Both metacognitive and associative models have been proposed to account for children’s strategy discovery and use. Models based on only metacognitive or only associative mechanisms cannot entirely account for the observed mix of variability and constraint revealed by recent microgenetic studies of children’s strategy change. We propose a new approach where metacognitive and associative mechanisms interact in a competitive negotiation. This approach provides the flexibility to model the observed variability and constraint.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Kevin CrowleyJeff SchragerRobert Siegler
The Please Touch Museum is requesting $684,602 for the development of educational resource materials in science and mathematics for four-year old children, and training for their parents and teachers in Head Start and other daycare programs. This 44 month project will develop, test, and produce six materials-based science and math activity kits, science training workshops for parents and daycare educators, and related family materials and events. It will culminate in a national dissemination program to promote more effective preschool science and math education through materials- based science inquiry and increased professional relations between educators in youth museums and daycare centers.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Marzy SykesRenee HenryTracey Prendergast
The Louisville Science Center and the National Center for Family Literacy will engage in a year's planning to introduce the Parent- Child Interaction Project to teams of educators in six target cities. The goal is to explore the feasibility of a future national implementation of the model. The Parent-Child Interaction Project aims to empower underserved parents to become their child's most important teacher and provide these parents and their children the opportunity to gain science, mathematics, and technology education together. The participants are the parents and pre-school children enrolled in family literacy programs. During the Project, parents and children will make at least four trips to the participating science-technology center and evaluate their trips during follow-up class sessions. The joint efforts of the family literacy programs and science- technology centers can achieve the following goals: * Improve the involvement of low-income and low-literacy parents in the education of their children, specifically in the areas of science, mathematics and technology. * Increase the awareness of local science and technology centers as available community resources, particularly for underserved audiences. * Use science center visits and related projects to extend NCFL classroom learning for adult education students, their children and their teachers.
Mother Goose Asks Why? is a program of the Vermont Center for the Book currently being brought to 1200 parents in Vermont. Centered around exemplary children's literature and science activities, the program provides a series of four reading/discussion/activity sessions to parents of preschool children. Through exploration of basic questions such as "What Is It?", "How Many?", and "How Do You Know?", parents gain experience, skills, and confidence to introduce science to their 3-7 year old children. The Vermont Center hopes to expand this program to twelve additional states, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Before initiating this expansion, however, the Center needs to address two issues: 1) how to create appropriate strategies for reaching, recruiting, and retaining families in locations that are quite different from Vermont, and 2) how to create an evaluation strategy that will assess parental behavior and attitudinal changes over time. Toward this end, the Center will gather representatives from the participating expansion sites and experts in family outreach to examine local issues and differences, to establish local contacts, and to begin development of effective implementation strategies for the sites. They also will work with The Network, Inc., a national education evaluation and research organization, to produce concrete measurements for parental behavior changes.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Sally AndersonJoan NagyGregory DeFrancis
The Youth Experiences in Science (YES) Project of the 4-H Center at UC, Davis will produce, pilot and evaluate an informal science education curriculum expressly designed for 5-9 year olds in school-age child care (SACC) settings. Seven thematic units will be developed (three in both English and Spanish versions), utilizing the basic design process and instructional model developed in the earlier SERIES Project. Each unit consists of engaging hands-on activities performed with inexpensive materials and incorporating home and neighborhood service applications. During the three years approximately 500 teenage volunteers will deliver the program to approximately 2,500 children through a network of existing SACC sites operated by 4-H and other community groups. Capitalizing on SACC settings, the program will collaborate with schools and reach out to parents through development of "Science Family Backpacks" and "Science Family Activity Nights." Program evaluation includes in-depth monitoring and use of multiple assessment instruments and measures at 25 selected sites. In addition to formative and summative evaluation, data will be available on parent involvement and the amount, nature, and durability of positive influences on participants' school science interest and success.
The California Museum of Science and Industry requests $1,103,410 over three years to work in a partnership with the National Council of La Raza to develop two content-rich "discovery rooms" in the Museum that are supportive of further learning in the larger museum context and that guide parents from culturally diverse backgrounds in supporting their children's science learning at the museum and in the home. A major component of the project is the "Our Place Academy," a comprehensive education program that will train Latino parents of preschool and school-age children to serve as learning facilitators in the discovery rooms. The curriculum of the Academy will focus on skills that will both serve Latino parents as partners in their children's science education and as leaders and disseminators within their own communities. A training guide entitled, "Making it our Place" will be developed as a practical guide for building a trained staff from the parents in a community to facilitate learning in a discovery setting. Target audience is parents with preschool and school-aged children.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Ann MuscatSylvia ConnollySharon SchonhautCarol ValentaRoxie EsterleMaria Bonillas
The Vermont Center for the Book in collaboration with the Vermont Council on the Humanities, Montshire Museum, and other Vermont science activity centers propose to develop a national model of a four-part book discussion/science activity program of early science literacy for parents of preschool children. Parents will be trained to gain confidence in their ability to do science activity kit to keep. The project expects to reach 1200 parents and 240 professionals during this three year project.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Sally AndersonJoan NagyGregory DeFrancis