Accelerating Higher Order Thinking and STEM Content Learning Among Students with Learning Disabilities

The purpose of this project is to develop and refine an innovative Google-platform based application called CORGI for use with middle school students in physical, life, and earth science classrooms. The new version, CORGI_2, will include supports for content learning and higher order thinking and will pair with the cloud-based applications of the Google environment to offer multiple means of representation, response and engagement as well as videos, models, supports for decoding, and supports for background knowledge.

Full Description

The need for reduction in achievement gaps and the growing adoption of rigorous curriculum standards has raised expectations for all students, but especially for students with learning disabilities. Students are expected to learn science concepts and use their understanding to investigate the natural world through scientific inquiry. They must also develop higher-order reasoning skills, integrate knowledge and ideas using primary sources, use causal reasoning to understand the chain of events, delineate and evaluate claims, and assess the reasoning used in arguments. Lower participation and achievement in science courses makes students with learning disabilities less likely to pursue STEM degrees, STEM careers, and succeed in the labor market where higher order thinking skills and scientific literacy are increasingly important. It is important to develop innovative tools that build on evidence based practices in combination with promising new technologies to improve the academic trajectory in STEM disciplines. The purpose of this project is to develop and refine an innovative Google-platform based application called CORGI for use with middle school students in physical, life, and earth science classrooms. The new version, CORGI_2, will include supports for content learning and higher order thinking and will pair with the cloud-based applications of the Google environment to offer multiple means of representation, response and engagement as well as videos, models, supports for decoding, and supports for background knowledge. The team will refine CORGI to offer enhanced functionality and supports for scientific argumentation, concept mastery, collaboration strategies and social skills for cooperative groups.  Technology enhancements will include multimedia input and output, writing supports (e.g., sentence starters), discussion threads, and affective reactions to content/lessons.

The research team will work with both teachers and students to develop integrated units, new higher order thinking routines, learning and collaboration strategies, and new technological functionality in CORGI_2. Researcher-practitioner-student design teams will use Design-Based Intervention Research (DBR) methods to iteratively: (a) identify the science content for inclusion, (b) develop integrated content units in life, physical, and earth science, (c) integrate additional higher order thinking and learning strategies to promote higher-order thinking and reasoning, and (c) design and implement additional UDL and mobile functionality for CORGI_2. Participants will include 30 middle school teachers and approximately 200 students with learning disabilities, including reading disabilities. Researchers will collect formative evaluation data from teachers and students to examine the usability, science content learning, higher order thinking skills, engagement, and motivation of general education and special education students in middle school classrooms. Professional development modules will be developed to support the DBR cycles as well as to support wider scale adoption and use by all students.

PROJECT KEYWORDS

Project Materials

Title Type Post date Sort ascending
No content available.