Information Technology in Science (ITS) Center for Teaching and Learning Environment Design Experiment Study for the Development of New Generation Leaders in Science Education

HR: 15:10h
AN: ED52A-07 [PDF]
TI: Information Technology in Science (ITS) Center for Teaching and Learning Environment Design Experiment Study for the Development of New Generation Leaders in Science Education
AU: * Herbert, B E
EM: herbert@geo.tamu.edu
AF: Texas A&M University, Geology & Geophysics, College Station, TX 77843-3115 United States
AU: Schroeder, C
EM: cmschroeder@cox-internet.com
AF: Texas A&M University, Teaching, Learning & Culture, College Station, TX 77843 United States
AU: Brody, S
EM: sbrody@archone.tamu.edu
AF: Texas A&M University, Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning, College Station, TX 77843 United States
AU: Cahill, T
EM: tcahill@civilmail.tamu.edu
AF: Texas A&M University, Civil Engineering, College Station, TX 77843 United States
AU: Kenimer, A
EM: a-kenimer@tamu.edu
AF: Texas A&M University, Biological and Agricultural Engineering, College Station, TX 77843 United States
AU: Loving, C
EM: cloving@tamu.edu
AF: Texas A&M University, Teaching, Learning & Culture, College Station, TX 77843 United States
AU: Schielack, J
EM: janie@its.tamu.edu
AF: Texas A&M University, Information Technology in Science (ITS) Center for Teaching and Learning, College Station, TX 77843 United States
AB: The ITS Center for Teaching and Learning is a five-year NSF-funded collaborative effort to engage scientists and university and school or district-based science educators in the use of information technology to improve science teaching and learning at all levels. One assumption is that science and mathematics teaching and learning will be improved when they become more connected to the authentic science research done in field settings or laboratories. The effective use of information technology in science classrooms has been shown to help achieve this objective. As a design study that is -working toward a greater understanding of a -learning ecology", the research related to the creation and refinement of the ITS Centerì collaborative environment for professional development is contributing information about an important setting not often included in the descriptions of professional development, a setting that incorporates distributed expertise and resulting distributed growth in the various categories of participants: scientists, science graduate students, education researchers, education graduate students, and master teachers. Design-based research is an emerging paradigm for the study of learning in context through the systematic design and study of instructional strategies and tools. This presentation will discuss the results of the formative evaluation process that has moved the ITS Centerì collaborative environment for professional development through the iterative process from Phase I (the planned program designed in-house) to Phase II (the experimental program being tested in-house). In particular, we will focus on the development of the ITS Centerì Project Teams, which create learning experiences over two summers focused on the exploration of science, technology, engineering or mathematics (STEM) topics through the use of modeling, visualization and complex data sets to explore authentic scientific questions that can be integrated within the K-16 curriculum. Ongoing formative assessment of the Cohort I project teams led to a greater emphasis on participant exploration of authentic scientific questions and tighter integration of scientific explorations and development of participant inquiry projects.
UR: http://its.tamu.edu/
DE: 6329 Project evaluation
DE: 6605 Education
SC: Education and Human Resources [ED]
MN: 2003 Fall Meeting