Science

Reducing Racially Biased Beliefs by Fostering a Complex Understanding of Human Genetics Research in High-School Biology Students (Collaborative Research: Golan Duncan)

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We are developing a politically-oriented genetics unit for high school. Drawing on the Rightful Presence (Calabrese Barton & Tan, 2020) and Critical Science Agency (Basu et al., 2009) theoretical frameworks, the unit will explore the ways in which representations of genetic differences within and between groups and construals of gene-environment interactions are historically informed, politicized, and non-neutral. Such construals reify social categories and hierarchies as natural/ideal, and thus contribute to oppressive views and policies.

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Preparing Teachers to Design Tasks to Support, Engage, and Assess Science Learning in Rural Schools

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This project prepares rural secondary science teachers to design five-dimensional assessment tasks in which students use the three dimensions of the NGSS to make sense of phenomena that connect to their interests and identities. We created an online course to develop a 5D vision for science with teachers and support them in designing phenomenon-driven tasks. After ethnography and co-design work, we are conducting an experiment to research the effects of the course on teacher outcomes.

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Preparing Next Generation Scientists Through Teacher and Extension Science Partnerships and Schoolyard Citizen Science Investigations in Elementary Schools

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Schoolyard SITES is a community partnership STEM teacher professional development program and research study at University of New Hampshire. The program partners elementary teachers with UNH Extension science volunteers to bring locally-relevant citizen science projects to their students. Our research study examines the factors associated with a community-based partnership PD model that will improve elementary school teachers’ self-efficacy teaching science and their success in engaging students in citizen science projects and NGSS science practices.

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Precipitating Change in Alaskan and Hawaiian Schools: Modeling Mitigation of Coastal Erosion

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With partners from Alaskan and Hawaiian Native communities, multiple universities, and the Concord Consortium, we are exploring approaches to designing, testing, and refining multi-perspective, middle school science instruction about coasts and coastal change. Key questions include: How can multiple perspectives be included in ways that demonstrate equity and respect rather than some perspectives being represented more deeply than others? And, what does learning look like when it authentically represents multiple perspectives?

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Opening Pathways into Engineering Through an Illinois Physics and Secondary Schools Partnership

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Illinois Physics and Secondary Schools (IPaSS) is a partnership between the University of Illinois Physics Department and 40 high school physics teachers representing 38 schools across Illinois. The holistic goal of the program is to develop a physics teaching Community of Practice that supports high school physics teachers from diverse school contexts in the design and implementation of high-quality, university-aligned instructional materials, such that their students experience fewer barriers in transitions to post-secondary STEM programs.

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Online Practice Suite: Practice Spaces, Simulations and Virtual Reality Environments for Preservice Teachers to Learn to Facilitate Argumentation Discussions in Math and Science

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This project uses design-based research to develop, pilot, and refine a set of complementary online activities for preservice teachers to engage in approximations of practice to develop their ability to facilitate argumentation-focused discussions in mathematics and science. The effort has produced an integrated online practice suite (OPS) containing a coordinated and scaffolded collection of approximation of practice activities using game-based practice spaces, simulations, and virtual reality coupled with targeted feedback and support from teacher educators.

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Managing Uncertainty for Productive Struggle: Exploring Teacher Development for Managing Students' Epistemic Uncertainty as a Pedagogical Resource in Project-based Learning

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The project explores teachers' capacity to manage student uncertainty as a pedagogical resource that supports student’s productive struggle and the development of conceptual knowledge during project-based learning (PBL) instruction in middle school science classrooms. This project explores how teachers' instructional practices change over time with repeated use of epistemic uncertainty as a pedagogical resource to support students’ engagement in PBL, and what effect those changes have on student perceptions, practice, management of epistemic uncertainty and learning outcomes.

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Locally Adaptable Instructional Materials and Professional Learning Design for Place-based Elementary Science

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This project investigates how to design instructional resources and professional learning that support teachers in making adaptations to phenomena in science units. A design-based research approach is used to 1) iteratively design, test, and revise locally adaptable instructional resources for elementary science; 2) examine how teachers adapt phenomena in their teaching; and 3) examine how phenomenon adaptation can enhance teacher agency and self-efficacy in science teaching and student perceptions of relevance and interest.

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Learning Progressions in Science: Analyzing and Deconstructing the Multiple Dimensions in Assessment

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We propose to address a Science & Engineering Practice (e.g., scientific argumentation), a Crosscutting concept (e.g. patterns), and Disciplinary Core Ideas in each of the following foundational middle school science domains - physical science, life science, and Earth science. This study builds upon existing work around argumentation, physical science, and life science.

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