The innovation in this project is the design and development of a novel Skills- and Assessments-Based Learning Environment (SABLE) to meet the needs of teachers, school districts and parents in helping high school students develop problem-solving skills. Currently, US students' poor performance in STEM disciplines is limiting their career options. The aim of SABLE is to provide students the best possible opportunity to succeed in high school science courses so that they may pursue rewarding, well-paid, careers in STEM fields. To that end, SABLE will include educational software that: 1) relates science to the real world; 2) engages students in STEM disciplines and 3) immerses them in virtual worlds in which they can develop and hone problem-solving skills. SABLE will include a variety of assessments of the students' skills as they progress, which will help identify individual student's personal strengths and areas of difficulty. By field-testing SABLE in a broad array of high schools, this project will determine whether SABLE is a feasible way to meet the growing demand that will face teachers as they move from content-based to skills-based instruction.
The broader/commercial impact of this project is that SABLE will help students develop the skills they need to solve problems regardless of the context. The central thesis of the project is that: problem solving is a skill, skills can be honed through practice, and the key to solving science problems is mastery of the scientific practices that comprise the scientific method. SABLE will guide students as they 1) acquire the requisite knowledge; 2) collect data; 3) analyze and interpret data; 4) form and test a hypothesis; 5) refine the hypothesis, if needed, according to the data; and 6) communicate their findings. SABLE is designed to enable teachers to assess student achievement at each of these steps, thereby allowing the teachers to identify and address areas that are problematic for individual students. Coupled with the applicability of scientific practices to solving all science-related problems, SABLE will help students develop critical thinking skills, and thereby address the needs of teachers, schools, parents and students.
Currently, US high school students rank just 28th in the world in science, and there is a critical need to improve science education in the US. The aim of this project was to develop and test a new product, called SABLE, which stands for "Skills and Assessments-Based Learning Environments". SABLE is comprised of two main components: 1) software that students use to solve real world problems, and 2) a website that teachers can use to assess how their students are performing in real time. As the students complete a problem-solving activity, their performance is analyzed by the website, and then presented to the teacher as a "heat map". The heat map allows teachers to identify specific skills or concepts that individual students may be having trouble mastering. Because the data is gvien to the teacher in real time, the teacher can help their students immediately. During this project, the research team developed and tested SABLE in partnership with more than 100 teachers across the US, and more than 3,500 students used SABLE. The results of this project were as follows: SABLE engaged students in their learning Teachers valued SABLE in their instruction SABLE increased student learning Students use critical thinking skills when using SABLE Teachers valued the real time data concerning critical thinking The real time data improved student performance when using SABLE In summary, SABLE has the potential to be an effective system to help teachers meet their need to introduce instructional materials that help students practice critical thinking skills. SABLE proved to be an intuitive system for teachers who commented on how easy the system was to implement and use in their classrooms. The availability of real time data enabled teachers to intervene "in the moment" with their students, and was adopted with enthusiasm by teachers.
