| NSF Org: |
RISE Integrative and Collaborative Education and Research (ICER) |
| Recipient: |
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| Initial Amendment Date: | August 10, 2012 |
| Latest Amendment Date: | June 4, 2014 |
| Award Number: | 1203021 |
| Award Instrument: | Standard Grant |
| Program Manager: |
Brandon Jones
mbjones@nsf.gov (703)292-4713 RISE Integrative and Collaborative Education and Research (ICER) GEO Directorate for Geosciences |
| Start Date: | August 15, 2012 |
| End Date: | January 31, 2017 (Estimated) |
| Total Intended Award Amount: | $288,533.00 |
| Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $340,316.00 |
| Funds Obligated to Date: |
FY 2014 = $51,783.00 |
| History of Investigator: |
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| Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
110 INNER CAMPUS DR AUSTIN TX US 78712-1139 (512)471-6424 |
| Sponsor Congressional District: |
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| Primary Place of Performance: |
10100 Burnet Road, ROC/Bldg. 196 Austin TX US 78758-4445 |
| Primary Place of
Performance Congressional District: |
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| Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
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| Parent UEI: |
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| NSF Program(s): |
GEO TEACH, Integrat & Collab Ed & Rsearch |
| Primary Program Source: |
01001415DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT |
| Program Reference Code(s): |
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| Program Element Code(s): |
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| Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.050 |
ABSTRACT
DIG TEXAS (Diversity and Innovation for Geosciences in Texas) is an alliance comprising earth scientists, educators and other stakeholders with a shared vision to elevate the stature of the geosciences in Texas. With funding from NSF's Geoscience Education program, DIG TEXAS is using cybertechnology to promote collaboration among alliance members and support activities designed to strengthen earth science education in Texas. The project is creating five on-line course road maps, or blueprints, for use in high school earth science classes. Each blueprint consists of an original scope and sequence, packaged with links to pre-existing, exemplary learning activities and resources. Regional teams are working to tailor the blueprints so that they address the specific needs of the diverse student population and educators who work with them throughout the state. The Science Education Resource Center (SERC) at Carleton College serves as the repository for the blueprint web pages, which also is accessible from the DIG TEXAS website. CYBER-ShARE, a Center of Excellence at the University of Texas at El Paso, is collaborating with SERC to create structural frameworks for organizing information in the collections. Coherent blueprints for implementation of a 21st century earth science course are lacking, not only in Texas, but also throughout the nation in general. Therefore the blueprints are also expected to serve as examples of earth science instruction in other states by demonstrating the integration of stellar teaching resources into earth science courses.
PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT
Disclaimer
This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
Diversity and Innovation in Geoscience (DIG) Texas Project: Outcomes
The Diversity and Innovation in Geoscience (DIG) Texas project sought to map the best available online Earth science teaching resources and curricula with high school standards. The project achieved this goal through the curation of geoscience educational resources organized within the framework of five Dig Texas instructional blueprints. A single blueprint comprises a collection of three-week units for teachers to use to teach a yearlong Earth science course or a condensed summer course. Units are populated with curated educational resources and learning activities from trustworthy sources selected on the basis of scientific accuracy, appropriateness of pedagogy and teaching strategy, and alignment with the Earth and Space Science Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) and Earth and Space Science Literacy Principles. The Science Education Resource Center (SERC) serves as the repository for the Dig Texas instructional blueprints and developed the functionality for users to navigate through the blueprints to the educational resources, which are hosted on the original developers’ websites. This approach ensures that users are aware of the provenance of each resource.
Regional teams composed of science teachers, pedagogy and geoscience content experts, and five master teachers who participated in the project as education interns played a key role. They vetted educational resources, created scaffolding notes for each unit to guide instructors on implementation, constructed tables to show how each unit addressed components in the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), and refined the project website. An external panel of six geoscience and pedagogy education experts conducted an external review of the blueprints and concluded that they are a valuable educational resource.
The project offered important opportunities for participating teachers to collaborate with geoscience and science education university faculty, and for growth, leadership and career advancement. Teachers became more discerning users of Earth science educational resources and the project evaluation results reveal that the experience influenced their practice and performance in the classroom. Four of the five teachers involved in the project as education interns emerged as Earth science teacher leaders filling multiple roles, including content expert, resource provider and peer mentor. Two have gained national recognition as excellent Earth science teachers. One was motivated to improve her knowledge of Earth science through participation in a seagoing research expedition. All have delivered professional development and technical presentations on the project at national geoscience and science education meetings. One is the 2016-2018 president-elect of the National Earth Science Teachers Association.
The project also supported a recent Ph.D. with expertise in learning technologies and instructional technology education as the technical manager in the first year. In the second year, a graduate student participated as a team mentor. Participation in the project provided both training in program support, evaluation of Earth science educational resources, and delivery of online Earth science teaching and learning.
The DIG Texas blueprints are free and available online to teachers throughout Texas who teach the state’s high school Earth and Space Science course. The project’s impact on secondary Earth science education in Texas extends beyond the Earth and Space Science course, however, through a licensing agreement with the OnRamps program at The University of Texas at Austin to permit the use of DIG Texas resources in a dual-enrollment (high school-college) geoscience course. OnRamps operates in partnership with the Texas Higher Education Leaders Consortium and is supported by funding from the Texas Legislature. Four teachers who worked on the DIG Texas Blueprint project are OnRamps geoscience instructors. A former DIG Texas education intern is employed part-time in the summer to assist the OnRamps geoscience faculty lead and course coordinator to identify suitable Earth educational resources, using the DIG Texas online resource review tool developed by SERC for the project. Created primarily as a resource for Texas teachers, the DIG Texas blueprints have application beyond Texas. Educators in any state can adapt a blueprint or select individual units from the bank of 20 DIG Texas units and arrange them in a suitable framework to meet the needs of their schools, districts, and unique settings.
Additional outcomes include ten presentations at national geoscience professional and science education meetings, two articles in preparation for submission to the Journal of Geoscience Education and the Earth Scientist, and a course for pre-service teachers offered by the Department of Geological Sciences at The University of Texas at Austin in 2015.
Website:
http://serc.carleton.edu/dig_blueprints/index.html
Last Modified: 05/03/2017
Modified by: Katherine K Ellins
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