Katie Barghaus and Jen McMaken
Katie Barghaus and Jen McMaken are part of a GSE team testing the effectiveness of modifications to two major middle school science programs. “We’re examining how incorporating cognitive science principles into the curriculum affects student learning and achievement,” Jen explains.
Their study is part of a large-scale project being conducted by the 21st Century Center for Research & Development in Cognition & Science Instruction. The Center was created to test the notion that advances in the field of cognitive science - how the mind receives, processes, stores, and retrieves information and knowledge - can help transform science teaching and improve student learning.
The two curricula - FOSS and Holt - have undergone the modifications and now incorporate three key principles of cognitive science: analogical reasoning, diagrammatic reasoning, and the role of background knowledge.
It is the job of the Penn GSE team to evaluate the modified curricula. Almost 200 schools in two states are participating in the randomized trial.
The team has developed a set of custom assessments to measure both student achievement and teacher knowledge; the group is also using data from the states’ eighth grade achievement tests. Plainly put, Katie says, “we’re using the data to contrast the effects of teacher professional development compared to no treatment.”
This research is being conducted under the auspices of the 21st Century Research and Development Center on Cognition and Science Instruction, a partnership of Penn GSE, Penn's Institute for Research in Cognitive Science, Temple University, the University of Pittsburgh, and Research for Better Schools.