The Understandings of Consequence (UC) Project Team
The UC Project team is part of a larger research group, Project Zero, at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. The UC team began studying how students reason about causality in the context of their science learning in 1998 with funding from the National Science Foundation. We investigated patterns of difficulty that students had in learning important fundamental concepts and identified default patterns about the nature of causality that contributed to the difficulties. We developed ways to teach the causal patterns in the context of science and tested these in classrooms, comparing them to classrooms with "best practices" science but without a focus on causal patterns. Helping students learn to broaden their understandings of the nature of causality significantly improved their ability to learn the science concepts. We have published these findings in our research papers. The Understandings of Consequence Curriculum Units, developed with our teacher collaborators, are designed to help students understand the causal concepts in the context of particular science topics. These are available under the Resources and Curricula Link. Some of these units have been featured in the Essential Science Series developed by the Harvard Smithsonian Science Media Group and found at Annenberg Media.
Tina Grotzer
Tina Grotzer directs the Understandings of Consequence Project. She is an Associate Professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and a Principal Investigator at Project Zero. Her publications include an extensive review of the research on the development of complex causal understanding, published in Studies in Science Education. A book for teachers is forthcoming from Rowman Littlefield. She collaborates with scientists from organizations such as the National Center for Atmospheric Research, Institute for Ecosystem Studies, and the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. She has been an educational advisor for Disney, Henson, and PBSKids Next Generation. At Harvard, she teaches courses on the public understanding of science and on applying cognitive science to learning and teaching. Before coming to Harvard, she was a teacher in the Arlington, MA Public Schools and at the Poughkeepsie Day School.
The Science Media Group (SMG) has worked with the Understandings of Consequence Project Team to communicate UCP research results to educators through media. The SMG was founded by Dr. Matthew H. Schneps at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) to investigate new ways to use television and computer media to communicate science to the public at large. A part of the CfA's Science Education Department, the SMG has grounded its work in state-of-the-art science education research. Among the pioneering works created by the SMG are videos, such as A Private Universe, influential in shaping education reform worldwide; television programs, such as the PBS series Minds of Our Own, designed to alert the public to issues of science learning; and television, museum, Internet, and computer materials for children, parents, and teachers. From October 1996 until September 2008, the SMG managed the Annenberg Channel, a free television service providing lifelong learning and professional development for teachers nationwide.
