Neil Stillings - US grants

A laboratory is being established for advanced cognitive modeling. In recent years, large-scale computer models have revolutionized the techniques of theory construction in cognitive science. The undergraduate who has been exposed only to traditional qualitative conceptual models and tractable mathematical or formal models can no longer be said to know how contemporary research in cognitive science is done. Computer modeling has been greatly accelerated by the introduction of powerful computer workstations and associated software. The new laboratory has a network of four workstations that have enough computing power and memory capacity to handle both large scale symbolic models, such as rule-based problem solving models and natural language processing models, and large-scale connectionist or neural network models for cognitive processes, such as word recognition and low-level vision. The laboratory is stocked with a number of running models and tools for model development, which are employed in two advanced courses on cognitive modeling, and intermediate course in experimental cognitive psychology, and in undergraduate thesis projects. The models are also used for demonstrations throughout the cognitive science curriculum. The college will contribute an amount equal to the award.

A two-day planning workshop will be held in Washington, DC, to consider in detail the current state of undergraduate cognitive science education and to issue recommendations for future directions. The workshop was initially suggested in the final report of the 1991 planning workshop for the cognitive science initiative at the National Science Foundation. It will be attended by approximately sixteen representatives of the cognitive science community, drawn from colleges, universities, and industry, as well as by program personnel from NSF and other government agencies. A survey of existing cognitive science programs will be conducted prior to the workshop. The workshop will consider ways to bring more intellectual coherence to the cognitive science major, the role of introductory courses in student recruitment, the role of computational resources in undergraduate programs, the implications of new developments in cognitive science research for the undergraduate curriculum, and the role of various kinds of faculty and student development programs in the improvement of undergraduate cognitive science education. The final report will issue recommendations for the future development of cognitive science education, and working subgroups of participants will be formed to pursue some of the recommendations.

9720363 Stillings This project is being funded through the Learning and Intelligent Systems (LIS) Initiative. to study tutorial interaction and learning outcomes in a feasible model of college-level inquiry-oriented instruction, as it is implemented in the Hampshire College science curriculum. This research will occur during the first two years. It will be conducted by Neil Stillings, Lawrence Winship, and a post-doctoral fellow in cognition and education, with the assistance of undergraduate research assistants and an outside educational research consultant. We will extend current intelligent multimedia tutoring technology to support college-level inquiry-oriented instruction. This research will involve the development of new software architectures to support inquiry in simulation environments and in integrated, computer-controlled laboratory environments. It will be conducted by Lee Spector, Beverly Woolf, Steven Weisler, and a post-doctoral fellow in computer science, with some additional involvement from Neil Stillings and Lawrence Winship. We will demonstrate our extensions of educational software technology by developing three college-level inquiry-oriented software packages in the biological and cognitive sciences. Our plan is to produce one application in the language sciences, one in the environmental sciences, and one in human biology. These applications will be classroom-ready and suitable for use outside the research context. The primary developers will be Lee Spector, Steven Weisler, a post-doctoral fellow in computer science, a professional programmer, and graduate assistants in computer science. They will work with faculty members in the appropriate disciplines. The original plan was to develop six applications rather than three. The budget has been reduced accordingly. At least two of the software applications will be tested at Hampshire, and at least one of them will be revised to reflect the testing results. The classroom testing involves an important feature of the proposed software architectures, which will have built-in educational and psychological measurement capabilities. The primary researchers for the software testing phase of the project are Neil Stillings, Beverly Woolf, the post- doctoral fellow in cognition and education, and an outside educational consultant. The original proposal also involved the introduction and testing of software at the University of Massachusetts. That aspect of the proposal has been dropped and the budget reduced accordingly.

Computer-based simulations of natural phenomena are particularly effective educational tools, especially when integrated into field and laboratory-based experiences. The investigators propose to build and evaluate educational software that simulates tree and forest growth and the effects of natural and human-created environmental disturbances on forest growth. We hope to further advance inquiry-based science teaching practices throughout Western Massachusetts. An inquiry-based educational philosophy is already deeply embedded into the academic structure, as well as in the faculty's teaching methods. To this institutional foundation we add collaboration with the NSF-funded Five-College PALMS and STEMTEC programs. These programs have built relationships between researchers, teacher education programs, and practicing teachers at local K-12 schools, and will allow us to have significant impact in local undergraduate as well as high school education. An innovative contribution in the area of evaluation will be to combine evaluation methodology and teacher education.

Pre-service and in-service science teachers will carry out some of the classroom-based testing. The student teachers will serve as vectors for introducing both the simulation technology and the inquiry-based teaching methods into existing classrooms. The results of the research, including software, student and teacher support materials, and evaluation results, will be distributed via a dedicated web site. One of the contributions of this work will be in developing an approach to representing simulation formulas that is applicable to educational simulations in any subject area. While most educational simulations are 'black boxes' that do not allow students to inspect or manipulate the underlying formulas, our software will include a Formula Inspector that will allow students to more deeply address four types of inquiry questions: 'what if,' 'relationship,' 'why,' and 'modeling.' DUE themes addressed: teacher preparation, integration of technology with education, faculty development.

The Development of Scientific Thinking and Conceptions of Science in College Science Students

The project is a three-year comparative study of general (as opposed to field-specific) student outcomes of introductory college science instruction will be compared with those resulting from more traditional instruction. Assessments will be conducted in a large state university, several private colleges, and several junior colleges. A rich, mutimodal assessment methodology will be employed, including the following components:

1. Interviews of students to assess their scientific epistemologies. A modified version of the Nature of
Science Interview will be employed.
2. On-line essay-style assessments of students' higher-order scientific inquiry and basic quantitative skills.
Two new instruments developed in previous research will be combined and refined for this project.
3. On-line student surveys covering student demographics, attitudes, and motivation.
4. Classroom observation, including detailed coding of teaching method and content. An observational protocol developed in previous research will be employed.
5. Faculty interviews.

The methodology will be deployed in three interrelated subprojects. First, student outcomes will be assessed and correlated with instructional practices and demographic variables in 12 courses distributed factorially across the three types of institution, two levels of innovation, and two disciplinary areas (biology and earth/environmental science). This project will produce a rich picture of higher-order cognition in today's college student and of the cognitive gains associated with various instructional practices.

Second, a sample of students from the 12 courses will be followed longitudinally for the duration of the project. The persistence and further development of early gains in cognitive skills and epistemology will be assessed. Students' choices of major field of study will be added to the demographic analyses of this data. This project will produce rich data on the development of scientific epistemology and cognitive skills in contemporary college students, and it will allow the assessment of the hypothesis that early explosure to inquiry-oriented instruction triggers persistent cognitive and motivational change.

Third, three intervention studies will be undertaken in which the researchers work with faculty members for courses that were assessed in the first year to redesign their courses to improve general student outcomes. The course will then be reassessed. The intervention projects concern the introductory chemistry curriculum at a large university, an interdisciplinary general science course at a small college, and geoscience course at a small collge. This project will attempt to use early findings of the assessment research and cognitive-informed principles of instructional design to improve student gains in general inquiry and quantitative skills and in epistemological sophistication.

Overall the project will produce research findings and new assessment techniques that will have an impact on changing college science education to meet national standards for improving students' understanding of the nature of science and skills in scientific reasoning.

The investigators would host a two-day workshop of 20 leaders in geoscience education, learning sciences, and the application of learning science to STEM disciplines. The goals of the workshop are to define the compelling research issues about learning in the geosciences, discuss avenues for disseminating existing research on learning, and initiate broad-based planning and coordination of activities. The participants in the workshop will discuss classroom experiences that are believed to be critical barriers to learning, define existing research that is applicable to learning geosciences, define new work on learning in the geosciences, and agree on specific steps. The meeting will produce a report with recommendations for disseminating research on learning.

This workshop is believed to be the first step in a series of activities to integrate research on learning into undergraduate geoscience education.

Biological Sciences (61)
This project addresses the need to engage introductory biology students in critical thinking and problem solving and to make topics in biology more exciting and relevant for all students. The products from this project include 1) the Human Biology Case Library, an undergraduate interface to a powerful suite of medical school case studies and 2) a set of inquiry-based curricular materials based on the use of the cases. These products foster active learning experiences, promote collaborative learning and increase the inquiry-orientation of science education. We aim to make accessible a tremendous variety and quantity of cases that have been collected at Harvard Medical School and adapted for undergraduate education. The Human Biology Case Library brings the advanced computational infrastructure to any student with a web browser and provides a suite of interactive tools based on a number of human biology cases. This access to a multiplicity of human cases, source documents and analysis tools provides a rich environment for promoting student inquiry. Introductory biology classes serve a great number of college students, including non-majors
and many future teachers. Medical school cases in non-electronic form have been adapted for undergraduate classes for six years at Hampshire College. The software being developed will support inquiry activities in the original classroom and is being tested in additional classrooms. Three cases are being implemented as a proof of concept, and their effectiveness is being tested in a variety of post-secondary institutions (e.g., a community college and large university) and within a variety of teaching styles (e.g., traditional large lecture-based and small case-based classes). We are examining the difficulties of comparing student performance across institutions. Close communication with faculty is facilitating the use of the modules and testing their effectiveness through student and faculty outcome studies, interviews and evaluation of changes in attitude and content learning. Rigorous methodologies are being used among well-defined populations to analyze outcomes. This material will be submitted to and reviewed by BioQUEST.

Over the past quarter-century, the traditional disciplinary boundaries among fields concerned with Culture, Mind, Brain, and Development (CBD) have been eroding. Long-standing barriers to interactions and integrations among the neural, psychological, and social sciences have begun to collapse. Disciplinary integration not only poses serious challenges in and of itself, but also promises to raise new questions that will drive the most innovative research of the future. Before these ends can be achieved, the challenges of developing and organizing integrative undergraduate curricula that will better both liberal education and the training of future researchers must be met. This workshop will focus on emerging trends in interdisciplinary research and the implications of these trends for undergraduate curriculum development. Leaders in both interdisciplinary research and undergraduate education will attend the workshop to engage in a productive engagement across fields that have traditionally emphasized different theoretical stances and methods. A special emphasis will be placed on developmental perspectives, which are a key to moving beyond traditional unresolved and oversimplified tensions, such as nature vs. nurture, universals vs. specificity, and brain vs. culture. Workshop activities will include talks on current research, small-group sessions devoted to community building and issue definition, presentations of model interdisciplinary courses and curricula, and final consolidating sessions for articulating an agenda for the future. The workshop will produce four objectives. First, a final report summarizing the intellectual substance of CBD intersections will be written, as will an agenda for changes in undergraduate teaching and fostering appreciation for interdisciplinary perspectives in future researchers. Second, a website comprising the results of the workshop and provisions for ongoing contributions from the CBD community will be created. Third, an edited volume containing papers from the workshop will be published. Fourth, workshop findings, recommendations, and models will be presented at national academic conferences and at the home institutions of workshop participants.

The workshop will promote the infusion into undergraduate education of new questions, interdisciplinary perspectives, theories, methods, and findings that are at one of the most critical frontiers of contemporary science. One workshop focus, on general education, will contribute to the education of a citizenry that can intelligently confront the profound moral and social issues that are arising from the convergence of biological and social science. The growing role of evolutionary theory, molecular biology, and neuroscience in the scientific understanding of mind and culture threatens traditional conceptions of free will, individual responsibility, values, life and death, permissible medical technologies, human origins, and the meaning of life itself. Changes that reduce the divisions among natural science, social science, and humanities curricula are required to prepare students to deal with these issues productively, rather than through avoidance or outright rejection of the relevant science. A second focus of the workshop, on upper-level undergraduate instruction, will enhance graduate training and scientific research by developing strategies to promote the interests and preparation of students at the intersections of culture, mind, brain, and development. New upper-level undergraduate courses and research experiences are needed to launch students on research careers armed with the cutting-edge knowledge.