| Project | BGuILE: Teachers, students and materials interacting to construct biological knowledge |
| Contact | Iris Tabak |
| tabak@nwu.edu | |
| URL | www.ls.sesp.nwu.edu/bguile |
| Project description | BGuILE learning environments bring scientific inquiry into middle school science and high school biology classrooms. The environments consist of computer-based scenarios and associated classroom activities in which students conduct authentic scientific investigations. Students explain phenomena such as animal behavior and evolution - why lion hunts succeed or fail, how some finches are able to survive while their population is decimated, or how strains of Tuberculosis are resistant to antibiotics. The learning environment supports students' progression through a cycle of investigation. Students choose variables on which to focus, construct comparisons, interpret and synthesize results. They construct, evaluate and revise explanations, and respond to critiques from classmates. Students explore a myriad of data: qualitative behavioral data through video and text, quantitative morphological data through graphs, and simulated results of in-vitro experiments. Teachers in the BGuILE classroom augment and reinforce the supports in the computer environments. Teachers encourage students to consider alternative hypotheses, debate investigation strategies, and challenge interpretations. One focus of our research concerns how to provide support for student-directed investigations. We combine general inquiry support with biology-specific support. General analysis support encourages students to construct comparisons and annotate data with interpretations. Specific support helps students look for biological patterns, such as individual variation and relating structure to function, as well as organize data into biological evidence categories. General support for explanation construction encourages students to tie evidence to each claim. Specific support helps students articulate explanations that are consistent with canonical biological explanations. A second research theme examines how teachers enact inquiry projects. We examine how teachers create a climate conducive to scientific inquiry, how they frame and structure tasks to communicate expectations and values, and how they provide ongoing support as students conduct their investigations. Design research focuses on creating technological supports for these effective teaching practices. |