麻豆影院

Putting kids to work on meaningful projects can transform classrooms into beehives of inquiry and discovery, but relatively few rigorous studies have examined how well this teaching method actually works. An听describes preliminary, first-year outcomes from a study of 3,000 middle school students that shows kids can, in fact, learn more in science classrooms that adopt a well-designed, project-focused curriculum.

Students participate in the same basic ways that scientists would, with activities organized by important 鈥渄riving questions鈥� that are relevant in science but also meaningful for kids.

When researchers analyzed test scores from those classrooms by students鈥� gender and ethnicity, there were no differences in learning performance. That鈥檚 a preliminary indication that high-quality project-based curricula might be able to help narrow the听听in children from low-income backgrounds or other groups that are underrepresented in STEM fields. The project-based science lessons 鈥渟eem to work for all kinds of kids,鈥� said report co-author Christopher Harris, a senior researcher at SRI International in Menlo Park, California. 鈥淕irls and boys learned at similar rates in this study.鈥� He believes that the personal engagement in meaningful classroom activities that teachers can create through such curriculum materials 鈥渕akes a difference.鈥�

How well the benefits hold up or grow in the second year of implementation remains to be seen. But the researchers see听听as a promising strategy for helping school systems move toward听听that were released last year.

Access to good science curriculum materials is a 鈥渧exing issue,鈥� Harris said. In urban public schools, science textbooks are often 10 years old and the standard curricula 鈥減rovide very few opportunities for students to really engage in the science, beyond emphasizing the scientific canon or the knowledge that鈥檚 been developed over time,鈥� he said. 鈥淭hey typically don鈥檛 have a hands-on approach.鈥�

To move beyond the rote memorization of disconnected science facts that traditional instruction tends to emphasize, in 2011 the U.S. National Research Council laid out a听. The听听embody that framework and aim to teach kids some of the core thought processes and practices that scientists and engineers use to investigate natural phenomena and solve problems.

Meeting those new standards will likely require a considerable shift in how schools teach science. Project-based inquiry learning programs seem well suited to be part of the solution: They get students to participate in educational projects in the same basic ways that scientists would, with activities organized by important 鈥渄riving questions鈥� that are relevant in science but also meaningful for kids, Harris said.

Putting Project-Based Science Classes to the Test

One such curriculum for grades 6-8 is Project-Based Inquiry Science (PBIS). Originally developed in the 鈥�90s at several universities with funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF), it incorporated the latest research knowledge on how students learn and how teachers can best teach them. An education publishing company named It鈥檚 麻豆影院 Time brought听听to the commercial market.

Currently, PBIS is one of the few curricula available that are fully aligned with the new science standards, and its structured activities emphasize core practices such as carrying out investigations, constructing science explanations and developing and using models. For instance, one physics project poses the driving question, 鈥淲hy should I wear a helmet when I ride my bike?鈥� 鈥� an inquiry that鈥檚 compelling because it connects directly to kids鈥� everyday lives, Harris said. To answer it, students work on a series of activities leading them to explore related questions that build their knowledge of the principles of force, motion, acceleration and gravity, so that they can grasp how a helmet would protect their heads from the impact of a potential collision. With guidance from their teacher, 鈥渢hey鈥檙e conducting investigations, but there鈥檚 also supports for kids to collect data, organize it, analyze it, share it, debate it, argue about it鈥濃�攕imilar to how real-life scientists work, he said.

In an SRI research effort funded with a $5 million NSF grant, Harris recently conducted a randomized controlled trial of whether the PBIS materials are effective. Project collaborators included William Penuel of the University of Colorado and Joseph Krajcik, a Michigan State University professor who helped develop the new U.S. science standards as well as the original PBIS curriculum.

The experiment took place in sixth-grade science classes at 42 middle schools in a large, ethnically diverse urban public school district during the 2012-2014 academic years. 麻豆影院 55 percent of the pupils were eligible for free or reduced-price lunches. Half of those schools adopted PBIS curriculum units for physical science and earth science, with their teachers going through professional development training (provided by It鈥檚 麻豆影院 Time) in project-based teaching and the next-generation science standards. The rest of the schools taught science the traditional way, but their instructors also received training in the new standards. Almost 100 teachers and more than 3,000 students participated.

On average, kids in the project-based physical science classes performed roughly 8 percent better on an end-of-unit learning assessment than the kids in traditional classes. (Because the course content was new, the researchers also had to create entirely new assessment tests, which required a lot more demonstration of critical thinking skills than standard multiple-choice science tests.) That鈥檚 an improvement that would lift a student who scored in the 50th percentile on the test to the 58th percentile 鈥� a gain that 鈥渋s actually really good for an education intervention,鈥� Harris said. Pupils in the PBIS earth science classes showed a similar trend toward stronger scores, but that increase wasn鈥檛 statistically significant.

鈥淚t takes at least two years for teachers to become comfortable with new curriculum materials,鈥� Harris noted. Nonetheless, instructors in year one of the trial were able to use the project-based materials 鈥渞elatively effectively to support the kind of science learning called for in the new standards. We are very interested to see what the analysis will show for year two.鈥�

Barriers Ahead 鈥� and the Potential Payoff

The research team is now analyzing data from year two and will evaluate how well teachers implemented the project-based curriculum. While the approach clearly听more, potential barriers to its wide adoption include the fact that it is resource intensive, Harris said. School districts have to buy not just the book and teacher鈥檚 guide but also the materials for classroom activities. Each PBIS unit costs roughly $23 per student.

And teachers need substantial training, including support throughout the school year, to learn how to coordinate kids to collaborate well on projects, and to ensure that important scientific concepts bubble up and get discussed. So project-based learning is generally a huge investment for school districts and more work for the teachers, but many of them 鈥渇ind that the hard work pays off,鈥� he said.

Harris hopes to see more project-based science curricula coming out that are keyed to the new standards and grounded in research on learning. Such materials are badly needed in elementary schools, because too many children don鈥檛 get exposed to good science instruction on a consistent basis until middle school, he said. Catching kids earlier to help them see the big picture of what science is about could spark their excitement 鈥� and perhaps inspire new generations of young scientists from diverse backgrounds that STEM disciplines are greatly in want of.