Broadening Participation

Responding to an Emerging Epidemic through Science Education

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The project is pursuing two coordinated goals associated with science teaching and learning in the COVID-19 pandemic: 1) create COVID-related curriculum materials and 2) conduct research on teaching and learning in the pandemic. We partnered with 12 teachers to create and enact a model-oriented, issue based curricular unit about COVID-19. Research efforts focus on how teachers enact the materials and how and where students get information about the pandemic as they are living through it.

Co-PI(s): Pa Friedrichsen and Laura Zangori, University of Missouri

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InquirySpace 2: Broadening Access to Integrated Science Practices

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Every student should have the chance to experience the exciting practice of science. But far too often, students encounter only highly structured “cookbook” labs in their science classrooms. InquirySpace combines a software environment that integrates sensors, simulations, and data exploration capabilities with instructional guidance, and helps students move from fundamental data analysis and scaffolded experiments to open experiments of their own design.

Co-PI(s): Daniel Damelin and Hee-Sun Lee, Concord Consortium; Sam Gweon, Physics Front

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Building Sustainable Networked Instructional Leadership in Elementary Mathematics Through a University Partnership with a Large Urban District

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The goal of the Responsive Math Teaching project is to increase the quality of math instruction by developing the knowledge, skills, and competencies of school-based teachers and leaders and fostering a networked community across schools. Five core components guide the work:

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Mobilizing Teachers to Increase Capacity and Broaden Women's Participation in Physics (Collaborative Research: Hazari)

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STEP UP is mobilizing and supporting physics teachers with resources that disrupt narrow perceptions of physics and promote supportive classroom cultures to facilitate physics identity development, particularly for women. Drawing on counternarratives, the lessons/materials highlight broad physics careers pursued by diverse individuals, explicitly discuss the role of bias, and recognize those who have been invisible. The lessons/materials were found to have a positive effect on the future physics intentions of women and minoritized racial/ethnic groups.

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Supporting Success in Algebra: A Study of the Implementation of Transition to Algebra

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We are studying the implementation and impact of Transition to Algebra (TTA), a year-long algebra support curriculum for underprepared 9th-graders. TTA responds to an urgent need for innovative approaches that foster success in algebra for high-need students. We are examining the impact of TTA on students' algebra achievement and attitudes toward mathematics, using a quasi-experimental design with propensity score analyses to reduce selection bias threats. We are also investigating how teachers use and adapt TTA.

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Developing Preservice Teachers' Capacity to Teach Students with Learning Disabilities in Algebra I

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Project researchers are training pre-service teachers to tutor students with learning disabilities in Algebra 1, combining principles from special education, mathematics education, and cognitive psychology. The trainings emphasize the use of gestures and strategic questioning to support students with learning disabilities and to build students’ understanding in Algebra 1.

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Understanding How Integrated Computational Thinking, Engineering Design, and Mathematics Can Help Students Solve Scientific and Technical Problems in Career Technical Education

INITIATE is a 3-year, STEM+C Partnership Program Design and Development project that partners high school Mathematics and Career Technical Education (CTE) teachers in Toledo Public Schools (TPS). Due to mathematics oftentimes serving as a gatekeeper for further STEM study, including technical careers, and to the strong reciprocal relationship between mathematics, computational thinking, and preparation for STEM careers, the project includes teachers of Algebra I, Geometry, Algebra II, and Statistics/Analysis.
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Transforming Scientific Practices to Promote Students Interest and Motivation in the Life Sciences: A Teacher Leadership Development Intervention

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How Do Teacher Leaders Transform Scientific Practices to Promote Students Interest and Motivation in STEM? Formal and informal K-12+ educators learn to employ strategies of community mapping, curricular mapping and place-based, culturally sustaining pedagogy to write, teach, and evaluate NGSS lessons that engage underrepresented students in mathematics, life, earth, and physical sciences. Two case studies highlight how educators apply these strategies to intersect three domains: experiential/place-based learning, culturally sustaining learning, and disciplinary learning .

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Ed+gineering: An Interdisciplinary Partnership Integrating Engineering into Elementary Teacher Preparation Programs

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While new standards call for elementary students to learn engineering, many teachers do not receive any training in engineering and feel underprepared to teach it. Ed+gineering partners preservice teachers with engineering undergraduate students at three points during their respective preparation programs to develop and teach engineering lessons to elementary students. These three collaborations help engineering students develop interdisciplinary collaboration skills while helping preservice teachers develop the competence and confidence to integrate engineering.

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Environmental Innovation Challenges: Teaching and Learning Science Practices in the Context of Complex Earth Systems

Principal Investigator:

This project investigates learning as students, supported by social media and crowdsourcing, design and test innovations focused on reducing carbon emissions. Our hypothesis is: Competitive Challenges supported by social media and crowdsourcing will engage a diverse array of students in sustained and meaningful scientific inquiry. We anticipate that team members will engage with each other and other teams, using such science practices as modeling, experimentation, error-analysis, argumentation, representation and communication.

Co-PI(s): Brian Drayton, TERC

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