Preparing
the Next Generation of Curriculum Materials Leaders:
A Center
for the Design, Analysis, and Implementation of Innovative Science Materials
A Proposal
to the National Science Foundation for a Center for Learning and Teaching
with a Focus on Instructional Materials in Science
The
American Association for the Advancement of Science
Northwestern
University
The
University of Michigan
Michigan
State University
INTRODUCTION
We propose to create a Center for Learning and
Teaching (CLT) that focuses on critical research and development issues
related to improving curriculum materials for K-12 science. At the same
time, the proposed Center will help to foster a new generation of leadership
with specific expertise in the analysis of curriculum materials and in
their development, evaluation, and implementation. The American Association
for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), through its education reform initiative
Project 2061, will act as the lead institution and will coordinate the
programs and research of three doctoral granting institutions that have
extensive research, development, and training experience in areas that
are most relevant to curriculum reform. These partners are the University
of Michigan, Northwestern University, and Michigan State University, along
with Chicago Public Schools, Detroit Public Schools, and the Lansing School
District. The university partners will make a commitment to expand their
graduate programs in science education; devote more of their resources
to understanding the processes involved in the analysis, design, and implementation
of curriculum materials; and work closely with local school districts
to inform the work of the Center and to share the knowledge that is gained
with K-12 educators. The Center will focus on the three main goals of
the CLT solicitation: (1) to develop the national leadership infrastructure
at the doctoral and postdoctoral level, (2) to provide relevant inservice
and/or preservice training to teachers and other professionals, and (3)
to conduct research at the highest level on questions of national importance
relating to the Center’s mission.
The Need for This Center
There is a widespread belief in the education community that instructional
materials are a powerful way to affect what science is taught and how
it is taught. Instructional materials—technology-based materials as well
as traditional textbooks—are a primary source of science content, and
they promote specific views about the nature of science and about the
nature of science teaching and learning. For students, materials can provide
engaging activities and explorations of scientific phenomena, along with
helpful analogies, clear explanations, and accurate representations that
help students understand the underlying scientific concepts. Materials
can also help to contextualize the content that will be learned and to
pose questions that will help students to make connections among ideas
and to develop a more sophisticated conceptual framework. For teachers,
instructional materials can provide opportunities to increase their own
knowledge of science and of appropriate pedagogy (Schneider, Krajcik,
& Marx, 2000). Materials can also alert teachers to students’ prior
conceptions about specific content, suggest ways to activate students’
prior knowledge, and provide suggestions for scaffolding student learning
(Roth, Anderson, & Smith, 1987; Lee, Eichinger, Anderson, Berkheimer,
& Blakeslee, 1993).
While findings from cognitive science research offer suggestions for
the design of effective instructional materials (Bransford, Brown, &
Cocking, 1999), there is a growing concern that on many counts existing
instructional materials do not measure up. In its evaluations of middle-
and high-school science textbooks, AAAS’s Project 2061 found none of the
major textbook publishers provided a coherent approach to the content
or adequate instructional support for teachers (Kesidou & Roseman,
in press). In a separate study, Hubisz found similar weaknesses in physics
textbooks in a study sponsored by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation
(Review of Middle School Physical Science Texts, n.d.). Most textbooks
do not develop science ideas in a systematic manner that will help students
build rich understanding of key ideas. Moreover, most instructional materials
do not motivate students to learn science (Yager & Penick, 1986) or
make use of new learning technologies or innovative instructional strategies
(Krajcik, Blumenfeld, Marx, & Soloway, 2000). Most instructional materials
also fail to provide teachers with resources for continuous assessment
of students as they work toward attainment of lesson and topic objectives
(Gallagher, 2000). Without this feedback, both teachers and students lack
guidance in achieving the understanding of science that is set forth in
national and state recommendations. Hence, there is a need to develop
curriculum materials that align with recognized science education standards
and benchmarks and that take into account what is known about pedagogical
principles that foster science learning for all students regardless of
culture, race, or gender.
To produce and use these new instructional materials will require a new
generation of leaders in curriculum development, evaluation, and implementation.
These new leaders will need a deep understanding of science, of science
standards and benchmarks, of the classroom context within which science
teaching and learning take place, and the research literature on science
learning. They will also need a broad and flexible repertoire of pedagogical
and assessment strategies, the ability to apply insights from the language
arts in the teaching of science, the ability to evaluate instructional
materials, and the ability to apply design principles to the development
of new instructional materials. They must also understand how teachers
learn and how to design professional development experiences to help teachers
implement innovative materials and acquire more effective instructional
practices.
At present there is no coordinated effort that is focused on the broad
array of issues related to instructional materials. During a series of
conferences on curriculum materials held at AAAS, it became clear how
dispersed the knowledge base is in this area. In addition, there is no
central location where doctoral and postdoctoral level leaders are being
prepared to deal with the relevant issues. Nor are teachers being systematically
prepared to make use of research findings to select and implement curriculum
materials effectively while improving their own classroom practices. The
proposed Center will address these needs directly, while, at the same
time, increasing the nation’s capacity to create high-quality curriculum
materials that can help all students achieve science literacy.
Overview of the Project
We propose to develop a Center that will focus on instructional materials
design, analysis, and implementation. The Center will bring together scientists,
education researchers, teacher education faculty, and K-12 teachers from
two large urban school districts and one mid-sized urban district. It
will draw upon the resources of three major universities and AAAS’s Project
2061 to develop the next generation of instructional materials developers
who are knowledgeable concerning science content, cognitive science, pedagogy,
professional development, and assessment. The Center will prepare doctoral
level students in science education; it will offer a postdoctoral program
for individuals from a variety of science and education related fields;
it will impact preservice teacher education students through the modification
of science methods courses and beginning level courses in science education;
and it will offer professional development to teachers and administrators
as well as to a select group of teacher leaders. The Center will foster
communications about its work through summer institutes and year-round
activities for participants and others. The focus of all these activities
will be the design, analysis, and implementation of innovative curriculum
materials.
Northwestern University, the University of Michigan, Michigan State University,
and Project 2061 are ideally suited to develop such a center because of
their ongoing projects in the area of curriculum development and evaluation
and because of the contributions these institutions have made to the theoretical
understanding in the field. Project 2061 brings knowledge of the development
of research-based principles to evaluate and design instructional materials;
experience in the evaluation of instructional materials and in the preparation
of individuals who can carry out these evaluations; and experience working
with materials development groups that are using science education standards
and benchmarks and the AAAS materials analysis criteria as the basis for
the design and revision of their materials. Michigan State University
brings a rigorous approach to curriculum materials development that involves
cycles of research and development in which an approach to teaching a
specific learning goal or set of related goals is continually refined
and evaluated until successful student learning is reliably achieved.
Northwestern University and the University of Michigan bring their experiences
in the design of inquiry-based curriculum materials and the integration
of new learning technologies into instructional materials. Their current
materials design efforts involve the use of inquiry and learning technologies
as the route to in-depth understanding of scientific concepts and processes
specified in science education standards and benchmarks (AAAS, 1993; National
Research Council, 1996).
CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK FOR THE
CENTER
The Center’s programs are based on principles that are derived from the
research and development work of the partner institutions. These principles
form the intellectual core of the Center and shape its graduate, preservice,
and inservice programs and its research agenda. Students trained in the
Center should learn why these principles are central to instructional
materials development and should be familiar with the field’s major findings,
debates that frame modern curriculum design practice, and strategies for
addressing relevant issues as these principles are applied in their own
research and development efforts. In this section, we outline our conception
of these defining principles for instructional materials development within
the context of five overarching themes that will be at the heart of the
Center’s work: (1) the centrality of clearly stated science learning goals,
(2) the importance of building pedagogical supports into instructional
materials, (3) the usefulness of student investigations, (4) the value
of incorporating learning technologies into instructional materials, and
(5) the need to serve diverse learners by designing instructional materials
that are accessible to all students.
Science Learning Goals
To design high quality instructional materials, developers need to specify
the learning outcomes they have in mind for students. Over the past decade
a number of highly publicized efforts have been made to identify key goals
for student learning. Of particular interest here is the work of AAAS,
first through Science for All Americans (AAAS, 1989) and its vision for
scientific literacy for all, and then through Benchmarks for Science Literacy
(AAAS, 1993), which articulates important scientific ideas that should
be the target of instruction at each educational level (elementary, middle,
secondary). Similarly, the National Research Council’s National Science
Education Standards (1996) has defined critical learning goals in science
for all students. A related issue concerns structuring student learning
activity around student performances (Perkins, 1992; Wiggins & McTighe,
1998). The published standards and benchmarks specify what we want students
to understand, but they typically do not specify what we want students
to do with that knowledge. For each learning goal targeted, it is important
to identify appropriate ways in which students can use and demonstrate
their knowledge, such as explaining phenomena, finding patterns and forming
generalizations, and developing or critiquing analogies. Identifying these
cognitive processes is necessary to get at the deeper conceptual understanding
demanded by the standards and benchmarks.
Pedagogical Supports
Instructional materials can do more than present content to students;
they can also include pedagogical support for teachers and students, drawing
on research-based learning principles. Pedagogical support can be incorporated
directly into students’ materials as well as into materials intended specifically
for the teacher, such as teacher editions of textbooks. Some of the key
pedagogical supports that should become part of instructional materials
design include taking account of prerequisite knowledge and student misconceptions,
helping students appreciate the purpose of classroom activities and the
content they are learning, using representations of abstract ideas to
clarify their meaning, using phenomena effectively to make the ideas plausible,
employing investigations and discussions to help students make sense of
ideas, using continuous assessment and student feedback to inform instruction,
and enhancing the learning environment so that all students can experience
success.
Student Investigations
There is much interest in the scientific community in structuring students’
learning of science content in the context of observing natural phenomena
and investigating rich data. The National Science Education Standards
(NRC, 1996) recommends that inquiry be the preferred method of science
instruction. Students ask questions; plan experiments; and collect, analyze,
and share data. Investigations allow students to experience scientific
phenomena directly and to engage in certain aspects of scientific inquiry.
Students need to experience phenomena and work with models in order to
build mental images that will link to explanations and concepts. In designing
instructional materials, designers need to know how to carefully structure
experiences to help students develop these understandings. Work conducted
at the University of Michigan and Northwestern University explicitly addresses
the many complex issues around inquiry teaching including: (1) how to
contextualize student investigations in problem scenarios, (2) the role
of students’ intuitive strategies for engaging in scientific inquiry,
(3) ways to allow students to practice inquiry strategies in more constrained
teacher-directed settings, (4) how to use learning technologies to facilitate
student investigations, (5) ways to encourage students to distinguish
between data and conclusions and to offer evidence-based conclusions,
and (6) ways to use the results of student investigations as a basis for
assessment. This work will form the basis for much of the research that
will be conducted at the Center.
Learning Technologies
We refer to the use of computers, software, and peripherals that support
student learning as "learning technologies" (Krajcik, et al.,
2000). Learning technologies are not an end in themselves, but they can
provide added value by enabling students to access real scientific data,
provide them with powerful tools for data analysis, model the connections
between ideas, help them visualize data and see trends, and support communication
and develop products that demonstrate student understanding. Learning
technologies are cognitive tools that extend what learners can do in the
classroom, but they are not intended to replace either the teacher or
direct experience with natural phenomena (Smith & Reiser, 1998). For
the advantages of learning technologies to be realized, curriculum developers
must learn how to integrate these technologies into instructional materials.
Although some creative teachers will use learning technologies by themselves
in interesting ways, most teachers need more direct assistance in learning
how to use them and ongoing professional development to support that use.
Diverse Learners
Active engagement of students in their own learning makes extensive demands
on students, particularly when dialogue and collaboration are attempted
in diverse classroom settings (Moje, 2000). Students may bring particular
kinds of knowledge and experience that are unique to their cultural, ethnic,
and socioeconomic backgrounds (Moll, 1988), some of which conflicts with
science. Students may also lack the prior knowledge and experience necessary
to engage in dialogue and collaboration around particular scientific concepts
simply because they have not had access to certain experiences (Rodriguez,
1997). In addition, students may not be accustomed to explaining their
reasoning, and thus a teacher’s request to do so may appear confusing,
or even insulting (Akatugba & Wallace, 1999). Adding to the confusion,
students encounter the language and ways of thinking of a variety of disciplines
throughout the school day. Students move from language arts to science
to history class, experiencing different terms, concepts, and ways of
communicating. The texts encountered in each classroom present not only
vocabulary unique to each discipline, but also different ways of examining
and documenting experience (Gee, 1996; Lemke, 1990). Instructional materials
developers must recognize the diversity of knowledge, learning needs,
and experience, as well as social and cultural backgrounds, that young
people bring to the classroom. They must also recognize that students
will vary in the familiarity they have with the discursive styles and
assessment techniques that they will encounter in science classrooms and
seek ways to build materials that are accessible to all students. (Anderson,
Holland, & Palincsar, 1997; Gallagher, 1996; Smith & Anderson,
1999).
DESCRIPTION OF THE CENTER’S PROGRAMS
The Doctoral Program
The Center will help the participating institutions work together to
design an innovative graduate program focused on instructional materials.
A total of 30 doctoral students will be supported by this grant, 10 at
each of the graduate institutions. Students will typically be supported
for three years under this grant for a total of 90 student-years for the
entire Center. Although we expect this program to be implemented as tracks
or specializations within the existing science education or learning sciences
programs in each university, all the programs will be aligned with a common
set of core elements. The four partners will work together to design a
set of coordinated recruiting strategies, admission standards, and graduation
requirements. We will develop common core courses, research expectations,
and instructional materials development experiences for all doctoral students
supported by the Center. We will share existing resources and resources
developed at the Center sites, such as annotated curriculum examples,
video examples of teaching practices, and examples of clinical student
and teacher interview data on science conceptions. The common graduate
program elements will include the following:
- Courses: All students will complete courses
at their respective institutions in curriculum design, assessment, learning
theory, integration of learning technologies, teacher learning and professional
development, and diversity and culture. In addition, there will be three
newly designed core courses required of all students in the program.
- Practicum: All students will complete one
or more practicum experiences on curriculum design, evaluation, or implementation.
These may include internships at the other partner institutions, work
with commercial publishers, or participation in curriculum development
projects at local schools.
- Work with teachers: Through the professional
development program, all doctoral students will work with teachers and
administrators on issues relevant to the teachers’ work in the area
of materials evaluation, selection, and revision.
- Research apprenticeship: All doctoral students
will be engaged in research apprenticeship experiences throughout the
program. They will work with teams of researchers on on-going projects
focused on instructional materials development, and there will be a
common set of expectations for research apprenticeships across sites.
Typically this work will lead to the development of a related dissertation
topic.
- Dissertation on instructional materials: All
students will complete a doctoral dissertation related to the field
of instructional materials development, analysis, or implementation.
Core courses to be developed for the doctoral
program. We envision at least three core courses that will focus on
instructional materials design, analysis, and implementation. Although
some components of these courses are in place at some of the sites, a
major goal will be to articulate a common vision of the key ideas, literature,
and skills in the field of instructional materials development for all
students.
- The Design of Curriculum Materials: Introduces
design principles developed from research on teaching and learning,
including (1) conceptual coherence based on content and process standards
and benchmarks, (2) attention to prerequisite knowledge and student
misconceptions, (3) inclusion of phenomena that provide support for
the ideas being taught, (4) illustrations that help clarify ideas and
phenomena, (5) sustained student inquiry, (5) embedded learning technologies,
(6) collaboration among students, and (7) connections between and within
units. Instructional materials can also be used to portray the nature
of science, the role of science in society, who does science, and the
interdependence of science and cultural values. This course examines
the theoretical foundations of these design principles and societal
implications, as well as recent attempts to apply them in the development
of instructional materials. Specific cases will be studied to demonstrate
the design process. Students will also have opportunities to design
and critique instructional materials through collaborative team projects.
- Analysis, Selection, and Implementation of Instructional
Materials: This course builds on the principles and applications
studied in the course on materials design. We examine the process by
which instructional materials are evaluated to determine their suitability
for local use. A number of specific protocols that have been created
to analyze instructional materials will be used to evaluate curriculum
materials. The course will also deal with the ways that materials are
selected at the classroom, school, district, and state levels after
an analysis has been completed. Finally, the course examines the implementation
process and ways to build support for new materials at the school and
community levels.
- Curriculum Enactment: Examines the processes
through which practitioners enact science curricula. Examines models
of science teaching practice, models of implementation, mutual adaptation
in reform, educative curricula, researcher/teacher partnerships, history
of science education reform efforts, teacher cognition, teacher learning,
and strategies for professional development.
Recruitment and admission of students to the doctoral program.
Prospective students will be attracted by the program’s association with
the highly respected partner universities. Recruitment will be done through
university and AAAS publications, web sites, and national and regional
conferences. The requirements for graduate admission at the three universities
are highly competitive, allowing the programs to attract students who
are prepared for rigorous work. Entering students are expected to have
sufficient coursework in a science discipline so that they can achieve
the equivalent of a master’s level background in science when they graduate.
Students’ science background is determined through tests, individual interviews,
and transcript analysis. Each institution also allows for exceptional
students from other areas of specialization—such as cognitive psychology
or elementary science teaching—to earn Ph.D.’s. Alternative approaches
are used to bring the science experiences of these students to an appropriate
level.
The partner institutions also make vigorous efforts to recruit candidates
from under-represented groups through campus visits to Historically Black
Colleges and Universities and through broad-based recruitment fairs. In
addition, the partner institutions will actively recruit teachers interested
in graduate education from among our collaborating schools in Chicago,
Detroit, and Lansing. Center leaders will pursue additional avenues for
recruiting minority candidates by consulting with experts in this area.
Shirley Malcom, Director of AAAS’s Division of Education and Human Resources
directorate and a member of our Advisory Board, will provide leadership.
Dr. Malcom has a long history and excellent record of promoting the inclusion
of under-served individuals throughout the educational enterprise.
Postdoctoral Program
In addition to the doctoral program already described, we propose to
create a postdoctoral program to support and recruit talented Ph.D.’s
into the field of science education. The postdoctoral program will be
a multi-year experience aimed at developing future leaders in the design,
analysis, and implementation of curriculum materials. We intend to target
Ph.D.’s in science education and the learning sciences, as well as recent
Ph.D.’s in science and technology disciplines who are interested in developing
and studying science instructional materials. Each of the three university
partners will support two postdoctoral fellows each year and AAAS will
support one. The postdoctoral fellows will participate in research projects
alongside Center faculty on instructional materials development, analysis,
and implementation. Postdoctoral fellows will participate in collaborative
design teams, work with teachers, and learn about science education policy
at the national and state levels.
Early-career Ph.D.’s have already been a critical part of the success
of research projects at the participating institutions. After their fellowships
at these institutions, postdoctoral researchers in biology, bioengineering,
ecology, and virology, for example, are now employed as science education
faculty in the U.S. and abroad,
as materials developers in informal education settings, and as researchers
in teacher professional development studies. A program that attracts scientists
such as these into science education careers could have great impact in
building the capacity of the science education research community.
Preservice Teacher Education
For instructional materials to have the desired impact on student learning,
all teachers will need a better sense of the role that these materials
play in the classroom. During the first year of the grant, it is our intention
to create units of study on various aspects of the materials analysis,
design, and implementation process and to embed them in the preservice
teacher education courses at the participating institutions. These components
will be incorporated into at least two courses at each institution—the
science methods course and the science education overview course. The
aim will be to take a number of the pedagogical principles that guide
the work of the Center and that are typically taught in these existing
courses and relate them specifically to the use of instructional materials.
As our work at the Center proceeds, the new knowledge it generates will
be integrated into existing courses.
Master’s level preservice students. Some of the preservice students
at the participating institutions are earning their teaching certificate
in master’s level programs. These programs have a requirement that students
complete a special project or thesis. During the Center’s first year,
we will examine ways to create experiences for master’s level students
who wish to focus their work on materials development issues. For example,
these students might take one or more of the doctoral level core courses
as electives in their programs, participate in the Knowledge Transfer
Institute, or complete their project or thesis in a materials-related
area.
Inservice Professional Development
Curriculum materials have the potential to help teachers develop pedagogical,
content, and pedagogical content knowledge (Shulman, 1987). Yet few teachers
are prepared with frameworks and strategies to systematically analyze
and adapt innovative curricula.
Without professional development explicitly aimed at helping teachers
and administrators understand the intent of curriculum materials and models
that demonstrate their effective use, it is unlikely that schools will
be able to exploit the materials’ full potential.
The Center will provide professional development that will emphasize
the importance of having coherent and interconnected learning goals for
students and enable administrators and teachers to evaluate, choose, and
implement materials that are consistent with the Center’s guiding principles.
Teachers and administrators will learn how instructional materials can
support them in applying these principles, and they will learn what they
can do when current materials do not measure up.
To implement the professional development program, each university will
enlarge and strengthen existing partnerships with Chicago, Detroit, and
Lansing schools. The universities will each offer cohorts of approximately
30 teachers and administrators at least 100 hours of sustained professional
development on instructional materials analysis, selection, and implementation
over a two-year period. At each site, teachers, and administrators who
have decision-making authority in the selection of instructional materials
will be brought together for professional development. Activities will
be led by Center staff and selected teacher leaders, bringing together
expertise from the sciences, education research, and classroom practice.
The Center will explore a number of mechanisms for professional development,
including ongoing participation in curriculum design teams and participation
in graduate courses. The professional development will be designed to
connect to practice, supporting teachers’ attempts to adapt and enact
curricula. A central approach will be to develop teacher leaders to play
a key role in professional development of other teachers. Teacher leaders
will spend two to three academic quarters working closely with Center
staff on curriculum design teams. Center funds will support stipends for
participants. During the planning period for the project, the Center’s
Leadership Team will develop procedures for selecting teachers, administrators,
and teacher leaders. Teachers and administrators will also be invited
to participate in the Knowledge Transfer Institute.
Research Agenda
One of the goals of the Center is to conduct research at the highest
level on questions of national importance related to the Center’s mission.
But also implied in the CLT solicitation is the idea that Center funds
should be used for capacity-building. To that end, the Center’s research
infrastructure will include: (1) policies that ensure high standards for
research by all graduate students, (2) the use of apprenticeships for
the induction of doctoral students into the research community, (3) expectations
that theoretical issues will be studied in relation to practical problems,
(4) collaborative efforts by faculty and students across sites, and (5)
mechanisms for accessing work that is being done in related fields and
at other non-participating institutions through the Knowledge Transfer
Institute.
The research foundations and traditions that already exist at the participating
institutions are critical to the success of the Center’s research agenda
and provide the intellectual base for the work of the Center. Researchers
at the partner sites have been at the forefront of efforts to explore
innovations in curriculum design. This has included creating materials
that engage students in long-term investigations of meaningful problems
(Krajcik et al., 2000; Reiser, Tabak, Sandoval, Smith, Steinmuller, &
Leone, 2001; Singer, Marx, Krajcik, & Clay-Chambers, 2000) and integrating
various learning technologies such as simulations (Wilensky, & Resnick,
1999), scaffolded data analysis tools (Edelson, Gordin, & Pea, 1999;
Tabak & Reiser, 1997), probes (Krajcik & Layman, 1992), and modeling
tools (Jackson, Krajcik, & Soloway, 2000) into instructional materials.
The work has focused on prior student conceptions, conceptual change,
and student inquiry strategies (Bishop & Anderson, 1990; Krajcik et
al., 2000; Krajcik, Blumenfeld, Marx, Bass, Fredricks, & Soloway,1998;
Tabak, & Reiser, 1997; Sandoval, in press).
Michigan State University researchers have studied the importance of
teacher knowledge for developing student understanding and ways to support
science teachers (Hollon, Roth, & Anderson, 1991; Smith, 1990). University
of Michigan and Northwestern University researchers have also explored
how to form partnerships with school districts (Blumenfeld, Fishman, Krajcik,
Marx, & Soloway, 2000); how to design curricula collaboratively with
teachers, scientists, and education researchers (Shrader, Williams, Gomez,
Lachance-Whitcomb, & Finn, in review); and how to support teachers
as they enact new curricula (Fishman, Marx, Bobrowsky, Warren, Merrill,
& Best, 2001; Shrader & Gomez, 1999). Project 2061 has begun work
on a five-year IERI grant (NSF 0129398) to work with researchers at Texas
A&M University and the University of Delaware to investigate the relationship
between the fidelity of implementation of highly rated mathematics materials
and student learning and how professional development can improve fidelity
of implementation.
The four partner institutions are also engaged in ongoing projects related
to materials development for both curriculum and assessment. Among those
currently active are curriculum development projects in middle school
science (Michigan, Northwestern), high school environmental sciences (Northwestern),
high school biology (NIH-funded project at Northwestern), studies of software
supports for science learning (Michigan, Northwestern), and studies of
curriculum enactment. A Michigan State University project is using the
Internet to support collaborative efforts to evaluate and improve curriculum
resources; another project is working with grade-level study groups in
Lansing to evaluate and improve recently adopted materials. At AAAS, Project
2061 recently published the Atlas of Science Literacy (AAAS, 2001), which
includes 49 conceptual strand maps to help educators understand the connections
among K-12 learning goals. The Project has also completed evaluations
of middle- and high-school science curriculum materials and is currently
collaborating with two middle-school materials development projects in
which benchmarks and the Project 2061 curriculum-materials analysis criteria
are being used as design specifications. In a related effort, the Project
has developed a procedure for analyzing the alignment of science and mathematics
assessments with standards and benchmarks and is applying the procedure
to a variety of items and whole tests. Project 2061 is also updating research
on student misconceptions to include research findings published since
1992.
Examples of the materials-related issues to be explored through the
Center’s research agenda appear below. We expect Center participants to
become knowledgeable about the origins of these issues and the current
state of research and practice and to situate their own work within this
research context. Among the key questions that define the field are the
following:
- How can we ensure the coherence and accuracy of science
content while also taking into account students’ conceptual understanding
at each grade level?
- How can we craft curricula that are informed by what
is currently known about how students learn science, e.g., the importance
of eliciting and building on students’ prior conceptions, providing
scaffolding for new strategies, and situating learning in social contexts
of investigation and communication?
- How can we sequence materials so that students’ understanding
of major ideas develops from one grade level to the next?
- How can we design curricula that serve the learning
needs of students from diverse cultural backgrounds and discourse practices?
- How can we design curricula that enable teachers
themselves to learn about science and pedagogy as they prepare for,
enact, and reflect on the instructional material?
- How can we design software tools to help students
meet the conceptual, strategic, and metacognitive challenges of engaging
in scientific inquiry?
- How can we integrate mechanisms for science inquiry
into the curriculum—hands-on observations and experiments, use of secondary
data sets, use of visualization tools, and simulated experiments?
Research apprenticeships
A core element of the Center’s work will involve students in research
apprenticeships on projects related to instructional materials development.
The research apprenticeship model is used effectively at both Northwestern
University and the University of Michigan to initiate graduate students
into the research community. Students study the relevant theoretical literature
and learn empirical research approaches in the context of actual research
projects. Then they translate these theoretical ideas into practice as
they become members of ongoing instructional materials development teams.
Doctoral students take part in research seminars along with faculty, and
many of them present their pre-dissertation apprenticeship work at professional
meetings. The apprenticeship experience leads seamlessly into the dissertation
research. The apprenticeship helps students learn how research and development
teams work, it provides them with experience working with practitioners,
and anchors their theoretical work in experience. The three university
sites and AAAS provide an active portfolio of funded research projects
in areas of instructional materials development, evaluation, and implementation
that can provide the context for these apprenticeships. (See sections
on Institutional Capacity and Results of Prior NSF Funding.)
Knowledge Transfer Institute
Because expertise related to instructional materials analysis, development,
and implementation is widely distributed throughout the educational community,
knowledge and experience must be drawn from many places, including commercial
publishers and researchers in related fields. Some organizations and institutions
have special expertise on issues related to culture, language, and gender
equity in instructional materials development. Others have studied extensively
the process of curricular reform at the state level (Cohen & Hill,
2001). Still others bring a wealth of experience from related fields,
such as mathematics materials development. To address this dispersion
of knowledge, we propose to create an institute that will bring together
this widespread experience—a place where Center members and others work
on common tasks and where presentations and discussions focus on issues
of common concern relevant to instructional materials design, evaluation,
and implementation.
The purpose of the institute is to foster the exchange of information,
resources, and expertise within the Center itself and within the larger
community of science educators, researchers, and curriculum developers.
It will host activities both locally and nationally on a year-round basis
and will be the intellectual core of the Center. Project 2061 will take
the lead in planning the institute and will be responsible for coordinating,
facilitating, and documenting institute activities. While the institute
will be outside the university structure, it will be a key vehicle for
bringing faculty and students from the various programs together. It will
provide them with a common experience; it will help create a larger community
of learners; and it will be a place for them to learn from each other
and from experts outside their own institutional settings. The institute
will also provide a forum for disseminating knowledge developed by the
Center partners.
As the entry point for the Center’s incoming graduate students and postdoctoral
fellows, the institute will play a key role in coordinating and unifying
the work of the partner institutions. Each summer doctoral students and
postdoctoral fellows will spend two weeks with each other and university
faculty, teachers and administrators, and invited guests for presentations
and discussions to build on the research and experiences that underpin
current efforts to improve science teaching and learning and on the interactions
of materials, teachers, and students. The first week of the institute
will serve as an orientation for all new doctoral and postdoctoral students.
To help keep the work of the Center grounded in the learning goals that
all students are expected to achieve, institute programs will be built
around a few key topics that are essential to science literacy and that
are the focus of the materials development projects at the three partner
universities. During the institute, Center partners will present their
research, demonstrate their work, and gather feedback from the other development
teams, from teachers and administrators, and from the various invited
guests. The institute will draw on the expertise of representatives of
commercial and academic development teams from the U.S. and abroad and
from the NSF-funded Dissemination and Implementation Sites. Advisory Board
members were chosen to provide assistance in each of these areas.
The institute will also contribute significantly to the development of
knowledge and leadership at the K-12 level. Teachers and administrators
from local school districts will be included in the institute. They will
also provide input and feedback to the materials development work, contribute
to discussions of implementation issues, and participate in planning and
carrying out professional development activities.
The institute will provide an efficient mechanism for expanding the reach
and influence of the Center’s work. Each institute session will be carefully
documented and its work synthesized into papers, proceedings, and technical
reports that will be published and disseminated both in print and online
form. A Center web site and list serves will be part of the institute
communication efforts, connecting students and faculty and providing easy
access to work in progress.
TIMELINE
Year 1. The steering committee will meet to plan the activities of the
Center including admission, program, and graduation requirements and the
structure of the graduate programs. Core courses will be designed and
additional courses will be revised for the doctoral, master’s, and undergraduate
programs. Professional development activities will be designed in collaboration
with teachers and administrators. The structure of the Knowledge Transfer
Institute will be determined and a calendar of Institute activities will
be planned for Year 1. Doctoral and postdoctoral students will be recruited
for Cohort 1. A research agenda related to instructional materials development
will be identified. Practicum experiences will be planned for graduate
students.
Year 2. Deliver professional development activities to teachers and administrators.
Continue Institute activities. Begin new graduate courses. Recruit graduate
students for Cohort 2. Evaluate the success of all activities.
Years 3-5. Continue internal and external evaluation. Modify Center activities
as needed based on evaluation results.
MANAGEMENT PLAN
The Principal Investigator, Dr. Jo Ellen Roseman of AAAS, will serve
as Center Director and will chair a Center Leadership Team composed of
the Co-PIs, Dr. George DeBoer at AAAS, Dr. Joseph Krajcik of University
of Michigan, Dr. Brian J. Reiser of Northwestern University, and Dr. James
Gallagher of Michigan State University. The Director will manage the overall
operation of the Center, including budget management, partner coordination,
and operation of the Knowledge Transfer Institute. The Center Leadership
Team will oversee the intellectual mission of the Center, and will plan,
monitor, and evaluate (assisted by the external evaluator) its core activities.
The leadership team will meet monthly to coordinate activities across
the sites.
AAAS will be the fiscal agent and will make subawards to its university
partners. Each of the university co-PIs (Krajcik, Reiser, Gallagher) will
work with participating faculty to manage the work of the Center at each
site, including the design and oversight of graduate, postdoctoral, and
preservice training and professional development efforts. At AAAS, DeBoer
will assist the Director in overseeing the work of the Center and insure
its coherence. In addition, Dr. DeBoer will direct and oversee the Knowledge
Transfer Institute and will serve as the on-site coordinator for all phases
and activities pertaining to the Institute. Postdoctoral fellows will
assist with project management along with their primary role of participating
in research activities.
Advisory Board
A ten-member Advisory Board of leaders in science and science education,
each with special expertise in areas related to instructional materials,
will provide oversight for the Center. The Board will advise the center
on issues having to do with project evaluation, the graduate programs,
professional development, and the sustainability of the Center. The Board
will convene during the Knowledge Transfer Institute so that Board members
can participate in the institute sessions. Advisory Board members are
listed in Appendix B.
INSTITUTIONAL CAPACITY
The four partner institutions bring strengths in graduate training, professional
development, and teacher preparation along with broad research experience
in science learning and in instructional materials analysis and development.
Both the University of Michigan and Northwestern University have expertise
in the study and design of innovative technologies to support science
learners. Michigan State University has had extensive experience in preparing
K-12 science teachers and in pioneering the development of instructional
materials based on a conceptual change model, and Project 2061 brings
more than 15 years of experience working at the national level to bring
about systemic reform of science education. The university partners have
developed close relationships with local school districts, and all of
the partners have been actively involved in sustained professional development
relationships with K-12 science teachers. Thus the proposed Center is
built on a strong foundation of existing networks of relationships and
institutional research infrastructures.
Project 2061 has been a leader in articulating science standards
and developing criteria to analyze the content basis and pedagogical sensibility
of science curricula. AAAS as a whole offers rich scientific, technical,
and education resources through its interdisciplinary programs and its
worldwide membership. AAAS’s Directorate for Education and Human Resources
brings considerable expertise working in a variety of formal and informal
settings with educators and students who are diverse in ethnicity, culture,
language, and gender.
Through its Benchmarks for Science Literacy (AAAS, 1993) and its analysis
of text materials in science and mathematics, Project 2061 continues to
aim for the highest standards possible in mathematics and science education.
Dr. Jo Ellen Roseman, Project 2061’s acting director and the PI for this
proposal, is leading an IERI grant (NSF 0129398) to determine the extent
to which fidelity of implementation of instructional materials in mathematics
impacts teacher behavior and, ultimately, student learning. Project 2061
intends to conduct a similar study in science and to expand the mathematics
study to look more closely at teacher understanding of the intent of standards-based
instructional materials. A Center that is devoted to research on issues
related to materials development and that is committed to preparing doctoral
level leadership in this area would be a natural next step in Project
2061’s work.
The University of Michigan is one of the nation's leading teaching
and research universities and is well-qualified to nurture the research
and development activities proposed in the Center. The University of Michigan
is a pioneer in technological development for instruction, and its School
of Education has been ranked as one of the top schools in the nation for
research in the 2002 U.S. News & World Report Graduate School Rankings.
Currently, University of Michigan researchers, along with Northwestern
University and Project 2061, are engaged in a partnership to create the
next generation of curriculum materials for middle school students (NSF
ESI-0101780). The University of Michigan also sponsors courses and seminars
in teaching and learning for Ph.D. chemistry students.
The School of Education at Michigan houses the Center for Highly Interactive
Technologies for Education and has long and well-established ties to the
Department of Psychology, the Institute for Social Research, science departments,
and other units that would be of value to the Center’s work. Faculty members
have developed strong ties with local school districts and teachers through
programs such as the Center for Learning Technologies in Urban Schools
(LeTUS) which has been instrumental in helping to bring about systemic
reform in science education in the Detroit Public School System.
The proposed Center will collaborate with the College of Literature,
Science and the Arts, which is noted for curriculum reform efforts particularly
in calculus and chemistry, and with the College of Engineering, which
is recognized for its interests not only in the design of new technology
but also in the application of such technology to education.
Northwestern University has been a leader in the field of cognitive
science, creating the nation’s first graduate program in Learning Sciences.
A model for programs at other institutions, this program provides interdisciplinary
training in curricular, technological, and social policy innovations aimed
at improving education. Northwestern University’s School of Education
and Social Policy has been ranked among the top universities in the nation
for research in the 2002 U.S. News and World Report Graduate School Rankings.
Working with the LeTUS program in collaboration with the University of
Michigan, Northwestern University researchers have led the development
of innovative technologies for use in educational settings and the development
of curricula with embedded technologies. They have worked with teachers
and administrators in the Chicago public schools to investigate the process
of collaborative design, establishing a model for successful problem solving
partnerships with school districts (Shrader et al, in review; Singer et
al, 2000). Also, central to this work is the professional development
of teachers and the assessment of student learning outcomes. In addition,
LeTUS researchers have worked with young career scientists interested
in pursuing careers in science education, including four NSF/PFSMETE fellows.
Other collaborations include work with Northwestern’s bioengineering
faculty and with faculty at Vanderbilt University to redesign undergraduate
engineering education according to research in the learning sciences.
The Northwestern faculty in the learning sciences also work closely with
Northwestern’s teacher education program, developing and teaching core
courses for elementary, middle, and secondary science teachers that bring
current science education reform approaches into the practices of prospective
teachers.
Michigan State University’s elementary and secondary teacher education
program has been at the top of the rankings in the US News & World
Report survey for eight consecutive years, and its curriculum and instruction
program is highly ranked as well. The university has a long history of
collaboration with local schools; its teacher preparation program, for
example, requires a full year internship in local schools. In the Lansing
School District alone, there are more than 100 interns and 340 seniors
working in the classrooms. Faculty and graduate students have also worked
with local schools on a number of research projects that are relevant
to the Center’s proposed work, including research on teachers’ use of
curriculum materials in planning and classroom teaching, the impact of
curriculum materials on student learning, and the role of materials and
professional development on formative assessment. Faculty members have
been involved with Project 2061 in the development and use of its curriculum-materials
analysis procedure, and one of the co-PIs is involved in Project 2061’s
IERI study of teachers’ use of highly rated mathematics materials, specifically
in the design of methods for analyzing classroom teaching. In addition,
Michigan State researchers have worked with a group of Lansing teachers
to develop grade-level science pacing guides and draft assessments. They
also formed grade-level study groups to evaluate potential curriculum
materials using Project 2061 curriculum-materials analysis criteria. (See
Appendix A for details on the Center faculty and their areas of expertise.)
VALUE ADDED
The Center will be greater than the sum of its parts. All components
of the Center—students and postdoctoral fellows, research, K-12 curriculum
materials, university courses, professional development models—will benefit
from an unparalleled array of national and international intellectual
resources that none of the four institutions alone possesses. Faculty
and students will have access to colleagues with a more diverse set of
interests in science, cognitive science, and science education and with
expertise in materials development, analysis, revision, and implementation.
National, state, local, and international perspectives relevant to instructional
materials will all be represented, so that the broadest possible range
of issues will be heard and addressed. Through work on common tasks, each
participating institution will itself be strengthened. Through the Knowledge
Transfer Institute, both today'sleaders and those at the beginning of
their careers, will be able to take advantage of the Center's products
and research findings.
- Cross-site Opportunities for Teaching and Learning
An especially important added value of the Center will be its use of
the resources offered by each of the four institutions to create enhanced
learning opportunities. We envision three ways to leverage these resources
for graduate students and postdoctoral fellows and will explore additional
possibilities, particularly for enhancing teacher professional development.
- Guest teaching of Center faculty
Center faculty will teach sessions in science education classes at other
sites in person or by videoconference. This will allow graduate students
and postdoctoral fellows to benefit from the expertise at the other
sites. For example, Reiser and Edelson can teach sessions that focus
on the use of technological tools; Roseman or DeBoer can teach sessions
on curriculum analysis; Gallagher can teach sessions on continuous assessment
as part of learning with understanding; and Krajcik can teach sessions
on project-based science curricula.
- Student internships
Center funding will support students who wish to participate in internship
opportunities at the other sites. For example, students might participate
in a summer internship working on a curriculum analysis project at AAAS;
a student interested in diversity issues might do an independent study
project with faculty at the University of Michigan; others might study
complexity and emergent phenomena at Northwestern University; or a student
might have an experience in integrative curriculum development at Michigan
State University.
- Collaborative courses
We will explore a number of possibilities for faculty to co-teach seminar
courses across sites, using videoconferencing and electronic discussion
groups to link the sites. The University of Michigan and Northwestern
faculty who are participating in a middle school science materials project
already have biweekly research meetings conducted over TCP/IP videoconferencing;
the University of Michigan and Michigan State University have already
explored joint science education seminars; and Gallagher at Michigan
State offers two on-line courses in science education that are taken
by students around the world.
INSTITUTIONALIZATION
The work of the Center will lead to changes in the partner institutions
that will continue beyond the life of the grant. Among the ways in which
the Center’s work will be sustained are the following: (1) The Center
will provide an opportunity for the partner institutions to review their
graduate training programs systematically, redesign existing courses,
design new courses, and establish specialization tracks in instructional
materials work. These courses and programs will become part of the regular
offerings of each institution and will provide a model for graduate training
in instructional materials that can be adapted by other institutions.
Graduate students and postdoctoral fellows trained in the Center will
also create similar programs when they begin faculty positions. (2) The
Center funding will facilitate the design, piloting, and evaluation of
professional development models that will be widely disseminated. By involving
school administrators and teacher leaders, we will be able to impact district-wide
procedures for the review, selection, and implementation of curriculum
materials. We will pursue additional funding to build on our professional
development efforts during and following the NSF support of the Center.
(3) The Center activities will also increase research productivity at
each institution and stimulate proposals for additional external research
funding. Faculty will be able to compete successfully for research funds
in this area. (4) As with previous NSF-funded collaborative projects,
the relationships that are developed will continue far beyond the original
funding. In particular, we expect to see increased interaction among students
and faculty of the partner institutions whether on dissertation committees,
in research collaborations, in co-authoring, and more.
EVALUATION
As the external evaluator, Horizon Research, Inc. (HRI) will assess the
quality and impact of the Center’s programs as a whole, as well as the
synergy among them. The evaluation will be organized around the three
major goals of the Center solicitation—preparation of doctoral-level leaders,
professional development for teachers, and scholarly research. The Center
Director, in consultation with the external evaluator and co-PIs at each
site, will coordinate the record-keeping to meet the NSF data collection
requirements and to provide formative evaluation regarding each aspect
of the Center’s operation. The Center programs include six major components—the
Doctoral Program; the Postdoctoral Program; Preservice Teacher Education;
Inservice Professional Development; the Research Agenda and the Knowledge
Transfer Institute.
Initially, the evaluation will focus on collecting baseline data to be
used for assessing the impact of the Center and contextualizing the Center’s
work. HRI will examine the existing courses for the graduate programs
and preservice teacher education to assess the extent to which they currently
address the Center’s principles of design, analysis, and implementation
of science instructional materials. Similarly, through interviews with
faculty, baseline norms and expectations of productivity in research and
contributions through service will be established for doctoral students
and postdoctoral fellows at the three universities. Evaluation instruments
and tools (e.g., interview, observation, and review protocols; open-ended,
web-based surveys) will be developed and piloted for use in subsequent
years.
Formative evaluation activities will focus on providing information the
Center can use to refine its decision-making and to make mid-course alterations
to meet its goals more effectively. For example, information from interviews
with doctoral students and postdoctoral fellows about their expectations
of the program and career aspirations, as well as interviews of some applicants
who chose not to enroll in the programs, will aid the Center in refining
its recruitment strategies and in tailoring its programs to the needs
and expectations of students and fellows. Observations of the Knowledge
Transfer Institute summer sessions and a sample of related academic-year
activities, in conjunction with interviews, will provide information about
the utility of the sessions as orientation to the Center and as opportunities
for professional learning and networking. Formative recommendations might
include altered time allocations or addition of networking tools in the
summer Knowledge Transfer Institutes.
Reviews of the doctoral courses, preservice units, and inservice professional
development programs will adopt the Project 2061 Criteria for Evaluating
the Quality of Instructional Support (AAAS, 2000) as standards of quality.
Evaluators will observe a sample of the inservice professional development
sessions, using an adapted version of HRI’s Professional Development Observation
Protocol developed for the Core Evaluation of the Local Systemic Change
through Teacher Enhancement Program (REC 9912485) to judge the quality
of the sessions in terms of purposes, design, implementation, content,
and climate. Interviews with members of the course, unit, and inservice
development teams will be used to interpret the results of the reviews
in terms of attention to the Criteria in the process of development.
Open-ended interviews and surveys, administered via Internet tools, will
be conducted with the graduate students and with a sample of preservice
students and inservice participants to assess the utility and benefit
of the courses, units, and inservice experiences. A sample of student
products will be collected for analysis against the relevant Center learning
goals. Formative feedback drawing on these data will include analysis
of strengths and weaknesses of the courses, units, and programs in light
of the Criteria and participants’ experience, as well as identification
of opportunities and barriers that may aid in the improvement of the development
process and the revision of the courses, units, and programs.
Evaluation of the impact of the Center will focus on the learning, practice,
and professional contributions of participants across all of the major
components. For example, through interviews and surveys with doctoral
students and post-doctoral fellows, HRI will track their research presentations,
papers, dissertations, and publications, and gather information on their
future career plans. Summative judgments will be made regarding how Center
students and fellows compare to baseline norms and expectations and how
students and fellows envision their long-term professional contributions
to the field. HRI will also assess the alignment between the Center’s
focus and the research and professional contributions and career plans
of the graduate students and fellows. Interviews with, and surveys of,
inservice program participants and other curriculum decision-makers in
the participating districts will provide evidence for summative judgments
about the impact of the inservice program and Center principles on the
review and selection of instructional materials.
The evaluation will also address the likelihood of institutionalization
of critical components and key impacts of the Center. Interviews with
faculty and administrators at the three participating universities will
be used to gather information about the plan for and likelihood of sustainability
of the Center’s specialization in doctoral study, and of the courses and
units developed by the Center. These interviews will also determine the
extent of infusion of the Center’s principles of design, analysis, and
implementation of innovative science materials into other graduate and
preservice education courses and inservice experiences.
SEMINATION
The Center will take advantage of the communications and dissemination
infrastructures that are in place at each of the partner institutions.
It will use a variety of strategies to disseminate its research findings,
products, and ideas to education researchers and practitioners, commercial
developers and publishers, education policymakers, the education press,
and the public at large. Through field-testing and eventual publication,
its newly developed curriculum materials will get into the hands of researchers
and teachers. As new university courses are developed for the participants,
The Center will use the Knowledge Transfer Institute to invite new faculty
and doctoral students from other institutions to learn about its methods
for developing, analyzing, and implementing new curriculum materials.
In this way, the Center will be able to impact the courses that new and
prospective faculty will themselves be developing for preservice and inservice
teachers.
Articles and news coverage of the Center’s work in newsletters and other
publications of the partner institutions will also be used as dissemination
tools. In addition, the programs and activities of the Knowledge Transfer
Institute will disseminate information to the participants who attend
its programs each year. A web site will be developed for the Center to
assist in recruitment, to disseminate information about Center activities
and research results, and to establish a community of individuals committed
to the improvement of instructional materials in science. Each institution
will develop its own web page, and Project 2061 will design the web page
linking all Center activities together.
RESULTS OF PRIOR NSF SUPPORT
University of Michigan: Professor Krajcik, worked with Blumenfeld,
Marx, and Soloway on a number of projects supported by NSF to reform the
teaching and learning of science. They developed computational tools to
support students’ learning through inquiry (NSF REC 95-55719, NSF RED-9353481,
and NSF REC 95-54205), resulting in Model-It, a tool to support students
in developing dynamic computer based models; Aretmis, a research engine
and digital library; and echem, a molecular construction and visualization
tool. They also created professional development tools and prepared teachers
to do inquiry (NSF TPE-9153759). Through REPP funding (NSF REC 972 5927)
they explored issues related to reforming science education in large urban
districts. As part of LeTUS (NSF REC-9720383), they developed instructional
materials that embed the use of leaning technologies, collaborated with
K-12 administrators and teachers, and documented challenges to scale innovations
in urban school districts. Results from studies in LeTUS show learning
gains by students. Krajcik, Davis, and Soloway are working with Reiser
and Edelson from Northwestern University with funding from KDI (NSF-KDI-9980055)
to examine the effectiveness of software scaffolds and to demonstrate
how software scaffolds can support scientific inquiry. Krajcik and Marx
are also collaborating with Reiser and Edelson to develop the next generation
of curriculum materials, designed to support student inquiry with embedded
learning technologies. Reports on University of Michigan research efforts
are at http://www-personal.umich.edu/~krajcik/Papers.htm.
Northwestern University: NSF-funded research has investigated
principles of curriculum design for supporting student inquiry in science,
innovative technologies for supporting learning, professional development,
and strategies for design partnerships with schools. Research in LeTUS
(REC-9720383; $4,999,284; 10/97-9/02) has suggested how to facilitate
the development and implementation of technology-enhanced science curricula
as a vehicle for changing teaching and learning in science classrooms,
and how to form collaborative curriculum design teams that involve teachers,
scientists, and technologists. With funding from the Chicago Public Schools
Urban Systemic Program (0085115; $1,119,938; 9/00-8/04), LeTUS is creating
a model of practice-based professional development that situates teacher
learning in their attempts to adapt and plan their enactment of new curricula.
Northwestern faculty have investigated web-based supports for teacher
learning in the Living Curriculum Project (RED-9720423; $1,976,681; 10/97-9/01),
an online professional development system supporting the teaching of inquiry-based
science units. They are also investigating teacher learning through curriculum
partnerships through a Research Experience for Teachers extension to the
Center for Bioengineering Educational Technologies (EEC-9876363; $20,000;
9/04-8/04).
Design of technological supports for students’ scientific inquiry has
been a focus of a number of projects. In SSciVEE (Supportive Scientific
Visualization Environments for Education) (DGE-9453715; $163,617; 4/97-3/99),
Edelson designed and studied the use of scientific visualization technologies
to support learning. In the WorldWatcher curriculum project (ESI-9720687;
$1,539,840; 4/98-9/02), Edelson explored how to integrate scientific visualization
tools into a high school environmental science curriculum structured around
real-world problems. In the Supportive Inquiry-Based Learning Environments
project (REC-9720377; $950,395; 10/97-9/02 and REC-0087751; $316,995;
11/00-10/02), Reiser, Edelson, and Gomez developed a model of reflective
inquiry and pedagogical principles for its support in curriculum and tools.
Northwestern University has received a Graduate Research Traineeship grant
to initiate the Learning Sciences Program (DGE-9454155; $112,500; 9/98-8/02)
and a number of Postdoctoral Fellowships in Science, Mathematics, Engineering
and Technology Education (PFSMNSF-DGE-9906515; $9,000; 9/00-9/01; DGE-9809636;
$9,000; 9/99-8/00; and DGE-9714534; $9,000; 9/98-8/99). Funded Ph.D.’s
in biomedical engineering, zoology, and geology guided LeTUS curriculum
teams in their efforts to design project-based instructional materials.
Reports on Northwestern University research efforts are at http://www.letus.org/.
Michigan State University: Smith and Anderson have carried out
a three-year research project which investigated teachers’ use of the
SCIS materials and traditional textbooks in planning and classroom teaching
(SED-802002; $152,090; 10/80-6/83). For that project, Smith and Anderson
developed a research model involving four interrelated parts: (1) pre-
and post- assessment of student understanding of the science concepts
addressed by the materials, (2) analysis of the “literal program”—what
teaching would be like if the teacher followed the suggestions in the
materials, (3) identification of the teacher’s intentions for classroom
activities and student learning, and (4) detailed description of what
actually occurred during classroom teaching. Students’ understanding of
the concepts addressed by a material was measured against several criteria.
Using these measurements and other insights derived from the research,
successive Research and Development cycles were continued until a large
majority of the students met the criteria. This model served as the basis
for a series of studies of the teaching and learning of specific topics.
Anderson and Berkheimer directed a project that described and demonstrated
a research and development model for the design of curriculum materials
(MDR-855-0336), resulting in the Matter and Molecules unit. That unit
was subsequently studied using the Project 2061 curriculum-materials analysis
criteria and received high ratings on several criteria, providing positive
examples with which to contrast lower rated materials.
AAAS Project 2061: With support from NSF, Project 2061 has developed
an array of science literacy tools to promote understanding and use of
learning goals, beginning with the publication of Benchmarks for Science
Literacy (AAAS, 1993) (ESI-9350003; $5,000,000; 10/93-9/99). To increase
understanding of conceptual connections among K-12 learning goals, Project
2061 published Atlas of Science Literacy (AAAS, 2001) (ESI-9618093; $4,746,014;
4/97-3/01), which has sold nearly 11,000 copies and is serving as a basis
for several recently submitted NSDL and MSP proposals. To foster professional
development aimed at improving the science literacy of teachers, Project
2061 published Resources for Science Literacy: Professional Development
(AAAS, 1997) (ESI-9350003). To promote curriculum coherence and systemic
reform, Project 2061 published Designs for Science Literacy (AAAS, 2001)
and Blueprints for Reform (AAAS, 1998) (ESI-9350003). To improve the quality
of science and mathematics curriculum materials, Project 2061 developed
a set of criteria to analyze their alignment to important learning goals
and the quality of instructional support they provide for those goals
(ESI-9553594; $888,466; 3/96-2/97 and ESI-9618093). These criteria have
been used to analyze science and mathematics instructional materials and
are being used to guide the design of new materials. The project has also
developed a related set of criteria for analyzing assessment tasks and
is applying them to the analysis, revision, and design of tasks. The project
has provided assessment-related technical assistance to the South Carolina
Education Oversight Committee, comprised of legislators, business and
industry leaders, and educators. (ESI-9919018; $2,476,875; 5/99-4/01)
and other technical assistance to several NSF-funded materials development
projects (ESI-9812299 and ESI-0096856) All of Project 2061’s tools synthesize
the current state of knowledge in the field and make it accessible to
a wide audience.
NSF has also supported several Project 2061 efforts to focus the attention
of researchers and policy makers on science literacy issues. To understand
better how early childhood experiences can develop readiness for later
learning in science and mathematics, Project 2061 hosted a national forum
and published Dialogue on Early Childhood Science, Mathematics, and Technology
Education (AAAS, 1999) (ESI-9618093). To build awareness for the need
for cognitive research in technology education (a prerequisite to the
development of effective technology curriculum materials), Project 2061
hosted conferences and published proceedings (DUE-0090761; $30,000; 8/00-12/01).
To focus efforts nationwide on the need for better science curriculum
materials, Project 2061 has hosted a series of conferences on defining
characteristics of high quality science materials, the role of research
in their design, and on policy issues surrounding the development and
successful implementation of goals-based curriculum materials (ESI-0102241;
$337,952; 1/01-12/02).
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