LAWRENCE — Researchers from the University of Kansas and CAST, a nonprofit organization and founders of the Universal Design for Learning framework, have won a grant to improve a tool that has proven effective in helping students , especially people with disabilities, to grasp science concepts making it more teacher-friendly and sustainable to use in classrooms.
The U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs, selected KU and CAST for a five-year, $2.5 million grant to implement CORGI 2020which will boost student academic achievement in STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Math) fields.
“This new iteration – which we’re calling CORGI 2020 – has the potential to improve student achievement in middle school science,” said James Basham, Principal Investigator, Associate Professor of Special Education and Senior Director of Learning and CAST innovation. “Working closely with learners and teachers will allow us to create a truly scalable tool for the classrooms of tomorrow. What we are doing with this project is extending the research that has been done to help all students, but especially those with disabilities. We support them in STEAM subjects, helping them better understand scientific concepts and move towards higher-order thinking.
CORGI, named for “Co-Organize Your Learning”, is a digital tool that works in a Google App environment. The tool uses graphic organizers to help students understand science concepts. Graphic organizers, developed at KU’s Learning Research Center, part of the Life Span Institute, help students visualize and explore modes of reasoning, such as compare and contrast, when analyzing concepts or problems. It guides students in assessing what is known about a concept, how it compares and contrasts with others, prompts discussion, questions, and deep understanding of concepts in a collaborative environment. Previous peer-reviewed research has shown CORGI to be effective, as students have shown significant gains in learning science and American history using the tool. Students with disabilities have also made substantial progress.
Janis Bulgren, Co-Principal Investigator and Research Professor at KU’s Learning Research Center, developed the graphic organizers, which were interactively developed by students and teachers on paper and then used with instructional procedures called content enhancement routines. The routines used in this project focus on higher order reasoning such as causality and comparison. This latest project will not only help improve the digital version for students, but also make it more effective for teachers who deploy it in their classrooms.
“As researchers we can say ‘it works’, but when you have teachers in the room and they can say to their fellow teachers ‘this is how I used it, how it worked for me, and how it can work for you, “it’s even more powerful,” Bulgren said. Higher Order in Science Working with CAST allows us to take decades of research and development of content enhancement instructions, materials and procedures to the next generation.
CORGI 2020 will improve the tool by adding new features such as text chat for students who have difficulty in writing, dictionary function, and teacher support, among others. Support for teachers will include professional development, teacher coaching, testimonials from educators who have used the tool, teacher guides, lesson plans, and methods for collaborating online with other teachers using CORGI. The improvements were based on feedback from teachers who have used CORGI and will help schools implement it and train new teachers in its use.
“CORGI is a great example of effective co-design and design-based research, where we work directly with end users (in this case teachers and students) to improve the relevance and effectiveness of their resources by class,” said Linda Gerstle, CAST. CEO.
CORGI is available online for public use at corgi.cast.org. The latest round of funding will help researchers and educators make an improved version available to even more students.
“This sustained funding from CORGI has allowed us to build around what we’re learning about needs on the ground,” Basham said. “We really partner with schools to not only see what has scientific rigor, but to effectively design tools that work for today’s classrooms. CORGI 2020 takes what we know has been shown to work and scales it in a way that can be self-sustaining.
Image credit: Corgi.cast.org
