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Michele Spitulnik describes the ROLE program New Project Supports
Science Teachers’ Use of Innovative Technology
Professor Marcia Linn’s research group has embarked on a major new effort to improve science teaching in middle school classrooms. The project, called Helping Districts Respond to New Science Assessments, is a collaboration with two local school districts and is funded by the Research on Learning and Education (ROLE) program of the National Science Foundation. The Linn group’s project is now in the second year of a $1.7 million, three-year grant.“The project investigates a mentor model for helping teachers integrate inquiry learning with technology into science classrooms,” said Michele Spitulnik, the professional researcher for the ROLE project. “The mentors are experienced science teachers who are comfortable with the technology used in the project.”
“Working with whole science departments committed to inquiry learning with technology enables us to understand how teachers customize materials so they succeed with their students. Mentors can help teachers identify evidence from assessments and classroom interactions to improve practice,” remarked Linn.
The technology involves the curricula that Linn’s group pioneered in the Web-Based Inquiry Science Environment (WISE). As with the WISE project, the ROLE principal investigators are Linn and Associate Adjunct Professor Jim Slotta.
Mentors serve as critical friends for planning, classroom instruction, and reflection on student learning. The mentors can help students make connections when a class is confused. For instance, a Bay Area science class was exploring the causes of deformities in frogs. One hypothesis was that parasites were to blame. Another attributed the phenomenon to environmental causes. The teacher asked the class how scientists could design an experiment that would test the hypotheses, but the class was stumped. The mentor asked the class whether they could use their experience with “bottle science” from the previous semester to answer the question. In bottle science, students created a terrarium inside an empty soda bottle. The class came up with a design for two identical terrariums for frogs, realizing they could introduce a parasite into one of them to test the hypothesis.
“It was one of those ‘Oh my gosh’ moments for the teacher,” said Spitulnik, “where she realized that the students could make an analogy between their prior inquiry activities and this inquiry question.”
Those “Oh my gosh” moments are what the ROLE project is designed to maximize. The mentors, who include thirty-seven-year teaching veteran Doug Kirkpatrick, work with the teachers to set goals, plan instruction, interpret assessments embedded in the technology, and customize curriculum materials based on classroom evidence.
Each summer the teachers plan for the subsequent year, compare how they used evidence to improve learning, and explore the connections between project assessments and the planned California State science assessments. UCB graduate student Tara Higgins researches the mentoring relationship and the design of workshops that lead to improved student learning.
“We’re getting good student results from the project,” said Spitulnik. “We combine teacher designed assessments, assessments embedded in the technology, project designed items, and items from science assessments used in other states. One of the project’s main goals is to help students and teachers prepare for impending California science assessments.”
“Ultimately,” added Spitulnik, “we hope to create professional development programs that sustain innovations by preparing local teachers to mentor their own colleagues.”
return to BEL Spring 2005 contents return to GSE publications
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