Other

Broadening Participation — Making STEM Learning Relevant and Rigorous for All Students

This CADRE brief explores factors that contribute to opportunity gaps in STEM education based on race, ethnicity, gender, ability, and socioeconomic status. It showcases the work of several DR K-12 projects and describes promising approaches for removing barriers for underrepresented groups and enhancing the STEM learning of all students.

Author/Presenter

CADRE

Year
2015
Short Description

This brief explores factors that contribute to opportunity gaps in STEM education based on race, ethnicity, gender, ability, and socioeconomic status. It showcases the work of several DR K-12 projects and describes promising approaches for removing barriers for underrepresented groups and enhancing the STEM learning of all students.

Assessment of uncertainty-infused scientific argumentation

Lee, H-S, Liu, O.L, Pallant, A., Roohr, K. C., Pryputniewicz, S., & Buck, Z. (2014). Assessment of uncertainty-infused scientific argumentation. The Journal of Research in Science Teaching. 51(5), 581-605.

Author/Presenter

Hee-Sun Lee

Lydia Liu

Amy Pallant

Katrina Crotts Roohr

Sarah Pryputniewicz

Zoë E. Buck

Lead Organization(s)
Year
2014
Short Description

Though addressing sources of uncertainty is an important part of doing science, it has largely been neglected in assessing students' scientific argumentation. In this study, we initially defined a scientific argumentation construct in four structural elements consisting of claim, justification, uncertainty qualifier, and uncertainty rationale. We consulted literature to characterize and score different levels of student performances on each of these four argumentation elements. We designed a test comprised of nine scientific argumentation tasks addressing climate change, the search for life in space, and fresh water availability and administered it to 473 students from 9 high schools in the United States. After testing the local dependence and unidimensionality assumptions, we found that the uncertainty qualifier element was not aligned with the other three. After removing items related to uncertainty qualifier, we applied a Rasch analysis based on a Partial Credit Model. Results indicate that (1) claim, justification, and uncertainty rationale items form a unidimensional scale, (2) justification and uncertainty rationale items contribute the most on the unidimensional scientific argumentation scale as they cover much wider ranges of the scale than claim items, (3) average item difficulties increase in the order of claim, justification, and uncertainty rationale, (4) students' elaboration of uncertainty exhibits dual characteristics: self-assessment of their own knowledge and ability versus scientific assessment of conceptual and empirical errors embedded in investigations, and (5) students who can make warrants between theory and evidence are more likely to think about uncertainty from scientific sources than those who cannot. We identified limitations of this study in terms of science topic coverage and sample selection and made suggestions on how these limitations might have affected results and interpretations.

2016 Electronic Conference on Teaching Statistics (eCOTS)

Event Date
-

To learn more, visit: https://www.causeweb.org/cause/ecots/ecots16/.

DR K-12 Presenters:

  • Randall Groth, Salisbury University (Project: PATHWAYS - Preparing Aspiring Teachers to Hypothesize Ways to Assist Young Students)

 

Discipline/Topic
Event Type

Examining Elementary School Science Achievement Gaps Using an Organizational and Leadership Perspective

There is the tendency to explain away successful urban schools as indicative of the heroic efforts by a tireless individual, effectively blaming schools that underperform for a lack of grit and dedication. This study reports the development of a research instrument (School Science Infrastructure, or SSI) and then applying that tool to an investigation of equitable science performance by elementary schools.

Author/Presenter

John Settlage

Malcolm B. Butler

Julianne Wenner

Lara K. Smetana

Betsy McCoach

Lead Organization(s)
Year
2015

How to better understand the diverse mathematical thinking of learners

In this article Jessica Hunt explores the use of clinical interviews to gain a deep understanding of students' knowledge. Examples of clinical interviews are provided and advice for planning, giving and interpreting the results of interviews is also included.

Hunt, J.H. (2015). How to better understand the diverse mathematical thinking of learners. Australian Primary Mathematics Classroom, 20(2), 15-21.

Author/Presenter

Jessica Hunt

Lead Organization(s)
Year
2015

Exploratory Study of Informal Strategies for Equal Sharing Problems of Students With Learning Disabilities

Little to no information exists explaining the nature of conceptual gaps in understanding fractions for students with learning disabilities (LD); such information is vital to practitioners seeking to develop instruction or interventions. Many researchers argue such knowledge can be revealed through student’s problem-solving strategies. Despite qualitative differences in thinking and representation use in students with LD that may exist, existing frameworks of student’s strategies for solving fraction problems are not inclusive of students with LD.

Author/Presenter

Jessica Hunt

Susan Empson

Lead Organization(s)
Year
2014

Levels of Participatory Conceptions of Fractional Quantity Along a Purposefully Sequenced Series of Equal Sharing Tasks: Stu's Trajectory

Current intervention research in special education focuses on children's responsiveness to teacher modeled strategies and not conceptual development within children's thinking. As a result, there is a need for research that provides a characterization of key understandings (KUs) of fractional quantity evidenced by children with learning disabilities (LD) and how growth of conceptual knowledge may occur within these children's mathematical activity.

Author/Presenter

Jessica Hunt

Arla Westenskow

Juanita Silva

Jasmine Welch-Ptak

Lead Organization(s)
Year
2016
Short Description

Current intervention research in special education focuses on children's responsiveness to teacher modeled strategies and not conceptual development within children's thinking. As a result, there is a need for research that provides a characterization of key understandings (KUs) of fractional quantity evidenced by children with learning disabilities (LD) and how growth of conceptual knowledge may occur within these children's mathematical activity. This case study extends current literature by presenting KUs of fractional quantity, evidenced through problem solving strategies, observable operations, and naming/quantification of one fifth grader with LD before, during, and after seven instructional sessions situated in equal sharing.

Swimming Upstream in a Torrent of Assessment

Growing attention to preK mathematics and increased focus on standards in the US may be leading policy makers, administrators, and practitioners down the wrong path when it comes to assessing young children. The temptation to rely on standardised assessment practices may result in misguided understandings about what children actually know about mathematics.

Author/Presenter

Anita A. Wager

M. Elizabeth Graue

Kelly Harrigan

Year
2015

An Investigation of Middle School Science Teachers and Students Use of Technology Inside and Outside of Classrooms: Considering whether digital natives are more technology savvy than their teachers

The purpose of the study is to investigate the popular assumption that the "digital natives" generation surpasses the previous "digital immigrants" generation in terms of their technology experiences, because they grow up with information and communication technology. The assumption presumes that teachers, the digital immigrants, are less technology savvy than the digital natives, resulting in a disconnect between students’ technology experiences inside and outside of the formal school setting.

Author/Presenter

Shiang-Kwei Wang

Hui-Yin Hsu

Todd Campbell

Daniel C. Coster

Max Longhurst

Year
2014