Purpose: In the most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress only 17% of 8th grade students performed at or above the proficient level in U.S. history. One way to engage students in learning history is to create history learning resources that are designed to be relevant and appealing to young people's interests and regular activities. Surveys find that almost all teenage boys and girls play digital games, and the majority of teens play daily. This project will leverage the potential of games and technology to engage students and increase history skills and content knowledge.
Project Activities: The team, consisting of graphic artists, content specialists, computer scientists, and programmers, will initially create wireframes and a functional game prototype. Following feedback from a group of students and teachers on the user-interface, the team will produce an online tablet app. Iterative refinements will be conducted at major production milestones until the intervention is fully functional. Once development is complete, the researchers will assess the usability and feasibility, fidelity of implementation, and the promise of the product to improve outcomes in a pilot study. The study will include 200 8th grade students in eight classrooms. Four classrooms will be assigned to play to game as part of the curriculum over three to five class periods, and four classrooms will be taught the same historical content using the business as usual curriculum without the game. Each group will complete pre- and post- assessments to assess differences in history knowledge and skills.
Product: This project team will develop a tablet-based interactive role-playing game that immerses 5th through 9th grade students in the history of the Great Depression. The game will provide players an experiential understanding of the hardships that beset Americans in the 1930s and their strategies for survival, as individuals and as a nation. Features of the game will include story-based immersive narrative missions where student's decisions continually drive the action, tips and hints for students who are struggling in the game, writing tools, and interactive maps. The game will can be integrated within a course or used as a supplement. A teacher dashboard will be developed to facilitate the use of the game within classroom settings. Finally, the final product will include upgrades to existing games, including City of Immigrants and the The Hardest Times. The upgrades will publish these games to tablets and will include deeper in-game assessment opportunities.
Purpose: An estimated 5 to 8% of elementary school students have some form of memory or cognitive deficit that inhibits learning basic math. Researchers have identified several areas where children with math learning difficulties struggle. These include a strong sense of number facts to quickly and accurately perform operations on single digit numbers, the use of strategies to solve problems which have not yet been memorized, a sense to figure out whether or not an answer is reasonable, and self-monitoring to assess one's own efficacy and understanding. To support students with math learning difficulties in grades 1 to 4, this project team will develop a series of apps for touch-screen tablets that encourage single digit operational fluency, conceptual understanding, strategy awareness, and self-understanding.
Project Activities: During Phase I project in 2012, the research team developed a prototype of the single digit addition game, following an iterative process incorporating feedback from teachers and students having difficulty with math. Nineteen students participated in a pilot study, and the researchers found that the prototype functioned well and that users were engaged by the game. In Phase II, the team will build and refine the back end system, design and develop the teacher website, and create content for games in subtraction, multiplication, and division. Researchers will carry out a pilot test of the usability and feasibility, fidelity of implementation, and promise of the game to improve learning. Students in first to fourth grade identified by teachers as having the greatest difficulty with math will participate in the pilot study. Half of the 120 students participating in the pilot study will be randomly selected to play the game as a supplement to classroom learning whereas the other half will not have access. Students in the control group will be provided the games at the end of the study. Analyses will compare pre- and post-test math scores.
Product: The web-based game, MathFacts, will include a series of apps for touch-screen tablet computers to support math learning for 1st to 4th grade students with major or sometimes intractable learning difficulties. In the game, students will learn content through mini-lessons, engage with problems in practice and speed rounds, and then receive formative feedback on their performance. Students will use and manipulate blocks, linker tubes, number lines, and interact with engaging pedagogical agents such as parrots and sloths. Students will set goals, advance to more challenging levels, and engage in competition. The game will be self-paced and will provide individualized formative assessment scaffolding when students do not know the answer to a question. A teacher management system will support professional development and will produce reports to guide instruction. The intended outcomes from gameplay will include increased fluency, conceptual understanding, strategy awareness, self-assessment, and motivation of basic math.
Purpose: There is concern about a decline in mathematics achievement scores among U.S. students during the middle school years. For example, while 4th grade U.S. students rank 8th overall on an international mathematics comparison, by 10th grade U.S. student's drop significantly to 25th in the same comparison. Some researchers posit that much of this decline relates to how math is taught in the U.S. and with how students become less engaged as learners in middle school. The purpose of this project is to develop a web-based game to engage 7h grade students in a narrative-based story which will apply learning of content and skills aligned to the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in mathematics.
Project Activities: During Phase I in 2012, the team developed a functioning prototype and conducted usability and feasibility research with fourteen 7th grade students. Researchers found that the prototype functioned as intended and that students were highly engaged while playing the game. In Phase II, the team will develop a fully-functional user interface with animated characters, interactivity across student users, narrative scripts and accompanying art assets, 36 problem sets, and student and teacher dashboards and databases. After development is complete, a pilot study will examine the usability and feasibility, fidelity of implementation, and the promise of the game to improve math learning. The study will include 120 students in 6 classrooms in three schools, with one classroom per school randomly assigned to use the game and the other half assigned to a business-as-usual control. Analyses will compare student scores on pre and post mathematics measures.
Product: Empires is a web-based game that addresses 36 pre-algebra Common Core State Standards in mathematics for 7th and 8th grades. The game follows a storyline in a recreation of an ancient empire which is at the brink of agricultural revolution and of becoming a trade economy. As students play the game, they engage in math-focused activities to drive the action, such as taxing citizens to learn ratios and proportions, allocating resources to learn percentages, and measuring the distance and time between a neighboring empire by applying the principles of the Pythagorean Theorem. As a socially networked game, students will interact with other students in the class to complete trades that lead to encounters with different math problems. The game will include two helpful, funny, advisors who will scaffold learning through mathematical discourse, arguing over the next most important thing to do. The game design architecture will work on a wide range of computers, including desktops and iPads. A teacher's guide and companion website will provide guidance to classroom activities that complement the game.
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Scott Laidlaw
resourceprojectProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
The National Science Foundation (NSF) Climate Change Education Partnership Alliance (CCEPA) is a consortium made up of the six Phase II Climate Change Education Partnership (CCEP-II) program awardees funded in FY 2012. Collectively, the CCEPA is establishing a coordinated network devoted to increasing the adoption of effective, high quality educational programs and resources related to the science of climate change and its potential impacts. The establishment of a CCEPA Coordination Office addresses the need for a coordinating body that leverages and builds upon the CCEPA projects' individual initiatives. The CCEPA Coordination Office facilitates interactions to leverage a successful network of CCEP-II projects and individuals engaged in increasing climate science literacy. The efforts of the Coordination Office advance knowledge and understanding of how to effectively network related, but different, projects into a cohesive enterprise. The goal is to coordinate a functional network, where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
The CCEPA Coordination Office at the University of Rhode Island is helping to move the CCEPA network forward on a number of key initiatives that strengthen it, reduce duplication, and enhance its overall impact. An important role of the Coordination Office is the facilitation of the transfer of best practices between projects. An effective network forges collaborations and establishes communities of practice through network working groups, building intellectual capital network-wide. The CCEPA Coordination Office has a key role in assisting the CCEPA project PIs and staff to disseminate the results of their work. Partnerships with other relevant societies and organizations assist the Coordination Office in identifying opportunities and synergies for sharing, disseminating, and leveraging network products as well as best practices that emerge as Earth system science education models and tools are evaluated. This endeavor broadens the collective impact of the individual projects across the country.
Pacific Science Center (PSC) proposes Out of the Lab and Into the Spotlight (OLIS) a five-year project to bring current and fascinating information about health science research to Pacific Northwest audiences. Through a series of showcases that change content every six months the Research Focus Gallery will highlight cutting-edge local research. The Gallery a combined exhibit and program space will feature multimedia displays research artifacts hands-on exhibits and a presentation area where local researchers will communicate their work to visitors. An annual three-day research festival and monthly Science Cafes in three locations will complement the programs presented in the Gallery and will provide multiple venues for a variety of audiences to meet face-to-face with local researchers and learn about health science and related careers. Out of the Lab and Into the Spotlight will further the goals of the Science Education Partnership Award by 1) connecting the community to NIH-funded research and 2) increasing the awareness of young people in the Puget Sound region about careers in scientific research. An in-depth evaluation conducted by the external evaluator Center for Research Evaluation and Assessment will measure the effectiveness of the project in reaching the following outcomes: * The extent to which the program informs PSC visitors about the wide variety of NIH-funded research being performed in the region; specifically whether PSC visitors have an increased understanding of the various research areas presented. * The impact of the program on over 100 scientist participants; specifically scientists’ ability to communicate research ideas to the public and their interest in future participation. * The ability of PSC program developers to develop a future-ready space; specifically if the developed showcases and templates are adaptable to future content areas. The proposed project will draw upon our established relationships with local research organizations that together receive close to one billion dollars annually from NIH. The project leverages and deepens relationships that already exist between each of these institutions and PSC to enhance science learning in our community in novel ways. The primary audience for OLIS will be families and school groups ages eight and older drawn from over 800000 annual visitors. As a standalone element within the new Wellness exhibit due to open in 2011 we anticipate the Gallery will reach three to four million visitors during the grant period and up to five million additional visitors in the subsequent five years. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE (provided by applicant): Individuals need to obtain process and understand basic health information to make appropriate health decisions (Healthy People 2010). The proposed project Out of the Lab and Into the Spotlight will provide opportunities for the general public to increase their understanding of current health information and increase their awareness of cutting-edge research taking place in their own backyard. By engaging with research scientists in several venues the public will be exposed to NIH funded research and health science careers.
My Sky is a joint project between Boston Children’s Museum (BCM) and the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO). This three-year project was supported by NASA’s NRA/ROSES 2011 (NNX12AB91G) program, and resulted in the creation of My Sky, a 1,500 sq. ft. traveling astronomy exhibit designed for adults and children, ages 5 – 10. My Sky emphasizes authentic experiences that encourage the development of skills and content foundational to later appreciation and understanding of astronomical science. My Sky includes interactive explorations of objects and phenomena visible in the sky, encouraging families to “look up” not only when they visit the exhibit, but as a practice they might adopt in their everyday lives. This is all punctuated by real NASA data and assets, including a 5’ diameter model Moon created using the latest Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter measurements; and high-resolution images from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory satellite. This project also developed a series of public programs, museum staff training programs, and family workshops, all utilizing NASA resources and existing curriculum.
The Wild Center will partner with Adirondack Museum, Cornell’s Maple Program, and New York State/Northeastern New York Maple Producers Associations to build regional identity, revitalize a heritage industry, and connect people to nature through the art, story, history, and science of maple sugaring. The Northern New York Maple Project will create interpretative exhibits with ecological, historical, and economic information. The museum will develop an instructional maple sugaring video; a touch-screen story kiosk that lets visitors share stories through the exhibit and social media; a storytelling workshop for staff, project partners, and maple producers; community events and conferences; a school education program; community sugaring workshops; and educational materials, website, social media, and outreach to industry, food enthusiasts, and the business community. Regular planning meetings on goals and deliverables will track results and an outside consultant will evaluate the overall success of the project.
In late 2012, Providence Children’s Museum began a major three-year research project in collaboration with The Causality and Mind Lab at Brown University, funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation (1223777). Researchers at Brown examined how children develop scientific thinking skills and understand their own learning processes. The Museum examined what caregivers and informal educators understand about learning through play in its exhibits and how to support children’s metacognition – the ability to notice and reflect on their own thinking – and adults’ awareness and appreciation of kids’ thinking and learning through play. Drawing from fields like developmental psychology, informal education and museum visitor studies, the Museum’s exhibits team looked for indicators of children’s learning through play and interviewed parents and caregivers about what they noticed children doing in the exhibits, asking them to reflect on their children’s thinking. Based on the findings, the research team developed and tested new tools and activities to encourage caregivers to notice and appreciate the learning that takes place through play.
This project takes an ethnographic and design-based approach to understanding how and what people learn from participation in makerspaces and explores the features of those environments that can be leveraged to better promote learning. Makerspaces are physical locations where people (often families) get together to make things. Some participants learn substantial amounts of STEM content and practices as they design, build, and iteratively refine working devices. Others, however, simply take a trial and error approach. Research explores the affordances are of these spaces for promoting learning and how to integrate technology into these spaces so that they are transformed from being makerspaces where learning happens, but inconsistently, into environments where learning is a consistent outcome of participation. One aim is to learn how to effectively design such spaces so that participants are encouraged and helped to become intentional, reflective makers rather than simply tinkerers. Research will also advance what is known about effective studio teaching and learning and advance understanding of how to support youth to help them become competent, creative, and reflective producers with technology(s). The project builds on the Studio Thinking Framework and what is known about development of meta-representational competence. The foundations of these frameworks are in Lave and Wengers communities of practice and Rogoff's, Stevens et al.'s, and Jenkins et al.'s further work on participatory cultures for social networks that revolve around production. A sociocultural approach is taken that seeks to understand the relationships between space, participants, and technologies as participants set and work toward achieving goals. Engaging more of our young population in scientific and technological thinking and learning and broadening participation in the STEM workplace are national imperatives. One way to address these imperatives is to engage the passions of young people, helping them recognize the roles STEM content and practices play in achieving their own personal goals. Maker spaces are neighborhood spaces that are arising in many urban areas that allow and promote tinkering, designing, and construction using real materials, sometimes quite sophisticated ones. Participating in designing and successfully building working devices in such spaces can promote STEM learning, confidence and competence in one's ability to solve problems, and positive attitudes towards engineering, science, and math (among other things). The goal in this project is to learn how to design these spaces and integrate learning technologies so that learning happens more consistently (along with tinkering and making) and especially so that they are accessible and inviting to those who might not normally participate in these spaces. The work of this project is happening in an urban setting and with at-risk children, and a special effort is being made to accommodate making and learning with peers. As with Computer Clubhouses, maker spaces hold potential for their participants to identify what is interesting to them at the same time their participation gives them the opportunity to express themselves, learn STEM content, and put it to use.
Our goal is to attempt the identification of Sevengill sharks (Notorynchus cepedianus) that may be returning to San Diego from year-to-year, using the pattern recognition algorithm provided in ‘Wildbook,’ a web-based application for wildlife data management, designed by Jason Holmberg. 'Wildbook' which has been successfully used to ID Whale Sharks (Rhincodon typus ) by their spotting patterns.
Sevengill sharks (Notorynchus cepedianus), are currently listed as Data deficient (DD) on the IUCN Red List: "This assessment is based on the information published in the 2005 shark status survey (Fowler et al. 2005).
This is an efficacy study through which the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, the Denver Zoo, the Denver Botanic Gardens, and three of Denver's urban school districts join efforts to determine if partnerships among formal and informal organizations demonstrate an appropriate infrastructure for improving science literacy among urban middle school science students. The Metropolitan Denver Urban Advantage (UA Denver) program is used for this purpose. This program consists of three design elements: (a) student-driven investigations, (b) STEM-related content, and (c) alignment of schools and informal science education institutions; and six major components: (a) professional development for teachers, (b) classroom materials and resources, (c) access to science-rich organizations, (d) outreach to families, (e) capacity building and sustainability, and (e) program assessment and student learning. Three research questions guide the study: (1) How does the participation in the program affect students' science knowledge, skills, and attitudes toward science relative to comparison groups of students? (2) How does the participation in the program affect teachers' science knowledge, skills, and abilities relative to comparison groups of teachers? and (3) How do families' participation in the program affect their engagement in and support for their children's science learning and aspirations relative to comparison families?
The study's guiding hypothesis is that the UA Denver program should improve science literacy in urban middle school students measured by (a) students' increased understanding of science, as reflected in their science investigations or "exit projects"; (b) teachers' increased understanding of science and their ability to support students in their exit projects, as documented by classroom observations, observations of professional development activities, and surveys; and (c) school groups' and families' increased visits to participating science-based institutions, through surveys. The study employs an experimental research design. Schools are randomly assigned to either intervention or comparison groups and classrooms will be the units of analysis. Power analysis recommended a sample of 18 intervention and 18 comparison middle schools, with approximately 72 seventh grade science teachers, over 5,000 students, and 12,000 individual parents in order to detect differences among intervention and comparison groups. To answer the three research questions, data gathering strategies include: (a) students' standardized test scores from the Colorado Student Assessment Program, (b) students' pre-post science learning assessment using the Northwest Evaluation Association's Measures for Academic Progress (science), (c) students' pre-post science aspirations and goals using the Modified Attitude Toward Science Inventory, (d) teachers' fidelity of implementation using the Teaching Science as Inquiry instrument, and (e) classroom interactions using the Science Teacher Inquiry Rubric, and the Reformed Teaching Observation protocol. To interpret the main three levels of data (students, nested in teachers, nested within schools), hierarchical linear modeling (HLM), including HLM6 application, are utilized. An advisory board, including experts in research methodologies, science, informal science education, assessment, and measurement oversees the progress of the study and provides guidance to the research team. An external evaluator assesses both formative and summative aspects of the evaluation component of the scope of work.
The key outcome of the study is a research-informed and field-tested intervention implemented under specific conditions for enhancing middle school science learning and teaching, and supported by partnerships between formal and informal organizations.
The Complex Adaptive Systems as a Model for Network Evaluations (CASNET) study was a four-year research project investigating evaluation capacity building (ECB) within a network using a complexity theory lens. The study used a case study approach to examine and understand evaluation capacity building within the Nanoscale Informal Science Education Network (NISE Net). NISE Net is a national community of researchers and informal science educators dedicated to fostering public awareness, engagement, and understanding of nanoscale science, engineering, and technology. Instituted in 2005 through NSF funding (DRL-0532536 and 0940143), NISE Net has continuously expanded and is currently comprised of close to 600 science museum and university partners. The intent of the CASNET project was to provide insights on (1) the implications of complexity theory for promoting widespread and systemic use of evaluation within a network, and (2) complex system conditions that foster or impede ECB within a network, i.e., in this case, within the NISE Net.