Learning to RECAST Students' Causal Assumptions in Science through Interactive Multimedia Professional Development Tools

Understanding the nature of causality is critical to learning a range of science concepts. The Understandings of Consequence (UC) Project, funded by NSF, established that students hold default assumptions about the nature of causality that hinder their science learning and that curriculum designed to restructure students' causal assumptions while learning that science leads to deeper understanding. With continued NSF funding, the UC team and the Science Media Group (SMG) of the Harvard -Smithsonia Center for Astrophysics will collaborate in a five-year iterative design process to create interactive, multimedia professional development tools to guide middle school physics and biology teachers in assessing the structure of their students' scientific explanations and in developing curriculum to restructure of RECAST (REveal CAusal STructure) students' understandings. RECAST is an application of the UC Project.