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There is a critical need for research-based active learning instructional materials for the teaching and learning of STEM in online courses. Every year, hundreds of thousands of undergraduate non-science majors enroll in general education astronomy courses to fulfill their institution’s liberal arts requirements. When designing instructional materials for this population of learners, a central focus must be to help learners become more scientifically and data literate. As such, we developed a new, three-part, curricular model that was used to inform the creation of active-learning instructional materials designed for use in online courses. The instructional materials were designed to help introductory astronomy students engage meaningfully with science while simultaneously improving their data literacy self-efficacy (especially as it pertained to making evidence-based conclusions when presented with a variety of data representations). We conducted a pilot study of these instructional materials at nine different colleges and universities to better understand whether students’ engagement with these materials lead to improved beliefs and self-efficacy. The results of our student survey analysis showed statistically significant changes on survey items that assessed students’ beliefs about science engagement, citizen science, and their data literacy skills. Additionally, we assessed whether faculty who implemented these materials were able to easily incorporate them into existing online astronomy courses. The instructor feedback emphasized that our curriculum development model did successfully inform the creation of easy-to-implement instructional materials, generating the potential for widespread dissemination and use at the undergraduate level.
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Building toward critical data literacy with investigations of income inequality
To promote understanding of and interest in working with data among diverse student populations, we developed and studied a high school mathematics curriculum module that examines income inequality in the United States. Designed as a multi-week set of applied data investigations, the module supports student analyses of income inequality using U.S. Census Bureau microdata and the online data analysis tool the Common Online Data Analysis Platform (CODAP). Pre- and post-module data show that use of this module was associated with statistically significant growth in students’ understanding of fundamental data concepts and individual interests in statistics and data analysis, with small to moderate effect sizes. Student survey responses and interview data from students and teachers suggest that the topic of income inequality, features within CODAP, the use of person-level data, and opportunities to engage in multivariable thinking helped to support critical data literacy and its foundations among participating students. We describe our definitions of data literacy and critical data literacy and discuss curriculum strategies to develop them.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1813956
- PAR ID:
- 10474020
- Publisher / Repository:
- International Forum of Educational Technology & Society
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Educational technology society
- ISSN:
- 1436-4522
- Subject(s) / Keyword(s):
- K–12 education, Intercultural competence, 21st century skills, Inquiry learning
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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