Learning to RECAST Students' Causal Assumptions in Science Through Interactive Multimedia Professional Development Tools

Harvard University, Cambridge MA

Investigators

Abstract

This resource development project would produce multimedia PD tools to help teachers identify students' naive science explanations and encourage their replacement by accepted scientific explanations. The proposed products would be interactive, multimedia professional development tools to guide middle school physics and biology teachers in assessing students' scientific explanations. The project's goals are to identify students' faulty explanations and then develop curriculum that will guide the process by which they recast their explanations to align them with accepted scientific ideas. This work builds upon a prior NSF-funded project entitled "Understandings of Consequence."