulated the desired characteristics of improved curriculum and learning environments (AAAS, 1993; NRC 1996), few systematic frameworks exist to guide educational designers in actually developing materials consistent with the proposed pedagogy. Furthermore, the existing design frameworks tend to be somewhat incomplete in that they each provide guidelines for a narrow subset of the curriculum design process leaving certain design challenges unanswered. We address this issue by aggregating and extending several existing sets of design guidelines and put forth a framework that we believe provides more comprehensive guidance for curricula materials design and addresses several design challenge not fully addressed by the component frameworks alone.
Reasoning with Scientific Data: How Do Middle School Students Coordinate Between Theory and Evidence? Elena Kyza and Daniel Edelson (NU)
Supporting Students' Construction of Scientific Explanations Using Scaffolded Curriculum Materials and Assessments. Katherine L. McNeill, David J. Lizotte, Joseph Krajcik, and Ronald Marx (UM)
We investigated the influence of scaffolding on students' scientific explanations over an eight-week middle school chemistry unit. Students received a focal lesson on an explanation framework and then completed investigation sheets containing explanation component scaffolds over the unit. Students received one of two treatments: Continuous, involving detailed scaffolds, or Faded, involving less supportive scaffolds over time. We analyzed their investigation sheets and pretests and posttests. During the unit, students in the Continuous treatment provided stronger explanations than those in the Faded treatment. Yet on the posttest for the items without scaffolds, the Faded group gave stronger explanations than the Continuous group for certain content areas.
Role, Goal, and Activity: How Context Influences Student Engagement in Scenario-Based Learning Environments. Virginia Pitts and Daniel Edelson (NU)
In this paper, we present a theoretical framework and methodology for examining the ways in which context influences student participation and engagement in scenario-based curricula. The framework is specifically designed for the analysis of scenario-based learning environments (such as Project-Based Curricula and Goal-Based Scenarios) in that it explicitly considers the influence of student role- and goal-adoption on participation and engagement in scenario-based activities over time. In this paper, we describe our methodology for conducting several case-studies in 8th-grade science classrooms in urban Chicago middle schools, and illustrate the use of our framework in the analysis of this case-study data. We believe our work will lead to an improved understanding of student participation and engagement in scenario-based learning environments.
The IdeaKeeper: Extending Digital Library Services to Scaffold Online Inquiry. Chris Quintana (UM)
Online inquiry is an important way of engaging learners in information-rich activities using online sources to explore questions in different fields, such as science. Online inquiry involves a set of interrelated activities, such as planning an investigation; seeking, analyzing, and making sense of online information; and synthesizing information into a final argument. However, learners may encounter several obstacles in trying to tackle an open-ended, complex process like online inquiry. Digital library services support information seeking, but do not necessarily support the full range of online inquiry activities. Therefore, using a learner-centered design approach, we are developing the Digital IdeaKeeper environment to extend digital libraries by integrating different tools and incorporating different scaffolding approaches to help learners effectively engage in online inquiry. IdeaKeeper provides an "online inquiry context" for the full range of online inquiry activities, supporting analysis of the articles found in a digital library, and synthesis of different resources to develop arguments addressing the questions they are investigating.
Managing Tensions in Supporting Students in Technology-Rich Investigations. Brian Reiser and Carrie Tzou (NU)
Research Issues in the Improvement of Mathematics Teaching and Learning Through Professional Development. Jo Ellen Roseman, George DeBoer, Linda Wilson, and Kathleen Morris (AAAS); Gerald Kulm, Vic Willson, Robert Capraro, and Mary Margaret Capraro (TAMU), Jon Manon (UDel)
The purpose of this paper is to describe a study we are conducting on the improvement of mathematics teaching and learning at the middle school level through professional development and to discuss some of the research issues that we have encountered in conducting the study. The paper will lay out the various rationales for our initial design and for the adjustments that we made along the way. We are nearing the end of year two of a five-year study, so this is very much a work in progress. The study is not large in terms of the number of teachers involved (approximately 50 teachers and 1,000 students per year in the early stages of the study), but it is a complex study involving many interconnected elements. In Part I we lay out the design of the study, and in Part II we discuss some of the issues that we are facing as we progress through our work.
Creating epistemologically-rich learning environments: Computer modeling tools for pre-service elementary and middle school teachers. Christina Schwarz, J. Meyer, and A. Sharma (MSU)
We report on a study in which we infused computer modeling and simulation tools in a one-semester undergraduate elementary science methods course in order to advance pre-service teachers' understandings of computer software use in science teaching, and in order to help them learn important aspects of pedagogy and epistemology. To accomplish this goal, pre-service teachers used computer modeling and simulation tools within their own science investigations during the semester, they discussed general technology issues, and spent four and a half hours at the end of the course working in pairs to investigate one of five modeling tools. Pre-service teachers also evaluated their particular tool, wrote a lesson plan using the tool, and taught another pair of students in the class about their tool. Analysis of pre-service teachers' journals, classroom videotape, classroom artifacts, and interviews with ten pre-service teachers after the course ended suggests several findings. Pre-service teachers greatly expanded their vision of the kinds of software available and role that computer software can play in science teaching. We found, however, that the strengths and purposes of the computer software were distinctly misaligned with pre-service teachers' desire for fun, easy-to-use software that provides scientifically accurate information within a clear and familiar learning task. Nonetheless, such conflict provided a fruitful platform for discussion and potential advancement of pre-service teachers' pedagogical and epistemological understandings.
Balancing Multiple Demands of Inquiry: A Multidimensional Perspective on Teachers' Support of Inquiry Practices. Carrie Tzou and Brian Reiser (NU)
Technology-supported inquiry practices introduce tasks with ambitious demands on students and teachers. We use an analytical framework that characterizes teachers' support of inquiry practices into cognitive, social, and linguistic dimensions and describe how different dimensions come to the fore depending on the teachers' perception of students' needs or the teachers' understanding of the task. We argue that while supporting students in inquiry, teachers need to balance the multiple demands inquiry places on both teachers and students. Teachers need to communicate rules for inquiry practices at all three levels at the same time as they give students opportunities to engage in the practices.
CHI 2004: Conference on Human Factors in Computing Science, Vienna, Austria, April 24-29, 2004
IdeaKeeper Notepads: Scaffolding Digital Library Information Analysis in Online Inquiry. Chris Quintana and M. Zhang (UM)
Online inquiry activities are important for K-12 learners to explore substantive driving questions in different areas, especially science. However, the inquiry process is complex for learners who need extensive support to mindfully engage in these activities. We are addressing this with the Digital IdeaKeeper, a scaffolded work environment for online inquiry. While online inquiry includes many different activities (e.g., planning, information seeking, synthesis), this paper focuses on supporting learners with information analysis so they can effectively read and make sense of articles they find in digital libraries. Here we spotlight scaffolded notepads, which connect to articles learners are reading in a browser. Notepads support learners by connecting their goals to their reading, guiding reflection and articulation, and implementing a framework by which learners' notes and articles are linked, saved and viewed together to aid with more seamless information management.
National Science Foundation (NSF) Annual Instructional Materials Development Principal Investigator Meeting, May 9-12, 2004
CCMS was represented by Jo Ellen Roseman (AAAS) at the Annual Conference of NSF-funded K-12 Mathematics and Science Curriculum Projects.
Interaction Design and Children Annual Meeting, College Park, MD, June 1-3, 2004
Classroom Impact of a Handheld Modeling and Animation Tool. Hsin-Yi Chang, Lisa A. Scott, Chris Quintana, & Joseph Krajcik (UM)
This study introduces Chemation, a handheld application developed for middle school students learning chemistry concepts. We report on an initial study to examine the impact of Chemation on classroom activities and determine the added value over physical ball-and-stick models. Six teachers and their seventh grade students participated in this study. Data collected include classroom videos and observations, teacher and student interviews, and reviews of student artifacts (e.g., chemical models). The results of this study provide insight into future revisions for Chemation and the affordances and constraints of handheld tools for classroom activities.
Demonstration: A Handheld Chemistry Modeling and Animation Tool. Lisa A. Scott, R. Zimmerman, Hsin-Yi Chang, Mary Heitzman, Katherine McNeill, Chris Quintana, & E. Soloway, (UM)
Chemation, a simple 2-D modeling and animation tool for handhelds (e.g., PalmOS computers), was developed to help teach important chemistry concepts, such as chemical reaction, conservation of mass, and the particulate nature of matter (as specified in national standards). Users build 2-D molecular models of substances and then, through a process of copying and modifying the model, create flipbook-style animations to illustrate various processes. Chemation is currently being piloted by teachers using a standards-based, inquiry-oriented 7th grade chemistry curriculum. The tool is intended to be an alternative or a supplement to current hands-on activities in which students build physical (ball-and-stick) models to represent various chemical phenomena. In this demonstration, we will show the basic functions of Chemation highlighting its important features-modeling and animation of chemical processes on a handheld tool. We will also show example student models of various chemical processes.
33rd Carnegie Symposium on Cognition: Thinking with Data, Pittsburgh, PA, June 4-6, 2004
Middle School Students' Use of Evidence and Reasoning in Writing Scientific Explanations Using Scaffolded Curriculum Materials and Assessments. Katherine McNeill and Joseph Krajcik (UM)
Recent science reform efforts and standards documents advocate that students develop scientific inquiry practices, such as the construction and communication of scientific explanations. This paper focuses on 7th grade students' scientific explanations during the enactment of a project based chemistry unit where the construction of scientific explanations is a key learning goal. During the unit, we make the explanation framework explicit to students and include supports or scaffolds in both the student and teacher materials to facilitate students' in their understanding and construction of scientific explanations. Results from the enactment show significant learning gains for students for all components of scientific explanation (i.e. claim, evidence, and reasoning). Although students' explanations were stronger at the end of the instructional unit, we also found that students' still had difficulty differentiating between inappropriate and appropriate evidence for some assessment tasks. We conjecture that students' ability to use appropriate data as evidence depends on the wording of the assessment task, students' content knowledge, and their understanding of what counts as evidence. Having students construct scientific explanations can be an important tool to help make students thinking visible for both researchers and teachers.
6th International Conference on the Learning Sciences (ICLS), Santa Monica, CA , June 22-24, 2004
Designing an Online Learning Environment for New Elementary Science Teachers: Supports for Learning to Teach. Elizabeth A. Davis, Julie Smithey, & Deborah Petish (UM)
We discuss the design principles guiding the design of the CASES learning environment for new elementary science teachers. We discuss the role that learning theory and empirical research play in informing design decisions, and provides examples of how the CASES design is informed by both. The first design principle, called guidance-on-demand, states that new teachers should be allowed the opportunity to request contextualized guidance when they need it. The second design principle, called images of inquiry, states that new teachers need multiple representations of inquiry-oriented science teaching to develop understandings of how inquiry plays out in the classroom. The third design principle, called social supports, states that new teachers need opportunities to share ideas and see role models that can inform their practice. We conclude with a discussion of how this design narrative can provide guidance for other designers of learning environments.
My World: A Case Study in Adapting Scientists' Tools for Learners. Daniel C. Edelson (NU)
In order to bring computer-based scientific investigations to classrooms, it is necessary to develop tools that are appropriate for learners. In prior research, we have developed a set of strategies for transforming inquiry tools used by scientists into tools that are appropriate for inquiry-based learning by novices. In this paper, I describe how these strategies are being applied in the design of a geographic information system for learners.
The Interest-Driven Learning Design Framework: Motivating Learning through Usefulness. Daniel C. Edelson & Diana M. Joseph (NU)
The Interest-Driven Learning Design Framework (IDLDF) provides guidelines for designing learning activities that achieve the benefits of interest as a motivator for learning. The IDLDF addresses two major challenges to the implementation of interest-driven learning. The challenge of covering learning objectives is addressed by establishing relevance . The challenge of insuring enough strength to motivate learning of all learning objectives is addressed by using other forms of motivation as context motivators.
Investigating Students' Collaborative Scientific Reasoning During a Natural Selection Investigation. Elena Kyza (NU)
Teacher Practices That Support Students' Construction of Scientific Explanations in Middle School Classrooms. David Lizotte, Katherine McNeill and Joseph Krajcik (UM)
We investigated the influence of scaffolding on students' scientific explanations over an eight-week middle school chemistry unit. Students received a focal lesson on an explanation framework and then completed investigation sheets containing explanation component scaffolds over the unit. Students received one of two treatments: Continuous, involving detailed scaffolds, or Faded, involving less supportive scaffolds over time. We analyzed their investigation sheets and pretests and posttests. During the unit, students in the Continuous treatment provided stronger explanations than those in the Faded treatment. Yet on the posttest for the items without scaffolds, the Faded group gave stronger explanations than the Continuous group for certain content areas.
Role, Goal, and Activity: A Framework for Characterizing Participation and Engagement in Project-Based Learning Environments. Virginia M. Pitts & Daniel C. Edelson (NU)
In this paper, we present a theoretical framework for examining the ways in which classroom context, in conjunction with individual student knowledge and beliefs, influences participation and engagement in project-based learning environments. An underlying design assumption of project-based curricula is that the goal and role motivate the learning of content, and that learning the content in pursuit of the goal leads to better content understanding. However, research to-date has not explored the extent to which the goal and role actually motivate student participation in practice. The framework we have developed is specifically designed for the analysis of project-based learning environments in that it explicitly considers the influence of student role- and goal-adoption on participation and engagement in project-based activities over time. We believe that this framework, as we continue to refine it, will prove useful for research on participation and engagement in project-based curricula. Specifically, such a framework will help with the identification and design of future lines of research, will facilitate comparison across diverse settings, and will provide a starting point for the integration of the results.
The Digital IdeaKeeper: Combining Digital Library Services with Support for Online Inquiry. Chris Quintana and M. Zhang (UM)
Major science education standards call on students to engage in inquiry-based science learning where they pose driving questions and collect, analyze, and synthesize information (National Research Council, 1996). Along these lines, we are developing the Digital IdeaKeeper , a scaffolded work environment integrating digital libraries with services and scaffolds to address the challenges learners face in online inquiry. The IdeaKeeper incorporates three overarching areas of support for middle-school learners by providing them with an integrated online inquiry environment that incorporates support for analyzing and synthesizing information they find in digital libraries.
Preservice Elementary Science Teachers' Rationales for Identifying with Particular Images of Inquiry. Julie Smithey & Elizabeth A. Davis (UM)
We discuss preservice elementary science teachers' reactions to reading two models of inquiry-oriented science teaching, or images of inquiry. These images were narratives describing teachers teaching particular lessons. Specifically, their rationales for identifying with one of the models are analyzed. These rationales fell into three categories: judgment of the image teachers' decisions, relating in some way to the image teacher, and sharing common circumstances with the image teacher. Half of the preservice teachers studied reported agreement with instructional decisions of the image teacher as the only rationale for identifying with them. The other half also considered issues of similarity of circumstance and whether or not they could relate to the image teacher. These rationales are examined and implications for using models of inquiry-oriented science teaching in teacher education are discussed. Specifically, the issues of providing models that are exemplary and situated for preservice teachers are discussed.
Inquiry Practices as Subsystems: Characterizing Important Elements of Reasoning. Carrie Tzou & Brian Reiser (NU)
Authentic practices of a discipline such as science, history, and literature are complex and difficult to design for, assess, and teach in classrooms. In this study, we explore what it means to break down these complex practices in the context of a middle school science curriculum in which learners are immersed in inquiry practices. We argue that there is a need for a close analysis of what it means to "do" inquiry: how inquiry practices can be broken down into smaller steps that make these practices more accessible to students, what types of reasoning are involved, and what teachers do to support these reasoning tasks. We use the theoretical perspective of epistemic forms and games as a tool for analyzing teachers' enactments of inquiry practices.
National Association of Biology Teachers (NABT) Annual Meeting, Chicago, IL, November, 2004
A Project-Based High School Biology Curriculum Uses Computer-Based Cell Culture to Support Inquiry Teaching in Chicago Public Schools. David Kanter (NU) & James Gallagher (MSU)
Technology can play a critical role supporting inquiry-based science teaching, especially in content areas such as cellular biology in which the phenomena about which we want learners to reason are invisible to the naked eye. In addition, cellular biology content often lacks a motivating context for learners. Conducting a series of hands-on experiments with a computer-based cell culture laboratory (and exploring the related lesson from our eight-week "Disease Detectives" curriculum), participants will engage in a dialogue about how a technology-enhanced, project-based approach to biology teaching may improve learning for mainstream high school students. In 2002-2003, 594 high school biology students in nine mainstream Chicago Public School classrooms used the "Disease Detectives" project-based curriculum. Students learned the core high school biology concepts of cellular structures and functions, energy processes of living things, and the chemistry of biology processes in the context of solving a medical mystery associated with coronary artery disease, a leading cause of death in the U.S. We will present preliminary results on student learning from the data collected during the 2002-2003 school year.
A Project-Based Middle School Curriculum Uses Students' Measurements of Their Oxygen Consumption to Support Inquiry Teaching in Chicago-Area Public Schools. David Kanter (NU) & Emily Kemp (Chicago Public Schools)
As the inner workings of the human body aren't easily observable by learners in middle school classrooms let alone experimented upon, it is difficult to teach this science in an inquiry-based way. In addition, human biology often lacks a motivating context that requires learners to build an understanding of the integrated function of the various body systems. In the context of redesigning their school lunch choices to meet their bodies' energy needs, learners in the eight-week "I, Bio" curriculum design a means by which to use physiological measurements taken from their own bodies to measure the energy used up doing work. Participants in the workshop will conduct hands-on experiments with computer-based sensor technology designed to make such measurements and explore the related lesson from the "I, Bio" curriculum. Participants will engage in a dialogue about how a technology-enhanced, project-based approach to teaching human biology may improve science learning for mainstream middle school students. Since piloting began in 2001, 24 middle school science teachers in Chicago and Evanston have taught 59 sections of the project-based "I, Bio" curriculum to 1,417 students. Students learned the core middle school science concepts about how the organs and organ systems interact to transform the energy in food into the work done by our bodies' cells. We will present preliminary results on student learning from data collected during the 2002-2003 school year.
National Science Teachers Association Conference on Linking Science and Literacy in the Classroom, Seattle, WA, November, 2004
Supporting Students in Creating Scientific Explanations. Workshop. LeeAnn M. Sutherland, Katherine McNeill, & K. Colson (UM)
