Cumulative Learning using Embedded Assessment Results (CLEAR) focuses on the challenge of using assessment of relevant STEM content to improve K-12 teaching and learning. CLEAR takes advantage of new technologies and research findings to investigate ways that science assessments can both capture and contribute to cumulative, integrated learning of standards-based concepts in middle school courses. The project will research new forms of assessment that document students' accumulation of knowledge and also serve as learning events. CLEAR will use cohort and randomized classroom comparisons to determine what combinations of instruction and assessment enable middle school students to gain cumulative understanding of energy concepts in science. CLEAR will study whether the project's approach when used in one course impacts progress in the next. The project will put design principles from across the field to the test by determining which instruction and assessment strategies encourage cumulative understanding and help learners develop integrated ideas about science.
Intellectual Merit. There is an urgent need to develop accurate student assessments that measure cumulative knowledge while eliminating the disruptions caused by tests. By measuring students' developing understanding and ongoing efforts to make sense of new materials, the project will be able to foster coherent understanding. The project will do this by making assessment an integral part of computer-based curricula.
Broader Impacts. By aligning assessment and instruction around the goal of promoting understanding, the project will demonstrate how to improve learning outcomes for any STEM course. The project will also make courses more effective and efficient by converting assessment from a time-wasting, curriculum-limiting chore into an integral part of learning that fosters the accumulation of concepts across topics and grades. The results of the proposed research will have an important bearing on the design of effective electronic media on promoting student learnig.
The project is designed to have a major impact by undertaking the kind of careful, statistically valid research design that leads to reproducible results that can support policy. The project will be able to tailor instruction to specific learners, increasing the impact on students at risk for failure. The partners will continue their practice of widely dissemi-nating findings, materials, and open source software through reviewed papers, popular articles, talks, workshops, a website, and newsletters.
The project is led by Marcia C. Linn, Robert Tinker, Kathy Benemann, Hee Sun Lee, Ou Lydia Liu, & James Slotta
focused on the challenge of improving K-12 teaching and learning of energy concepts. CLEAR leveraged new curriculum, technologies, and research findings to investigate ways that science assessments can both capture and contribute to cumulative, integrated learning of standards-based concepts in middle school courses. CLEAR has conducted synergistic activities and studies that can be described in four main themes: Improvement and refinement of curriculum materials and new forms of assessment, Longitudinal progress of diverse students on cumulative learning goals concerning energy concepts in middle school, Fidelity of implementation of curriculum materials promoting cumulative learning in middle school classrooms, and Identification of specific strategies for promoting cumulative learning. CLEAR has created technology-enhanced middle school science curricula that integrate core energy ideas across the relatively incoherent state standards using the Web-based Inquiry Science Environment (WISE: wise.berkeley.edu). Informed by the knowledge integration framework, the curriculum guides students to explore standards-based energy topics. Instructional materials implement research-based strategies for promoting coherence. The materials provide a foundation that allows students to continue developing cumulative knowledge of energy in science in later grades. The core energy concepts are provided across four curricular units in grades six and seven. These units serve three main goals: a) they connect energy concepts such as energy conservation, energy transfer and energy transformation across science topics such as photosynthesis and plate tectonics ; b) they introduce and scaffold student use of essays, diagrams, visualizations, and experiments involving probes and sensors to explain their ideas; and c) they engage students in exploring energy concepts appropriate for each grade level. CLEAR researched two new forms of assessment: MySystem diagrams that allow students to show energy flow using icons and links; and Energy Stories that require narrative explanations about energy processes. These assessments document progress and also promote cumulative learning of energy concepts across CLEAR curricula. In particular, MySystem has been shown to help English Language Learners overcome language barriers to better represent their understanding of energy concepts. Using automated scoring to assign guidance on MySystem demonstrated that knowledge integration guidance is more effective than typical specific guidance for promoting cumulative learning. Knowledge integration guidance does not provide the correct answer but rather encourages students to revisit the visualizations in the curriculum to improve their response. CLEAR conducted two longitudinal studies to measure cumulative learning. In both the two- and three-year longitudinal study tracking sixth-grade students, results from item response modeling analyses revealed that: (a) the assessments demonstrated satisfactory psychometric properties in terms of reliability and validity; (b) both the cross-sectional and longitudinal cohorts made progress on integrating their understanding of energy concepts; and (c) among many factors (e.g., gender, grade, school, home language) associated with students’ science performance, unit implementation was the strongest predictor. CLEAR also investigated how fidelity of implementation across curriculum units impacts student performance on end-of-year assessments of cumulative understanding. We formulated metrics such as number of unique steps visited, unit completion, and time spent on critical learning activities such as investigating visualizations and constructing MySystem and Energy Stories. We found that the number of unique steps visited is positively related to end-of-year performance after controlling for beginning-of-year scores, gender, and language. There were no significant differences between gender groups or language groups in end-of-year outcomes, indicating that populations that are sometimes under-served in science classrooms are equally successful in this demanding context as their non-minority peers. CLEAR used cohort and randomized classroom comparisons to determine what combinations of instruction and assessment enable middle school students to gain cumulative understanding of energy concepts in science. The project put design principles from across the field to the test by determining which instruction and assessment strategies encourage cumulative understanding and help learners develop integrated ideas about science. Some of our findings include: prompting students to write their own explanations while they interact with a visualization, as opposed to reading explanations, is a more effective means of fostering cumulative understanding; guiding students to consider a range of ideas through critique can be a powerful means of promoting reflection on and refinement of their understanding; distributing instruction instead of clustering instruction in authentic classroom settings is more complex than laboratory studies may indicate, with spontaneous revisiting of prior instruction by students being a key predictor of success rather than the spacing of instruction. Overall, CLEAR found that promoting cumulative learning involved helping students distinguish their prior knowledge from the new ideas they encounter in the curriculum. The units have many features that help students distinguish ideas, such as automated guidance, critique, and making multiple representations of their understanding through MySystem and Energy Stories. In addition, data on revisits to prior instruction suggest that students who become aware of the gaps in their knowledge are more likely to succeed.
