Piloting Graph Literacy Activities in Maine

在缅因州试点图形素养活动

• 批准号: 1256490
• 负责人: Carolyn Staudt
• 金额: $ 29.88万
• 依托单位: Concord Consortium
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2012
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2012-10-01 至 2015-09-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1256490&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Piloting; Graph; Literacy; Activities; Maine

The goal of this project is to develop and pilot test a limited number of free computer-based instructional activities that improve student graph comprehension, aimed especially at science students in grades 7 and 8. In addition, the project is developing a pilot assessment instrument focusing on students' comprehension of graphs ("graph literacy"). The activities and the assessment instrument are being pilot tested in Maine, a rural state where family income is below the national average and students are underrepresented in studying STEM topics after high school. The state has identified this topic as an important one to focus on in the coming year. Graph literacy is the ability to identify the important features of a wide variety of graphs and relate those features to the context of the graphs. This increases the students' understanding not only of how to interpret graphs, but also of the science content. This definition of graph literacy, while based in the math and science standards, goes beyond skills tested by many assessments of graph knowledge because they focus primarily on reading points off a graph, typically a type of graph that students have studied and are familiar with. While broadening the usual definition for graph skills, the project focuses on scatter and line graphs of the type encountered in many mathematics and science courses in grades 7-12, as well as in newspapers and magazines.Graphs are central to STEM learning in many subjects and at almost all education levels. In spite of the vital role of graphs, students at all ages demonstrate difficulties using and interpreting graphs. The computer-based Graph Literacy activities being developed are based on extensive prior research about students' use and understanding of graphs, as well as continuing advances in delivering education activities through dynamic, interactive Web pages that do not require schools to install any software. Based on the research literature, there is a consensus that students need to be taught graph literacy in three steps: identifying and encoding the important superficial features of a graph they want to understand, such as the titles, units, and axis labels; linking visual features of that graph to mathematical relationships, based on recurring patterns (e.g., linear increase or decrease); and, integrating all of these features with the context of the graph. The activities we are developing are based on this approach, as are the validated assessments being developed to measure students' graph literacy. The project is conducting a small, randomized experimental trial of the graph literacy activities in year 2 of the project. The goal of is to determine the effectiveness of the graph literacy activities in improving students' understanding of graphs. The open source software and approaches developed under the prior grant contribute directly to the likely success of this project. Because of growing interest in use of online resources for teaching and learning, this work is potentially transformative for a wide range of audiences, including teachers, students, researchers, and the developers and publishers of instructional materials across all STEM areas and grades. The underlying software technology for Graph Literacy is being made available as open source computer code, and any activities that use the code are released under a creative commons license. As a result, the graph literacy activities, and the pilot assessment instrument, can be widely adopted at no cost.

该项目的目的是开发和试点测试有限的基于计算机的免费教学活动，这些活动改善了学生图理解，尤其是针对7年级和8年级的科学专业学生。此外，该项目还在开发一种飞行员评估工具的重点关于学生对图形的理解（“图形素养”）。活动和评估工具正在缅因州进行试点测试，缅因州是一个农村国家，家庭收入低于全国平均水平，而学生在高中毕业后研究STEM主题的人数不足。该州已将这一主题确定为来年要关注的重要主题。图形素养是能够识别各种图形的重要特征并将这些特征与图形上下文联系起来的能力。 这不仅提高了学生对如何解释图形的理解，而且还对科学内容也提高了理解。 图形素养的这种定义虽然基于数学和科学标准，但超越了对图形知识的许多评估所测试的技能，因为它们主要关注图形的阅读点，通常是学生研究和熟悉的一种图形。在扩大图形技能的通常定义的同时，该项目着重于7 - 12年级的许多数学和科学课程中遇到的类型的散点图和线图，以及在报纸和杂志中。以及几乎所有教育水平。尽管图表的至关重要，但所有年龄段的学生都表现出了使用和解释图的困难。开发的基于计算机的图形识字活动基于有关学生对图形的使用和理解的广泛研究，以及通过动态的交互式网页继续提供教育活动的进步，这些网页不需要学校安装任何软件。 基于研究文献，达成共识，需要以三个步骤教授学生的图形素养：识别和编码他们想要理解的图形的重要表面特征，例如标题，单位和轴标签；将该图的视觉特征与数学关系联系起来，基于经常性模式（例如，线性增加或减少）；并且，将所有这些功能与图的上下文集成在一起。我们正在开发的活动基于这种方法，以及开发了验证的评估以衡量学生的图形素养。该项目正在该项目的第二年对图形识字活动进行一项小型，随机的实验试验。目的是确定图形素养活动在改善学生对图形的理解方面的有效性。先前赠款下开发的开源软件和方法直接有助于该项目的成功。由于对使用在线资源进行教学的兴趣越来越大，这项工作对于广泛的受众，包括教师，学生，研究人员以及所有STEM领域和成绩的教学材料的开发人员和出版商都具有变革性。用于图形素养的基础软件技术作为开源计算机代码可用，并且使用该代码的任何活动均在创意共享许可下发布。结果，可以免费采用图形识字活动和试点评估工具。