The United States invests over $600 billion on public K-12 education every year to further the Nation's prosperity and welfare. The National Science Foundation's CAREER program supports junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research, excellent education and the integration of education and research. This CAREER project dissects and characterizes science explanations in formal and informal learning settings to uncover best practices for optimizing explanations. Developing optimal practices for how adults use explanations in science learning has potential to improve the efficiency of knowledge transfer to the next generation of science learners. For example, in science learning it is often accepted that children learn best when they acquire information from first-hand experience. However, many times, at both home and school, first-hand information is not available. In these cases, students rely on an explanation given to them by a caregiver or teacher. How adults choose to provide explanations can vary dramatically, and aspects of the explanation itself can drive variability in future learning. Yet, it is unclear how various aspects of an explanation can be optimized to enhance science learning.
The project employs a three-pronged approach that includes (1) observations of questions and explanations in adult-child interaction in an inquiry-based preschool, (2) systematic experiments in both laboratory and museum settings to explore how various aspects of an explanation impact children's learning, and (3) an intervention designed to promote scientific thinking in parent-child dyads in a museum setting. The results from this project will provide insight into how children use adult explanations in science inquiry. The work will also produce generalizable insights, distributed widely, into how to leverage adult explanations to encourage STEM learning. In doing so, the project addresses the need to develop innovative strategies for inspiring STEM inquiry before children enter formal schooling. More generally, insight into how explanations are used in inquiry-based learning will have broad impact for guidelines on how to teach science in formal and informal learning environments. Integrated with this research are several educational activities designed to promote broader public awareness of social interaction in children's STEM learning. The project is funded by the EHR Core Research (ECR) program which funds basic research that seeks to understand, build theory to explain, and suggest interventions (and innovations) to address persistent challenges in STEM interest, education, learning, and participation.
