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The Project At-A-Glance
- Who: Cognitive Researchers at Carnegie Mellon Unviersity together with science teachers at four inner-city parochial schools.
- What: A study of how cognitive science can improve classroom science instruction.
- When: 2003-Present
- Where: Pittsburgh, PA
- Why: To improve science acheivement for all students and close the achievement gap between low-socioeconomic status (SES) students and high-SES students.
Updated 1/16/06
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From Cognitive Models of Reasoning to Lesson Plans for Inquiry is a three-year grant-funded educational research project with the primary objective of improving science education in urban classrooms through utilization of relevent cognitive research and collaboration between researchers and middle-level teachers in four inner-city schools. With this overarching goal in mind, the project has a number of objectives:
- To provide analyses that quantify and describe the conditions and challenges for science education in urban schools [learn more];
- to begin developing and testing lesson planning methods targeting the specific issues revealed by these analyses [learn more];
- to gather and assess student achievement data from a longitudinal cohort [learn more];
- and to carry out professional development workshops for participating teachers during the summer as well as regular meetings throughout the year [learn more].
1. Analyzing Science Teaching in Urban Classrooms
For cognitive researchers who traditionally use the psychology laboratory as a context of study, it is not only prudent, but also necessary to understand the classroom environment before trying to prescribe any changes and reforms. What is taught? What should be taught? How is it taught? How are the students learning? What is tested? What is the alignment (and misalignment) among science goals, science teaching, and science assessments?
Through classroom observations, teacher interviews, and detailed mapping of standards, resources, and assessments, a picture was painted of science education in this local urban school context that is consistent with the TIMSS 1995 and 1999 findings of science curriculums that are “a mile wide, an inch deep”. We also found that merely having standards, standards-based textbooks, and standards-based achievement testing does not solve this problem and, in fact, misalignment amongst these facets exacerbates the problem. From our analyses, we make the argument that it is completely unnecessary and grossly inefficient to teach everything in the science standards in every year without consideration of the tradeoffs between breadth and achievable depth. We arrive at a compromised curriculum planning method using the constraints of achievement tests to engender focus and coordination in an otherwise diluted and incoherent four year science curriculum. [return to objectives]
2. Developing and Testing Lesson Planning Methods
Project researchers together with participating middle-level classroom teachers have taught a number of lesson units encompassing both science process skills as well as standards-mandated content. These experiments have allowed the researchers to experience lesson planning in the very real everyday urban classroom context, and it is these experiences that are informing the design creteria for the development of our lesson planning method.
The results of these researcher-teacher experiments were rich and varied. The outcomes suggested that the various forms of instructional practice typcially adopted by teachers or advocated by reform efforts can be beneficial at various points of instruction, but none should be regarded as a universal panacea . The current focus of the project is to develop specific instructional guidelines for the use of various cognitive principles and processes. [return to objectives]
3. Measuring Student Achievement
In order to quantify findings of student achievement and to measure the size and nature of the so-called achievment gap, the project has gathered and assessed achievement records from 5th and 7th graders in the urban schools of a local parochial school district (over 500 students total). The original cohort of 5th graders is being followed over the course of the research project. In addition to these four inner-city schools, we have included a comparison school, comprised of the opposite student demographics, within the same district and used for data-collection only. [return to objectives]
4. Collaborating with Classroom Teachers
We see professional development as the key for sustainable change in classrooms during and after the time-frame of this project. Currently, project researchers meet with participating classroom teachers on a biweekly basis in addition to a three-day intensive workshop during the summer. This collaboration between the teachers and researchers has proved to be extremely fruitful and has resulted in three participating teachers enthusiastically agreeing to plan and teach their science lessons under a pilot curriculum framework developed through these workshops. [return to objectives]