The University of Utah will develop a plan for a model curriculum and associated assessments project that integrates science practices, crosscutting concepts, and core disciplinary ideas through the integration of mathematics and science and the application of appropriate educational technologies. The unit plan and prototype lessons will model ways in which quantitative literacy and the Common Core Standards of Mathematics can be addressed in the biology curriculum. This two-year exploratory research project will take place in the general biology classrooms of teachers in Utah, Maryland and Washington, DC.
The project will develop the following: a detailed plan for a new, 5-week curriculum replacement unit for high school biology that helps students build a coherent understanding of evolution; a valid and reliable set of test items to assess students' understanding of the unit's learning goals using Project 2061 and to refine these measures using an iterative process of development, testing, expert review and revision; prototypes of five evolution lessons from the planned unit. In addition a the researchers will conduct a small-scale pilot test of the prototype lessons with diverse student populations.
The unit plan and prototype lessons will be developed using a learning-goals-driven design model that includes iterative rounds of development, analysis for content coherence using American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Project 2061's valid and reliable analysis procedure, reviews by scientists and teachers, and revision.
Intellectual Merit: The Framework for K-12 Science Education and the Next Generation Science Standards describe a vision for science education that integrates Disciplinary Core Ideas, Science Practices and Crosscutting Concepts. However, there are very few models for high school biology curriculum materials and associated, closely-aligned assessment tasks that address all three of these dimensions. To begin to address this issue, we developed a plan for a 6-week unit on biological evolution that includes the science ideas about heredity which students need in order to understand this Core Idea and that integrates the three dimensions of learning. We then developed prototypes for six days of lessons on natural selection and assessment items that require students to apply what they learned in order to explain other science phenomena. The lessons authentically engage students in the science practice of Analyzing and Interpreting Data utilizing the same or similar methods that researchers used to analyze the data in published studies. Students also carry out the science practice of Engaging in Argument from Evidence. The lessons and assessments were revised after each of several rounds of testing with students. To evaluate the extent to which the lessons supported students’ learning we conducted a small-scale pilot test with seven teachers in five states across the US who teach grade 9-10 biology. Students (n=308) showed significant learning gains from pre-test to post-test (p<0.001). Further analysis revealed student learning gains in data analysis, knowledge of natural selection theory, and genetics and heritability (all, p<0.001). Additionally, students showed a decrease in selecting answers to multiple choice questions that contained the following misconceptions: individuals deliberately develop traits that help them better survive in a particular environment, and the x-axis on a graph always shows a span of time (both, p=0.007). Taken together, these data show that our approach holds preliminary evidence of promise for increasing students’ understanding of natural selection and decreasing misconceptions about natural selection and graphs. Survey data from the participating teachers and classroom observations revealed that although there was variability in the amount of time teachers spent on some of the natural selection lessons, on the whole, the lessons were implemented as intended. Teachers reported that although the materials were quite different from their typical natural selection lessons, the lessons were easy to enact and contained appropriate math, language and science content. All of the teachers indicated that they would use the lessons again. Broader Impacts: A total of 591 high school students (30% from racial/ethnic groups underrepresented in science and ~45% from low-income families) used the natural selection lessons as part of our classroom tests of the materials. These students were exposed to applying mathematics and analyzing data from published scientific studies in order to develop evidence-based arguments—something they likely had not done before in their biology classes. Thus, the project exposed these students and their teachers to new ways of thinking about science. Presentations about the project outcomes were made or have been accepted at conferences that include curriculum and assessment developers, science methods course instructors, scientists and policy makers.
