Middle

Graphs illustrating complex scientific relationships require students to integrate multiple concepts and visual features into a coherent understanding. We investigate ways to support students in integrating their understanding of density concepts through a graph that is linked to a simulation depicting the relationship between mass, volume, and density. We randomly assigned 325 8^th-grade students to 1 of 2 graphing activities.

Graph technologies are now widely available in K-12 science and mathematics classrooms. These technologies have the potential to impact the learning of science and mathematics, especially by supporting student investigations. We use meta-analysis to analyze 42 design and comparison studies involving data from 7699 students spanning over 35 years. In these studies, graphing technologies include computer software such as simulations; online tools such as graph utilities; and sensors such as temperature probes. We characterize the assessments used to measure graphing.

For five decades, JRME has sought to publish high-quality mathematics education research that advances the field’s knowledge and has a positive impact on the teaching and learning of mathematics in the classroom. The journal’s 50th anniversary represents an opportune time for the research community to take a step back, assess what progress has been made on the major problems of the field, and consider the most important problems that could orient research in the future.

Cai, J., Morris, A., Hohensee, C., Hwang, S., Robison, V., Cirillo, M., Kramer, S. L., Hiebert, J., & Bakker, A. (2020). Addressing the problem of always starting over: Identifying, valuing, and sharing professional knowledge for teaching. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 51(2).

In this paper we use practice theory, with its focus on the interplay of structure and agency, to theorize about teacher engagement in professional learning and teacher enactment of pedagogical practices as an alternative to framing implementation research in terms of program adherence and fidelity of implementation. Practice theory allowed us to reconsider assumptions about characteristics of effective teacher professional learning, and to rethink our own notions of agency.

Multimedia environments provide multiple resources for expression, collaboration, and knowledge-creation. Yet there is much to be learned about the design of such environments, the forms of collegial discourse that take place, and the benefits of participation. To this end, we study the 2017 STEM for All Video Showcase, a multimodal environment, that enabled educational researchers to share and discuss short videos depicting their federally-funded work to improve STEM education.

Recent reforms in science education have supported the inclusion of engineering in K-12 curricula. To this end, many science classrooms have incorporated engineering units that include design tasks. Design is an integral part of engineering and helps students think in creative and interdisciplinary ways. In this study, we examined middle-school students’ naturally occurring design conversations in small design teams and their learning of science as a result of engaging in an engineering and science unit.

K-12 introductory programming experiences are often highly scaffolded, and it can be challenging for teachers and learners to transition from these scaffolded experiences to experiences of learner-directed creative work, where learners are solving problems and fluently expressing ideas through code. Learners can often "get stuck" in this creative process due to a number of different factors: (1) imagination, (2) concepts, (3) bugs, (4) doubt, and (5) pedagogy.

Students’ difficulties with argumentation, proving, and the role of counterexamples in proving are well documented. Students in this study experienced an intervention for improving their argumentation and proving practices. The intervention included the eliminating counterexamples (ECE) framework as a means of constructing and critiquing viable arguments for a general claim. This framework involves constructing descriptions of all possible counterexamples to a conditional claim and determining whether or not a direct argument eliminates the possibility of counterexamples.