Elementary School

SPIRAL: Supporting Professional Inquiry and Re-Aligning Learning through a Structured e-Portfolio System

Principal Investigator:

The SPIRAL project seeks to develop and test a new model for vertical-team professional development, along with a set of electronic tools enabling collaboration among these teams to support instructional improvement aligned to the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). We seek to better understand how teachers use a custom-designed digital portfolio to better understand students' learning trajectories across K-8 science so as to shape their own instructional practice with relation to the spiraled NGSS.

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

Principal Investigator:

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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Science Communities of Practice Partnership

Principal Investigator:

Despite widespread agreement about the importance of teacher professional development (PD), translating what is learned in PD to classroom practice remains challenging. Guided by Self Determination Theory, this study examines how PD facilitators, including pedagogical coaches and university faculty, support the three basic needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness for teachers' intrinsic motivation as learners in PD focused on reform-based science instruction. Study findings include high-leverage practices that facilitators can use to support teacher motivation.

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Target Audience:

Developing and Validating a Scalable, Classroom-focused Measure of Usable Knowledge for Teaching Mathematics: The Classroom Video Analysis Instrument

Principal Investigator:
This project focuses on developing a scalable, classroom-focused measure of usable mathematics teaching knowledge in three content areas: (a) fractions (grades 4 and 5), (b) ratio and proportions (grades 6 and 7); and (c) variables, expressions, and equations (grades 6 and 7). The project examines a variety of validity evidence for the new items and the reliability of scores to evaluate the overall construct validity.
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Developing and Evaluating Assessments of Problem Solving (Collaborative Research: Bostic and Sondergeld)

Principal Investigator:

Through DEAP, we have created three Problem-Solving Measures (PSMs) that address the Common Core State Math Content for grades 3, 4, 5, and 6 and built a robust validity argument for their use and score interpretations. We have also used vertical equating to link the PSMs with the already functioning middle-school PSMs (grades 6, 7, and 8). We are constructing a DEAP reporting system and investigating how the reporting system formatively informs teachers instructional decisions.

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CAREER: Fraction Activities and Assessments for Conceptual Teaching (FAACT) for Students with Learning Disabilities

Principal Investigator:

This poster describes the outcomes, dissemination, and scaling of project work from "Fraction Activities and Assessment for Conceptual Teaching (FAACT)." We describe the results of a pilot study for FAACT, free curriculum materials, and how the work has been translated to a new game based project, Model Mathematics Education (ModelME). A link to an intro video for ModelMe's game based curriculum will be shared.

Co-PI(s): Matthew Marino and Michelle Taub, University of Central Florida

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Advancing Coherent and Equitable Systems of Science Education

Principal Investigator:

The Advancing Coherent and Equitable Systems of Science Education (ACESSE) project is a deep collaboration between the Council of State Science Supervisors, the University of Washington, and the University of Colorado Boulder. ACESSE brings together educators and researchers to collaboratively research, develop, and promote strategies to make science education more coherent and equitable. Our work focuses on: sensing and guiding improvement, the co-design of professional learning resources, and leadership capacity development for equity.

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