DRK-12 Research and Products

This resource contains advice from CAREER awardees in the DRK-12 portfolio about how to develop a competitive proposal and successfully manage a CAREER project based on their experience.

The study reported in this article examined the ways in which new mathematics learning influences students’ prior ways of reasoning. Authors conceptualize this kind of influence as a form of transfer of learning called backward transfer. The focus of the study...

This study examines how sampled Chinese and U.S. third and fourth grade students (NChina=167,NUS=97) understand the commutative, associative, and distributive properties.

On May 12, 2021, representatives from NSF's Division of Information Systems presented an overview of the Research.gov Proposal Submission System and the latest enhancements, including a demo site to explore the system before working on proposals.

This chapter offers lessons learned by teacher educators who guided preservice teachers in the modification of hands-on engineering lessons for virtual implementation during the spring 2020 semester as part of an NSF-funded project.

The Mathematics Immersion for Secondary Teachers at Scale program engages sets of teachers in local school sites, connected synchronously and asynchronously to colleagues in other sites, in doing mathematics designed to promote experiences of mathematical immersion,...

In this paper, authors network five frameworks (cognitive demand, lesson cohesion, cognitive engagement, collective argumentation, and student contribution) for an analytic approach that allows us to present a more holistic picture of classrooms which engage students in...

Includes eight separate lesson plans to help integrate the primary literature into the classroom.

What ideas do students have about small particles of matter? The Two Cups of Liquid task is intended to elicit preservice teachers’ CKT related to students’ ideas about the small particle model (SPM) for matter.

What is a scientific explanation and how can we support students in explaining changes in matter? The Fizzy Antacid task is intended to elicit and develop preservice teachers’ CKT related to students’ scientific explanations of changes in matter.

How can we align activities with instructional goals to support student understanding of matter and materials? The Building a Tower Task is intended to elicit preservice teachers’ CKT about descriptions and appropriate uses of materials based on their properties.

Transforming Engineering Education for Middle Schools (TEEMS) is a free engineering curriculum for grade 6-8 learners. TEEMS is based on theories of learning that encourage the use of story to promote engagement.

The Responsive Math Teaching (RMT) Instructional Model breaks high-quality math teaching down into seven core components: plan, launch, facilitate productive struggle, make student thinking visible, connect to the mathematics, build and expand, and reflect.

The ASET Science and Engineering Practice (SEP) Tools are designed to guide you to critically analyze how students are meaningfully engaged in the specific components of the SEP that you have selected to focus on for your lesson or unit.

Transforming Engineering Education for Middle Schools (TEEMS) is a free engineering curriculum for gr. 6-8 learners.

Selected response items and constructed response (CR) items are often found in the same test. Conventional psychometric models for these two types of items typically focus on using the scores for correctness of the responses. Recent research suggests, however, that more...

This study takes a person‐centered approach by applying latent profile analysis to examine how cognitive (pedagogical content knowledge) and motivational (instructional goal orientations, self‐efficacy beliefs, and reform values) characteristics combine to form science...

This study explores disciplinary literacy instruction integrated within an elementary engineering unit in an urban classroom.

We argue that progress in the area of research on mathematics teacher responses to student thinking could be enhanced were the field to attend more explicitly to important facets of those responses, as well as to related units of analysis. We describe the Teacher...

The purpose of this study is to characterize teachers’ orientations toward using student mathematical thinking as a resource during whole-class instruction.

We draw on our experiences researching teachers’ use of student thinking to theoretically unpack the work of attending to student contributions in order to articulate the student mathematics (SM) of those contribution.

This study seeks to better understand what teachers notice when interpreting assessment results and how the design of the assessment may influence teachers’ patterns of noticing. The study described herein investigates high school chemistry teachers’ interpretations of...

The article describes our project that was designed to provide experiences to support paraeducators' professional growth in a large urban district by building their mathematical knowledge for teaching and leadership. Providing paras with professional learning...

Introduction to special issue focusing on think alouds and response process evidence. This work cuts across STEM education scholarship and introduces readers to robust means to engage in think alouds.

The purpose of this study was to adapt and validate an instrument for assessing immersive 360 video use in an undergraduate preservice teacher university training program.

This theoretical paper summarizes of technology initiatives across science and STEM education from the past 30 years to present perspectives on the role of technology in science-focused STEM education.

One of the most relentless areas of difficulty in mathematics for children with learning disabilities (LDs) and difficulties is fractions. This article reports the development and initial testing of an intervention designed to increase access to and advancement in...

Describes development and pilot testing of a 3-dimensional, phenomenon-based unit that integrates evolution and heredity. The 8-week unit is designed for introductory-level high school biology courses. Results from a national pilot test with 944 grade nine and ten...

Designed to be integrated with any curriculum, each grade level includes 18-20 one-hour lessons to be conducted throughout the school year. Each LEAP lesson lasts about an hour is designed to fit within a typical daily math instructional period.

Societal issues with important connections to science such as COVID-19 (and other challenges like climate change) are part of a broader class of problems known as Socio-Scientific Issues (SSI). In response to COVID-19, this set of learning activities was co-developed...

This study evaluated a portion of our learning trajectory, focusing on the instructional component. We found that the instruction was successful in promoting a progression from one level to the next for 40% of the children, with others developing positive new behaviors (...

This article provides content maps for two widely used teacher assessment instruments in the USA relative to the widely adopted Common Core State Standards. This common reference enables comparisons of content alignment both between the instruments and between parallel...

This article offers six suggestions for middle school principals to implement or strengthen mathematics intervention classes at their schools, based off the findings of the authors' NSF-funded research.

This list includes STEM education-related conferences that may be of interest to DRK-12 grantees.

The Analyzing Instruction in Math using the Teaching for Robust Understanding Framework (AIM-TRU) learning cycle is the result of a research-practice partnership centered on using the analysis of videocases grounded in high-quality instructional materials for use as a...

This article reports on the development of a novel, video-based measure of teachers’ moment-to-moment noticing as knowledge-filtered perception.

In this paper, the author theorizes reciprocal noticing as a relational practice through which teachers and students exchange roles as knowers by reciprocating each other’s noticing as they study mathematics concepts.

In this webinar, presenters ...

The purpose of this study was to develop and validate a self‐assessment using critical components of successful inclusive STEM high schools for school personnel and educational researchers who wish to better understand their STEM programs and identify areas of strength...

This study compared prospective mathematics teachers' (PMTs) noticing while teaching a lesson during their student teaching internship of PMTs who participated in a noticing intervention to those who did not participate in the intervention to determine whether the two...

This exploratory study investigated 32 teachers’ use of knowledge resources in two mathematically similar tasks (one a paper and pencil task, the other a dynamic task) around proportional reasoning.

This article describes the general and engineering mindsets of students in fifth‐grade U.S. classrooms (ages 10 and 11) who received engineering instruction. It explores how general mindsets may predict engineering learning outcomes and how engineering mindsets may be...

View slides, recordings and resources from AIR webinars on methodologies designed for the DRK-12 program.

This Research in Science Education article focuses on characterizing classroom discourse in science.

The purpose of this study was to investigate how teachers understand one specific aspect of proportional reasoning - the extent to which practicing teachers were able to make sense of reasoning that involved the fixed number of variable-sized parts perspective.

This study investigated the efficacy of the Precision Mathematics Level 1 (PM-L1) intervention, a Tier 2 print- and technology-based mathematics intervention designed to increase first-grade students’ conceptual understanding and problem-solving skills around the areas...

Students who earned high marks during the proof semester of a geometry course were interviewed to understand what high-achieving students actually took away from the treatment of proof in geometry. The findings suggest that students had turned proving into a rote task,...

In The Price of Nice, an interdisciplinary group of scholars explores Niceness in educational spaces from elementary schools through higher education to highlight how this seemingly benign quality reinforces structural inequalities.

This article describes one effort to strengthen early childhood teaching in schools on the Navajo Nation that centers the work of two teachers within a program attempting to support teachers in the development of academically rigorous, culturally responsive curriculum...

The purpose of this presentation is to convey validity evidence for a new measure titled Problem-Solving Measure for grade four (PSM4), an assessment within the previously published PSM series designed for elementary and middle grades students.

This article describes opportunities for primary and secondary ecology education in formal and informal settings.

In this paper, authors present a design narrative of our experience developing dashboards to support middle school mathematics teachers’ pedagogical practices, in a multi-university, multi-school district, improvement science initiative in the United States.

This poster provides an overview of the Strengthening Data Literacy across the Curriculum (SDLC) project, which is developing and studying curriculum modules for non-AP high school statistics classes to promote interest and skills in statistical thinking and data science...

In this study, authors examine the consequences of within-school churn for the pedagogical content knowledge of elementary teacher participants in an NSF-funded science PD program.

A collection shares resources to help researchers, parents, and teachers navigate changes to education and education research brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic.

STEM education-related publications that may be of interest to DR K-12 grantees.

NSF grants and program officers led a session on NSF grant policies and grant management procedures. Topics covered included personnel, budgets, notifications and requests, and preparing high quality annual and final reports.

In this article, we describe an example of differentiating instruction (DI) involving middle school students from a five-year project funded by the National Science Foundation.

In this paper, using written responses of 37 PSTs preparing to teach grades 1-8 mathematics, authors examined explanations they constructed to support their problem solutions and explanations they provided in support of their critiques of student-generated explanations...

This column provides ideas and techniques to enhance your science teaching.

Presentation slides from the 41st annual meeting of the North American Chapter of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education.

Use these ideas to diagnose and address common conceptual obstacles that inhibit students’ success.

Building on the work of Ball and Cohen and that of Davis and Krajcik, as well as more recent research related to K12 teacher learning from and about curriculum materials, we seek to answer the question, How can educative curriculum materials be developed to support...

This study explores how teachers across the United States answer and reason on “teacher assessment tasks” designed to elicit content knowledge for teaching (CKT) about matter and its interactions. It leverages a think aloud approach, where participants were asked to...

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic school closures, the VAM project compiled example strategies, tasks, and apps for supporting students who are English learners (ELs) in mathematics, with information about how to adapt these examples to remote learning. Online...

A free middle school science program that supports teachers in the effective instruction of an NGSS-aligned, EQuIP-reviewed body systems curriculum unit. Includes the complete middle school science curriculum unit, a teacher’s guide, and an ...

The context for this study was an intervention that provided professional development (PD) for preschool (pre-K) and kindergarten (K) teachers and science engagement activities for families. The research sought to determine the impact of the intervention and the extent...

Strategies and strategic processing within science education are designed to help students learn not only what scientists have come to understand about the world but also how they learn it. Although many domain-general strategies can be implemented in science classrooms...

In this paper we describe a qualitative study in which we examine individual student engagement during implementation of an instructional scaffold for critical evaluation of scientific models during Earth and space science lessons. We coded dialogic interactions of one...

This study compares web usage data with interviews from 41 participants, who are members of an online professional development site called the Everyday Mathematics Virtual Learning Community (VLC), to explore how elementary school teachers learn from classroom...

Proportions Playground is designed to build understandings of proportional reasoning.

This chapter describes curricula that use WorldWide Telescope in teaching key topics in Astro 101 and K–12 science, including parallax, Hubble’s Law and large-scale structure in the universe, seasons, Moon phases and eclipses, and life in the universe.

Use the Ocean Tracks interactive map, curricular modules, and data analysis tools to explore and quantify patterns in the migratory tracks of marine animals in the northern Pacific Ocean and relate these behaviors to fluctuations and trends in physical oceanographic...

Students will use the Hurricane Explorer model to explain and predict how the path and strength of a hurricane can change, investigate real-world case studies on the risk and impact of hurricanes, and explore the effect of rising global temperatures on hurricanes.

...

Seasons is a free and innovative 8-day unit that provides interactive videos, hands-on activities, lesson plans, and student worksheets to explore the causes behind Earth’s seasons.

This is a free resource to educate the public about Ebola. The website includes an interactive model that allows teachers, students, and community members to actively explore the factors that influence a disease’s spread and mortality rate. Visit BSCS' ...

Research Quest is a series of science investigations designed to improve students’ critical thinking skills. Registration and use is free! Parents can also sign up free for Research Quest Live, hosted by a live museum education facilitator (...

Each short video provides ideas for family science activities for preschool-grade 3 students that reinforce NGSS 3D learning.

Explore the pattern of earthquakes on Earth, including magnitude, depth, location, and frequency.

Model My Watershed is a watershed-modeling web app that enables citizens, conservation practitioners, municipal decision-makers, educators, and students to analyze real land use and soil data in their neighborhoods and watersheds; model stormwater runoff and water-...

This activity, I spy from this perspective!, encourages children to visualize environments from different perspectives to determine where to stand to take a given picture.

Play nine math learning apps and dozens of hands-on activities at home or in the classroom. A digital Teacher's Guide supports use in the classroom, and a digital Family Fun Guide provides activities to do at home.

In this article, authors propose a framework that centers the investigation as a key locus for constructing alignments among phenomena, data, and explanatory models and makes visible the work that scientists engage in as they develop and stabilize alignments.

In this paper, authors offer a framework for teacher monitoring routines—a consequential yet understudied aspect of instruction when teachers oversee students’ working together.

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...

Using findings from a 4‐year research and development effort, we propose an updated model of sheltered instruction for science classrooms that leverages the opportunities provided by the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) to better support multilingual learners in...

10 NGSS-Plus-5E middle school lessons for teaching STEM with robotics.

Paper presented at the Society for Research on Child Development Conference.

Paper presented at the European Science Education Research Association.

A workshop to be presented at the Association of Science Teacher Educators International Conference.

This paper describes how the design canvas of Kline et al. was adopted and implemented in our workshop and investigates its benefits.

This paper describes a program to engage teachers to learn about mechatronics, robotics, and Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) through hands-on activities and collaborative research.

This paper investigates classroom-related factors such as pedagogical strategies and management of robotics-based educational content that contribute to the formation of student perceptions in robotics-enhanced classes.

In this paper, authors focus on the design of assessments of mathematics teachers’ knowledge by emphasising the importance of identifying the purpose for the assessment, defining the specific construct to be measured, and considering the affordances of particular...

This study explored how teachers interpreted and responded to their own student work during the process of formative assessment.

This article describes online video coaching model used with middle-grades, rural mathematics teachers.

In this article, authors use meta-analysis to analyze 42 design and comparison studies involving data from 7699 students spanning over 35 years.

The purpose of this study was to describe how families utilize science activity packs at home.

Authors discuss the possibilities of retaining and sharing professional knowledge as a way of addressing the problem of always starting over.

The present report summarizes the analyses of the calibration data for the electronic Test of Early Numeracy (e-TEN), an adaptive, iPad-based test of early numeracy achievement.

Drawing on a situated perspective on learning, authors analyzed written, open-ended journals of 52 pre-service teachers (PSTs) concurrently enrolled in mathematics and pedagogy with field experience courses for elementary education majors.

A student assessment of science literacy for urban ecology.

The Urban Ecology Curriculum for English Learners is an interdisciplinary, standards-based, upper elementary/middle school curriculum designed to bolster English language and literacy learning for Long Term English Learners (LTELs)1, or students “at risk” of becoming...

From 2012–2015, Advanced Placement (AP) science courses underwent a large-scale curricular reform to include more scientific inquiry and reasoning, reduce emphasis on broad content coverage, and focus on depth of understanding, with corresponding changes in high-stakes...

In this article, authors examined classroom videos of nine experienced teachers of elementary, middle, and high school science, aiming to create a model of FA enactment that is useful to teachers.

This compilation of resources covers topics from blogging to writing policy briefs to plagiarism and copyright infringement to conference proposal writing.

This manuscript focuses on longitudinal research with four primary inservice teachers’ learning and engagement in model-based teaching about water over three years, investigating teachers conceptualizations and practice modelling water related phenomena over time....

This conversion mixed method study analyzed student work samples and teacher lesson plans from seven exemplary inclusive STEM high schools to better understand at what level teachers at these schools are engaging and developing student 21st Century skills.

In this article, authors explore a variety of types of responsive teaching and elaborate a specific type of responsive teaching—epistemologically responsive science teaching.

This paper investigates how one elementary school child with specific visual motor integration differences constructed a unit fraction concept.

Have you ever fielded a call from a journalist asking for an interview about your work? Was the resulting article and quote(s) what you expected? To make the most of your next opportunity, here are a few tips for when you are the interviewee.

Planning to create a website to feature your project's work? Here are some tips and things to think about.

A compilation of resources on best practices for a successful webinar and free webinar options.

This document is the final evaluation report of the STEM Student Reporting Labs.

This mixed-method study was designed to examine whether middle school students’ in-game actions are likely to promote certain types of learning engagement (i.e., content and cognitive engagement).

This study investigates a formative feedback system integrated into an online science curriculum module teaching climate change.

This article reports on how three prospective teachers had differing opportunities to demonstrate their skills in the context of the field assessment, but similar opportunities in the context of the simulation assessment.

A compilation of resources to help you think about audience and messaging.

Explore tips, resources, and toolkits on communication about research and development.

In this article, authors explain how 114 years of Hawaiian-language newspapers starting in 1834 extend our knowledge of natural disasters into the nineteenth century and to precontact times.

This graphic is designed to support students, teachers, and families in thinking across timescales to understand socio-ecological relationships to place across time.

This resource focuses on engaging learners and their families in field-based science that connects family knowledge and place-based, student-led investigations.

Authors describe a complementary way of studying the connections between different aspects of noticing, one that stresses the content of teachers noticing. They report on a study in which participants were shown depictions of students reacting to the launch of a complex...

Inclusive STEM high schools (ISHSs) (where STEM is science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) admit students on the basis of interest rather than competitive examination. This study examines the central assumption behind these schools—that they provide students...

Tool for conducting classroom discussions.

In this Journal of Science Teacher Education article, Jarod Kawasaki and William Sandoval report on one teachers’ efforts to re-design an entire instructional unit as a coherent storyline about forces and motion as a part of a multiyear professional development project...

The purpose of this report is to sketch a tentative theoretical structure with the potential to anchor curricular decisions and inform further research on early probability learning.

These slides were presented at the 2019 Annual International Conference of NARST in Baltimore, MD.

These slides were presented at the 2019 Annual Conference of the National Science Teachers Association, St. Louis, Missouri.

This study offers a critical exploration of how to design instruction that simultaneously supports students' science and graph understanding within complex inquiry contexts.

In this replication and extension study, we explore these issues, drawing on evidence from a multi-year study of over 200 fourth- and fifth-grade US teachers. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses of these data suggested a single dimension for teacher knowledge....

Authors share results from a quasi-experimental study that examines growth in students’ algebraic thinking practices of generalizing and representing generalizations, particularly with variable notation, as a result of an early algebra instructional sequence implemented...

In this article, authors demonstrate that line following via multimodal feedback is possible on touchscreens and present guidelines for the presentation of such non-visual graphical concepts.

This paper illustrates how the combination of teacher and computer guidance can strengthen collaborative revision and identifies opportunities for teacher guidance in a computer-supported collaborative learning environment.

The aim of this study was to assess evidence for the validity of General Mindset (GM) and Engineering Mindset (EM) surveys that we developed for fifth-grade students (ages 10-11).

This article looks at context-based approaches to science instruction. Authors studied the effects of changes to a set of secondary science teacher education programs, all of which were redesigned with attention to the Secondary Science Teaching with English Language and...

This list of individuals and organizations providing evaluation services to DRK-12 projects is based on data entered by project members on the cadrek12.org site.

NSF program directors provides information on the DRK-12 program and solicitation in this webinar series.

List of non-academic organizations in the field of STEM education research and development.

In recent years, prominent organizations have released large-scale policy reports on the state of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education in the United States, with particular emphasis on curricula and instructional practices. The purpose of...

Authors describe the design principles of iPlan, a web-based tool provides access to educative curriculum materials in an online interactive learning platform, and discuss implications for designing educative and online systems for teacher learning.

Authors discuss student dimensions of expertise when engaged in modeling and simulation practices and describe how students used their cognitive and metacognitive knowledge to approach a computational challenge.

This article describes the effect of simulation-enabled Learning by Design learning experiences on student-generated heuristics that can lead to solutions to problems.

This article describes key features of a hybrid professional development (PD) program that was designed to prepare elementary classroom teachers to mentor preservice teachers for effective science instruction.

In this theoretical research paper we describe a collaborative effort between researchers and university faculty to improve how teachers are prepared to teach middle school mathematics.

The purpose of this chapter is to bring a rigorous and well-studied theoretical framework of motivation to the study and design of virtual learning environments.

Each DR K-12 project has formative and summative evaluation, which are different from the project’s own R&D activities and instead should support and measure the effectiveness of those activities. This paper discusses evaluation options for investigators and...

The purpose of this mixed methodology study was to operationalize distinct types of teacher leadership into an organized typology, based on case studies of teacher leaders in a science education project.

The purpose of this study was to develop and validate a survey of opportunities to participate (OtP) in science that will allow educators and researchers to closely approximate the types of learning opportunities students have in science classrooms.

A symmetric polynomial is a polynomial in one or more variables in which swapping any pair of variables leaves the polynomial unchanged. For example, f(x, y, z) = xy +xz + yz is a symmetric polynomial. If we interchange the variables x and y, we obtain yx + yz + xz,...

This book examines visual data use with students (PK-16) as well as in pre-service in- service science teacher preparation. Each chapter includes discussion about the current state of the art with respect to science classroom application and utilization of the particular...

From a social semiotic perspective, students’ use of language is fundamental to mathematical meaning making. We applied thematic analysis to examine students’ use of geometric and contextual ideas while solving a geometry problem that required them to determine the...

This white paper clarifies different purposes elementary students might write in math class and presents four types of mathematical writing. We define "mathematical writing" as writing that encourages students to engage in mathematical reasoning and...

Noticing students' mathematical thinking is a key element of effective instruction, but novice teachers do not naturally engage in this practice. Prospective secondary school mathematics teachers were engaged in an intervention grounded in analysis of minimally...

The INSPIRES project revised the RTOP rubric for use in engineering classrooms. The RTOP rubric was original developed for assessing lesson design and implementation, content-propositional knowledge, procedural knowledge, classroom culture, and student-teacher...

Laurie H. Rubel (Brooklyn College) discusses a teacher learning community for high school teachers in New York City organized to develop practices of culturally relevant mathematics pedagogy. This project, named CureMap, emphasizes the connections between mathematical...

In this mixed method study, we examined the use and impact of computer based scaffolding to support middle school students’ creation of evidence-based arguments during a 3-week problem-based learning unit focused on the water quality of a local river. We found a...

Linear Algebra and Geometry is aimed at preservice and practicing high school mathematics teachers and advanced high school students looking for an addition to or replacement for calculus. The materials are organized around carefully sequenced problems that help students...

In this webinar, NSF Program Officer David Campbell introduces DR K-12 awardees to the ins and outs of project management, sharing information on evaluation and reporting, advisory boards, Institutional Review Boards (IRB), NSF Highlights, and more.

DRK–12 projects at all stages, from early design work through completion, can benefit from an awareness and understanding of the challenges of knowledge use, so that what is designed can be suitably adapted and scaled.

The purpose of this compendium is to provide an overview on the current status of STEM instrumentation commonly used in the U.S and to provide resources for research and evaluation professionals. Part 1 of a two-part series, the goal to provide insight into the...

To foster knowledge use among policy makers or practitioners requires a substantial effort that invests in sustained interaction and enlists a range of supports for the prospective knowledge users. This paper discusses some options for more effective dissemination...

CADRE Tips for Mentoring Early Career STEM Education Researchers and Developers provides guidelines that may help new mentors and mentees establish an effective and productive relationship.

This sample postdoctoral mentoring plan was featured in CADRE’s Spotlight on Early Career in STEM Education R&D.

This brief suggests practical ways of engaging teachers and other “end-users” in projects that develop materials for education in the areas of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). Projects described in this brief have benefited from school, district, and...

In this November 29th webinar, NSF Program Officer David Campbell introduced DR K-12 awardees to the ins and outs of NSF DR K-12 project management.

The 2016 NSF CAREER Program Informational Webinar was held Tuesday, March 15, 2016, at 3:00 PM EST.

The Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program is a Foundation-wide activity that offers the National Science Foundation's most prestigious awards in...

This tool is designed for early career STEM education researchers to offer tips for pursuing careers outside of academia. The advice largely
comes from National Science Foundation-funded awardees who have graciously shared information about their own career...

This tool is designed for early career STEM education researchers to offer tips for writing for publication. The advice largely comes from National Science Foundation-funded awardees who have graciously shared information about their own writing and publishing...

This tool is designed for early career STEM education researchers to offer tips for writing grant proposals. The advice largely comes from National Science Foundation-funded awardees who have graciously shared information about their own proposal writing experiences....

This tool is designed to offer tips to principal investigators for the preparation and submission of reports to the National Science Foundation (NSF).

NSF program director provides information on the DR K-12 program and solicitation in this webinar series.

This document captures the ideas and experiences shared by DRK–12 awardees who attended a forum to explore different routes toward product sustainability. It includes notes on types of DRK-12 products, use and adoption of products, resources needed to support...

In this study, we investigated how high school credit recovery students worked in small groups and used computer-based scaffolds to conduct scientific inquiry in a problem-based learning unit centered on water quality.

Authors investigate in-service teachers’ scientific engagement in a blended online science inquiry course. A key implication of this study is the importance of instructional attention to epistemology and affect to create online learning environments that promote...

The purpose of this study is to explore to what extent supporting elementary teachers’ PCK about teaching engineering would improve their beliefs that students’ engineering learning can be influenced by effective engineering instruction.

In this article, authors describe how we engaged grade 3–5 students in an engineering design activity supported with relevant reading, writing, and talking tasks embedded within the engineering design activity.

In this article, it is argued that the construct of rightful presence, and the coconstructed “making present” practices that give rise to moments of rightful presence, is 1 way to consider how to make sense of the historicized and relational nature of consequential...

This study uses a mixed-method sequential exploratory design to examine influences on urban adolescents’ engagement and disengagement in school.

This study examined the relationship between student-centered mathematics instruction and adolescents’ behavioral, cognitive, emotional, and social engagement in mathematics and whether the relationship differed by ethnicity.

Lessons from the search for alien worlds.

This study explores the effects of geographic information systems (GIS) curriculum on fifth-grade students' spatial ability and map-analysis skills.

Preschoolers investigate force and motion with a digital journal.

An investigation of elementary teachers’ noticing of students’ ideas and their thinking surrounding their noticing practice.

Paper from the 2016 Advancing Social Justice from Classroom to Community Conference.

This article explores middle school girls' reflections about the difficulties they faced while using computational algorithmic thinking capabilities as they engaged in collaborative game design for social change. Authors focus on how these difficulties changed over...

This article introduces CAT as explored through the Supporting Computational Algorithmic Thinking (SCAT) project, an ongoing longitudinal between-subjects research project and enrichment program that guides African-American middle school girls (SCAT Scholars) through the...

Based on a mixed methods study of a statewide survey and interviews of district professional development directors, we found that district requirement of lesson study, funding provision, and future sustainability plan were significantly and positively associated with a...

In this article, the authors outline the main components and the iterative design process we undertook to ensure that the professional supports are relevant and effective for teachers and children.

Authors discuss insights from research on K-16 climate education.

The present paper documents a quasi-experimental study where high school Earth science students completed these instructional scaffolds, including an explanation task scored for evaluative levels (erroneous, descriptive, relational, and critical), along with measures of...

Dr. Jessica Hunt studies how these children think and learn and is developing novel teaching methods that facilitate mathematics learning for students with learning disabilities.

The study’s purpose is to describe content validity evidence related to new problem-solving measures currently under development.

This study reports how an expert Chinese teacher implements mathematics textbook lessons in enacted instruction.

This study explores how preservice teachers (PSTs) transfer the intended specialized content knowledge (SCK) to elementary classrooms.

This study explores how teachers describe, or frame, expectations for classroom discussions pertaining to the science practice of argumentation. Authors use the theoretical lens of a participation framework to examine how teachers emphasize particular actions and goals...

If you are submitting a proposal to lead a session at the DR K-12 PI Meeting, please use this form to check that lead presenters are invited to the meeting. This form can also be used for finding fellow invitees to collaborate on a proposal for a session.

NSF Program Officers provide information on the DR K-12 program and solicitation in this webinar series.

This report presents key findings from a keyword survey administered in 2017 to the principle investigators of the CADRE Discovery Research PreK–12 (DRK–12) program during the fall of 2017. The survey asked respondents to select keywords that described their projects’...

The purpose of this study is to characterize teachers’ orientations toward using student mathematical thinking as a resource during whole-class instruction.

Our work suggests re-conceptualization of research concerning students’ over reliance on example-based reasoning, moving from a view of such reasoning as a stumbling block to quickly overcome toward a view of such reasoning as a necessary and critical foundation in...

In this study we investigate the teaching of the associative property in a natural classroom setting through observation of classroom video of several elementary math classes in a large urban school district.

In this study we examined 5th-grade teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) for 1 particular core idea: the small particle model (SPM) of matter. We assessed teachers’ initial PCK through a lesson plan task, the Content Representation tool, and interviews and then...

This study proposes and investigates the effects of a three‐dimensional thinking graph (3DTG) that allows learners to combine in a single image, problem information, subject knowledge (key concepts and their relationships), and the hypothesizing and reasoning process...

The purpose of our quasi‐experimental study was to examine the effectiveness of Quality Talk Science, a professional development model and intervention, in fostering changes in teachers’ and students’ discourse practices as well as their conceptual understanding and...

The purpose of this paper is to report results of a systematic cross-case analysis exploring the extent of engineering learning opportunities in five exemplar Inclusive STEM High Schools (ISHSs).

This study extends current literature by presenting key understandings of fractions, documented through problem-solving activity, language, representations, and operations, evidenced by students with LD and mathematics difficulties as they engaged with equal sharing...

This study sheds light on three teaching competencies: Pre-service teachers’ (PSTs’) professional noticing of student mathematical reasoning and strategies, their ability to assess the validity of student reasoning and strategies, and to select student strategy for class...

The present study examined changes in high school biology and technology education pedagogy during the first year of a three-year professional development (PD) program using the INSPIRES educative curriculum.

In this article, we draw upon the Conceptual Profile Theory to discuss the negotiation of meanings related to the energy concept in an 11th grade physics classroom.

Understand students’ fraction concepts through interview tasks. Includes tasks and guide to record student thinking.

The current study investigates two questions: (1) Do screen size and grid density impact a user's accuracy on pattern-matching tasks? (2) Do screen size and grid density impact a user's time on task?

The authors fuse Universal Design for Learning (UDL), differentiation, and talk moves into three key planning and pedagogy considerations.

This column describes creating a classroom culture for engineering.

This proof of concept study investigated a secondary science teacher preparation intervention in six university programs across Arizona, California, and Texas. Researchers and science method instructors (SMIs) collaboratively restructured respective science method...

Cognitive differences intrinsic to children with learning disabilities (LDs) have historically led to deficit assumptions concerning the mathematical experiences these children “need” or can access. We argue that the problem can be located not within children but instead...

In this May 2nd webinar, panelists discussed how to prepare for effective informational meetings with congressional staff and craft appropriate messages about preK-12 STEM education research for conversations with local, state, and national policymakers.

In the growing field of K-12 engineering education, there is limited research that highlights the experiences of youth from historically marginalized communities within engineering learning environments. This study offers insights into the ways in which two groups of...

Effective as of January 2018, NSF's Prospective New Awardee Guide includes information on federal requirements, NSF points of contact and frequently asked questions, grantee standards, and indirect costs.

This study reports results from 113 students and three science teachers from two low-income urban middle schools participating in SciLG. It highlights the role of students’ views of themselves as competent, related, and autonomous in the garden, as well as their...

In this study, we challenge the deficit perspective on mathematical knowing and learning for children labeled as LD, focusing on their struggles not as a within student attribute, but rather as within teacher-learner interactions. We present two cases of fifth-grade...

This executive summary captures the results of the National Survey on Supporting Struggling Mathematics Learners in the Middle Grades, a study designed and conducted by EDC. T

This resource provides access to a classroom video of a lesson from the project's middle school ecosystems unit, and the related student scaffold and scoring rubric.

This blog post includes the link to 4 videos of teachers using the project's middle school ecosystems unit.

In this article, authors introduce the design of a science teaching video club and present a study of its implementation.

The study examines geometry teachers' video club discussions in a two-year professional development intervention that combined lesson study, video clubs, and animation discussions to promote teacher noticing of students' prior knowledge.

In this paper, authors present the causal loop diagrams developed to explain the relationships between the actors and attributes involved in implementing EarSketch in a particular school setting. The diagram allows us to better make decisions that ensure both an engaging...

This article focuses on problem-based lessons in teacher professional development.

In this conference paper, authors discuss affordances and liabilities of using a storyboard to depict a written case of a teacher’s dilemma that involves race, opportunity to learn, and student community.

This chapter focuses on the design of simulation assessments to learn about pre-service teachers’ capabilities with eliciting and interpreting student thinking.

This column provides ideas and techniques to enhance your science teaching.

This chapter examines what aspects of Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching of Proving (MKT-P) can be observed in written scenarios of classroom interactions, produced by pre-service teachers of mathematics.

Ambitious Science Teaching outlines a powerful framework for science teaching to ensure that instruction is rigorous and equitable for students from all backgrounds. The practices presented in the book are being used in schools and districts that seek to improve science...

In this article, students use data and models to make a difference in their own school yard.

This article features EarSketch -a STEAM learning intervention that combines a programming environment and API for Python and JavaScript, a digital audio workstation, an audio loop library, and a standards-aligned curriculum to teach introductory computer science...

This article explores the ways in which a teacher educator uses digital technology to create a virtual field placement to blur the boundaries between a university methods course and teacher candidates' field placements.

A Pleasure to Measure will enable you to select activities quickly, easily, and confidently to target the content that your students are ready to learn. You’ll find everything that you need in the six E’s that the authors detail for each activity—Essentials, Engage,...

New York Times Video on the American Museum of Natural History's master's degree program in teaching, part of a broad national campaign to add 100,000 science, technology and math teachers by 2021.

In this video, find out more about the Museum's Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) program from five MAT graduates in the class of 2013, who are now teaching in New York City's public schools. The MAT program with a specialization in teaching Earth Science is a...

This paper reviews the literature on mentor teachers’ learning in relationship to high leverage practices and summarizes existing research on mentoring and experienced teacher learning that might help inform the design of our model of mentor teachers’ learning.

In 2012, the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York City launched the Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) Urban Residency Program. Developing a teacher preparation program from scratch is a tall order, and the museum is learning a tremendous amount from its...

This article describes research from a clinical experience in a museum where teacher candidates engaged visitors in learning dialogs around objects on a moveable cart in an exhibit. We describe how working in informal settings and learning to use the affordances of that...

This tool is designed to help teachers reflect on a lesson they observed and guide effective, learning-focused mentoring conversations.

"The majority of U.S. students, particularly low-income and minority youth, lacks foundational skills and knowledge in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics." Read the brief to learn more about preparing students for college and careers in STEM.

Evaluation is an important aspect of science and is receiving increasing attention in science education. The present study investigated (1) changes to plausibility judgments and knowledge as a result of a series of instructional scaffolds, called model–evidence link...

This article explores the ways in which a teacher educator uses digital technology to create a virtual field placement to blur the boundaries between a university methods course and teacher candidates’ field placements.

To make sense of the Common Core State Standards mathematical practice (MP) 8, this article illustrates what “repeated reasoning” means, why looking for and expressing regularity in it is such a valuable mathematical habit of mind, and how that differs from analyzing...

How can research-based findings and advances help society to re-envision STEM learning and education? This report captures key takeaways, strategies, and challenges identified during the November 2015 workshop, including: research-based advances for STEM learning;...

Educational and societal phenomena can converge to draw attention to a new focus, such as ELs and STEM, and then trigger new research interests. A funding program can play a critical role in shaping these new research interests by prioritizing specific research topics...

The Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide (PAPPG) is comprised of documents relating to the National Science Foundation's proposal and award process for the assistance programs of NSF.

Submitting a proposal to NSF's DR K-12 Program? Read the latest solicitation.

This article discusses the use of the Think Aloud strategy at the beginning of a lesson to model to students both the type of thinking that develops conceptual understanding, as well as how to share one’s thinking.

To understand the mathematics writing of students, we conducted a synthesis to evaluate empirical research about mathematics writing. We identified 29 studies that included a mathematics-writing assessment, intervention, or survey for students in 1st through 12th grade....

Three middle school science curricular units on the topics of genetics, ocean biodiversity & discourse, and solar ovens & design critiques.

Explore disciplinary core ideas with the help of computer simulations that can be projected to promote engagement.

A curriculum unit developed through a collaboration between Michigan State University, Northwestern University, the University of Michigan, Wright State University and 5th grade teachers from Kinawa 5th-6th public school that enables students to develop and revise models...

This study sought to identify specific types of discussion-based strategies that two successful high school physics teachers using a model-based approach utilized in attempting to foster students’ construction of explanatory models for scientific concepts.

This study investigates student interactions with simulations, and teacher support of those interactions, within naturalistic high school classroom settings.

This paper describes model construction practices used by scientifically trained experts.

Calls for increased focus on mathematical argumentation in school mathematics are critical for teacher educators charged with preparing prospective K-8 teachers (PST) to foster mathematical argumentation in their future classrooms. This is because research suggests that...

Effective for Proposals Submitted or Due On or After February 24, 2014. For proposals submitted prior to February 24, 2014, the guidelines in NSF 13-1 apply.

The article outlines some academic knowledge and intern experiences that will help prepare the next generation of researchers in mathematics education once a doctoral program has been entered.

This article highlights the production of doctorates in mathematics education for the past fifty years.

In this study we investigated eighth grade students’ informal justification for the circle area formula to expand accounts of the measurement knowledge for middle-school age students.

This paper investigates the potential role of emotional costs and computer self-efficacy in the connection between computer use at home and students’ computer use patterns.

The study, an action research project carried out by a teacher enrolled in a long-term professional development program, has implications for the value of rigorous materials design and evaluation framed by the chemistry education research literature.

This book focuses on the preparation of secondary science teachers to teach science to English Learners (EL) and is based on the SSTELLA (Secondary Science Education with English Language and Literacy Acquisition) project that has been implemented in four pre-service...

Supporting Secondary Students in Building External Models is a collaborative project with Michigan State University and the Concord Consortium, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to examine how to support secondary school students in constructing and...

This study investigated attributes of 278 instances of student mathematical thinking during whole-class interactions that were identified as having high potential, if made the object of discussion, to foster learners’ understanding of important mathematical ideas.

In the Model- Evidence Link (MEL) diagram activities, students engage with Earth science content knowledge and evaluate the connections between evidence and alternative explanations. We have developed a rubric for assessing the quality of student evaluations when...

This article describes how a Model-Evidence Link (MEL) lesson can effectively be used to assist learners in weighing the plausibility of different viewpoints of the uses of wetlands, a socio-scientific issue.

Our project team has been developing and testing four MELs about socio-scientific issues (climate change, wetlands and land use, fracking and earthquakes) and abstract ideas (formation of Earth’s Moon) for use in high school classrooms.

This study presents empirical estimates of average program change in MKT and its variation with the goal of supporting the design of experimental trials that are adequately powered to detect a specified program effect.

In this study, we explore whether instruction on mapping directed magnitudes to operations helps 88 second graders and 70 fourth graders solve addition and subtraction problems with negative numbers.

This essay, intended for faculty involved in small-scale projects, courses, or educational research, provides a step-by-step guide to the process of developing, scoring, and validating high-quality content knowledge assessments.

While past research has mainly focused on absolute cognitive ability levels in math and verbal domains, the current study tested whether relative cognitive strengths and interests in math, science, and verbal domains in high school were more accurate predictors of STEM...

In this article, we conduct a literature review of the current knowledge surrounding individual and gender differences in STEM educational and career choices, using expectancy–value theory as a guiding framework.

In this study, we conducted in-depth interviews with 106 students from sixth to twelfth grade and 34 middle and high school teachers about how they conceptualized math and science engagement and disengagement.

This paper describes a model for differentiating professional development to address teachers’ varied knowledge, experiences, and interests.

The main goal of this project is to empirically estimate whether and which classroom factors contribute to mathematics gains of English Language Learners in Texas schools.

This study tests that logic model by comparing the high school experiences and achievement of students in ISHSs and comparison schools in North Carolina.

This paper outlines the development of a mobile application executing on a tablet device, which renders an immersive AR-based graphical user interface to enable users to monitor, interact with, and control a four link underactuated planar robot.

This article describes a new open-source systems modeling tool called SageModeler and a curricular approach designed to support students and teachers in engaging in systems modeling.

In this exploratory study, we present typologies that represent two primary challenges teachers faced in developing coherent conceptual storylines in their lesson design, and examine the extent to which professional development enhanced their capacity to develop a...

No longer only for the elite, a new generation of science high schools could help low-income and minority students get better jobs.

We examine a pair of students who share a central objective of designing an optimal solution for their fictional client, and who persist in achieving their objective. We argue that the students’ stable framing of the activity involves their engagement in engineering...

This report describes how particulate diagrams were incorporated in a high school chemistry course, provides a rubric developed for assessing students’ particulate drawings, and summarizes the impact of particulate-level instruction on student outcomes.

This paper outlines some key considerations for developing productive teacher collaborations and provides examples of teacher PD programs that have successfully brought chemistry education research faculty and high school chemistry teachers together to build knowledge...

The purpose of this study was to compare the ability of different instruments, independently developed and traditionally used for measuring science teachers’ beliefs in short-term interventions, to longitudinally measure teachers’ changing beliefs.

In this article, we describe the experiences of three Elementary Mathematics Specialists (EMS) who were part of a larger project investigating the impact of EMS certification and assignment (self-contained or “departmentalized”) on teaching practices and student...

This study investigates the models of elementary content specialization (ECS) in elementary mathematics and science and the affordances and constraints related to ECS—both generally and in relation to specific models.

This article considers a role for live coding that does not focus on live performance but rather on educational contexts.

In this study we explored the scientific argumentation beliefs of teachers in low, mid, and high SES schools.

This case study uses the conceptual framework of communities of practice to investigate the relationship between English-learning students' argumentation and their middle school sheltered English immersion (SEI) science classroom community.

This study raises questions and makes suggestions for future educative curriculum development and teacher preparation.

In this article, we explore how students attempt to bridge from their whole number reasoning to integer reasoning as they solve subtraction problems involving negative numbers.

This exploratory study examines how a foundational scheme of unit fractions (1/n) may evolve through the mathematical activity of two fifth grade girls.

When teachers understand the key purposes for having students do mathematical writing, they can use that writing to deepen understanding.

This article provides a framework for making sense of common online teacher learning opportunities. It also suggests situations where online professional development may be most useful and presents a challenge for educators to consider when engaging in online learning....

This appendix of the California Science Framework focuses on Computer Science in Science.

This presentation on "Supporting the Intersections between Computer Science and the NGSS" was presented at the NSTA STEM Forum & Expo in Minneapolis, MN. (2015)

Does the promise of competency-based PD outweigh the challenges to implementing it? Do we really want competency-based PD or just more effective, sustained, job-embedded PD like instructional coaching, lesson study, and the like. Read this blog by Meg S. Bates as she...

DR K-12 project members' responses to the survey question: “What research questions or topics should be future priorities for the NSF’s DR K-12 program research agenda?”

Chapter 7 of the publication Engineering Instruction for High-Ability Learners in K-8 Classrooms, this chapter written by Irene Lee and April DeGennaro focuses on computer science, coding, and project-based learning for engineering instruction.

This appendix of the California Science Framework focuses on Computer Science in Science.

Variations of this slide deck were used in 3 different presentations this summer about the Teachers with Guts project.

This article provides a framework for making sense of common online teacher learning opportunities. It also suggests situations where online professional development may be most useful and presents a challenge for educators to consider when engaging in online learning....

This article describes design principles for creating or running a professional development model where teachers work with colleagues and experience a manner of teaching that embeds habits of mind.

Providing opportunities for learning through professional development requires the examination of facilitation of sessions with teachers. This study investigates facilitation of professional development to promote teacher learning when using animations and videos in a...

“For effective K–12 STEM instruction to become the norm, schools and districts must be transformed.” Read this brief to learn more about curriculum and instructional methods that engage students in the learning process.

“When students from non-mainstream backgrounds receive equitable learning opportunities, they are capable of attaining science outcomes comparable to their mainstream peers. The same is true for mathematics and, presumably, for other STEM subjects, as well.” Read this...

“Engineering is taught only sporadically in K-12 schools, despite growing evidence that engaging in engineering education leads to improved student learning and achievement in mathematics and science, in part by connecting these subjects to real-world problems.” Read...

“Recent research emphasizes that teacher quality alone cannot improve student achievement at scale. School leadership, staff collaboration, and a positive climate are among essential organizational elements that contribute to meaningful change.” Read this brief to learn...

Whether engaging students in place-based learning, designing/implementing more inclusive curricula or pedagogy, or helping teachers develop their capacity to teach increasingly diverse groups of learners, many DR K-12 projects seek to broaden participation within STEM...

A Landscape Analysis of K–12 Engineering Education in the Greater Boston Region

The American Museum of Natural History is offering a master's degree in teaching, part of a broad national campaign to add 100,000 science, technology and math teachers by 2021

To contribute to the growing field of STEM education, we examined the presence of stereotype threat for
female and African American students during a large-scale computing intervention. Namely, this paper
examines whether gender and race have an effect on...

While Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) fields have increased in importance over the past decade, minorities have remained traditionally underrepresented in these fields. In this study we seek to better understand some of the factors that might contribute...

The importance of valuing student ideas in science education stands on firm empirical, theoretical, and moral grounds. However, the reasons for which one might value student ideas are often not explicitly distinguished, even if implicit distinctions are made in the...

This study examines the relationship between internal barriers, professional development, and computer integration outcomes among a sample of fourth- and fifth-grade teachers in an urban, low-income school district in the Southeastern United States. Specifically, we...

To contribute to understanding how teachers can develop geometrical understanding, we report on the discursive development of teachers’ geometrical reasoning through instrument appropriation while collaborating in an online dynamic geometry environment (DGE). Using the...

We report on a case study that seeks to understand how teachers’ pedagogical interventions influence students’ instrumentation and mathematical reasoning in a collaborative, dynamic geometry environment. A high school teacher engaged a class of students in the Virtual...

This qualitative study examined how and why research experiences for teachers (RETs) influenced middle and high school science teachers’ beliefs, attitudes, and values about teaching science as inquiry. Changes teachers reported after participating in the RET ranged from...

The goal of the Electronic Teacher Guide project was to redesign the print teacher guide for the genetics unit of Foundation Science: Biology as an exemplar of a cybertool that would support the implementation of the curriculum and enhance its educative impact. The...

This report summarizes the 2013, 2014, and 2015 findings from a longitudinal survey of district professional development coordinators across the state of Florida. The results are presented with six sections: 1) District policy and practice, 2) Leadership, 3) Funding, 4)...

On July 15-17, 2012 the United States National Commission on Mathematics Instruction and Seoul National University held a joint Korea-U.S. workshop on Mathematics Teaching and Curriculum. The workshop was organized to address questions and issues related to math teaching...

No one curriculum can meet the needs of all students and teachers. This video describes why a teacher might want to modify a curriculum and how he or she would go about it.

An effective curriculum helps you support students' science learning, understanding, and achievement. But what does "effective" mean? This video gives you the inside scoop on what makes a curriculum effective and flags some common pitfalls to avoid.

Practitioner-focused article connecting research on argumentation to teachers' practice.

This list provides the names and locations of HBCUs, along with links to STEM-related programs within these institutions.

This list provides the names and locations of Tribal Colleges and Universities, along with links to STEM-related programs within these institutions.

A middle school mathematics teacher taught native English speakers for the first fifteen years of her career. As immigrants from other countries moved into the community and student demographics began to change, she realized that she was not prepared to teach mathematics...

Research in student knowledge and learning of science has typically focused on explaining conceptual change. Recent research, however, documents the great degree to which student thinking is dynamic and context-sensitive, implicitly calling for explanations not only of...

The Energy Project at Seattle Pacific University has developed representations that embody the substance metaphor and support learners in conserving and tracking energy as it flows from object to object and changes form. Such representations enable detailed modeling of...

In this paper, we present an overview of the National Science Foundation (NSF) funded Knowledge for Algebra Teaching for Equity (KATE) Project and experiences from preservice teachers who are preparing for teaching middle grades mathematics. We highlight findings from a...

Developed by the Education Development Center and Bank Street College of Education, this professional development program will show general and special education teachers how to collaborate to provide a high-quality, standards-based mathematics education to all students...

This article reports findings from a research and professional development project at two high schools located in low-income, urban communities of color. The project collaborates with teachers on improving their instructional practices, using a framework of culturally...

The high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) experiment, most often done in the undergraduate analytical instrumentation laboratory course, generally illustrates reversed-phase chromatography using a commercial C18 silica column. To avoid the expense of periodic...

This study explores what students understand about enzyme–substrate interactions, using multiple representations of the phenomenon. In this paper we describe our use of the 3 Phase-Single Interview Technique with multiple representations to generate cognitive dissonance...

The central goal of this study was to create a new diagnostic tool to identify organic chemistry students’ alternative conceptions related to acid strength. Twenty years of research on secondary and college students’ conceptions about acids and bases has shown that these...

This volume reflects upon how learners engage in the processes of problem solving and critical thinking by exploring the critical theories that undergird these processes; and this chapter introduces practitioners of educational technology to the contents of the book. The...

Introductory biology courses form a cornerstone of undergraduate instruction. However, the predominantly used lecture approach fails to produce higher-order biology learning. Research shows that active learning strategies can increase student learning, yet few biology...

Despite evidence that it can help students learn higher-order thinking skills and gain deep content knowledge, problem-based learning (PBL) is not deployed on a large scale in K-12 classrooms. This conceptual chapter explores teacher’s past experiences, and resulting...

Enzyme function is central to student understanding of multiple topics within the biochemistry curriculum. In particular, students must understand how enzymes and substrates interact with one another. This manuscript describes the development of a 15-item Enzyme–...

The Diagnosing Teachers’ Multiplicative Reasoning (DTMR) tests are designed for in-service middle grades teachers and emphasize knowledge needed (a) to think about fractions and proportional relationships as quantities and (b) to use drawn models (e.g., number line and...

The group will discuss current research and practice in educational social networks and questions in this area that still need to be answered.

This interactive workshop introduces participants to teaching routines for use with a classroom network technology called Group Scribbles, which supports teachers’ invention of classroom assessment activities in Earth science.

This session presents strategies for delivering professional development via interactive television and using videos collected remotely as a data source.

Three DR-K12 projects investigating the implementation of mathematics professional
development programs by district-based facilitators discuss with participants their approaches to assessing fidelity and preliminary findings.

Barbara Chamberlin, with the NMSU Learning Games Lab, shares their user testing processes and strategies. The educational development studio involves content experts and game developers in their game design process, also employing a rigorous user testing process...

Presenters share outcomes of a research-based, tool-supported system of induction created to advance novice teachers’ capacity to scaffold students’ construction of evidence and explanation.

Three DR-K12 projects report findings on aspects of the institutional setting of teaching that affects teachers’ development of ambitious instructional practices in middle-school mathematics.

Presenters share outcomes of a research-based, tool-supported system of induction created to advance novice teachers’ capacity to scaffold students’ construction of evidence and explanation.

This session considers teachers’ transitions from teacher-centered mathematics to student-centered mathematics, including issues of meaning, coherence, and learnability, as well as the importance of working with colleagues.

Many assume that better-quality teachers will lead to improvements in the quality of teaching and,thus, student outcomes. Over the past decade, a program has been developed of research around measuring key components of mathematical teacher quality and the mathematical...

“Help! I’m stuck!” How many times have you heard a student make a similar plea? What do you consider when deciding how to respond? What reasoning is most productive? As part of a large research project, we explored these questions with 131 prospective and practicing...

Join the panelists from the plenary presentation to continue conversations about common
standards in each of the STEM disciplines.

In this session, the presenters discuss findings and experiences regarding technology-embedded assessment and how to support teachers in using it effectively.

In this poster, we describe the goals of our research, our proposed model for professional development, our framing of design-based approaches to learning, and our framing of computational thinking.

The first print edition from academic year 2010-11 of our student written science news publication, in pdf format. This is meant to be printed on large format paper, and folded, but it can be viewed online.

The third print edition from summer 2009 of the student science news publication, in pdf format.

The first print edition from summer 2009 of the student science news publication, in pdf format.

As part of the Data Games project, we are researching how students record and organize multivariate data. This research is informing the design of new software interfaces for Fathom and TinkerPlots that will allow students to explore and understand data that live in...

With our conceptualization of Harré and van Langenhove’s (1999) positioning theory, we draw attention to immanent experience and read transcendent discursive practices through the moment of interaction. We use a series of spatial images as metaphors to analyze the way...

Throughout my career, I have collaborated with dedicated and hard-working teachers who have opened their classrooms so that others could learn from them. Yet, one teacher, Sara, stood out from all the others. From the first time I visited Sara's classroom in 1992, I...

Science education reforms, such as the introduction of inquiry into the classroom, represent second order educational changes (12,13). Although first order changes require small alterations of existing practices, second order changes challenge the structures and rules of...

A four-year research project funded by NSF examines the efficacy of an approach to high school geometry that utilizes dynamic geometry (DG) software and supporting instructional materials to supplement ordinary instructional practices. It compares effects of that...

This article describes an online climate change curriculum that incorporates dynamic computer models that enable students to visualize the complex interactions related to climate change science. Students learn how adjusting variables in a dynamic model affects the entire...

Like citizen journalists, your students can get to the heart of science literacy—and challenging questions like these—with the “learn by doing” methodology in this innovative book. Front-Page Science uses science journalism techniques to help students become better...

In this study, we examine how a professional science news editor and high school teachers respond to student writing in order to understand the values and priorities each bring to bear on student work. These questions guided our work:

• How do teachers respond to...

This short text explains the reasoning for the sequencing of the content in Foundation Science: Biology. Specifically, it describes the content sequence for the full year curriculum, for the Genetics Unit, for a Learning Experience, and provides examples.

In this short text, the power of formative assessment as a teaching tool is detailed, and examples of opportunities for formative assessment within Foundation Science Biology proposed, for Learning Experiences (LE) 2, 3 and 4.

A table of different verbal and non-verbal tools that help students participate in science discourse. Contains examples of productive talk moves.

An essay detailing the purposes, functions and benefits of academically productive talk including the Talk Goals and Moves chart.

Once the students understand the biology of genetically modified organisms, the teacher helps students deepen their learning by assigning further reading and asking students to imagine possible applications of GMO technology.

As the students grapple with the question of whether to serve genetically modified potatoes in the school cafeteria, the teacher uses strategies that encourage all students to voice their ideas and questions, to distinguish scientific evidence from opinion, and to...

Learn more about the Plan, Teach and Reflect features of the electronic teacher guide.

What else is happening in STEM education? Explore funding, dissemination, and networking opportunities outside of DR K-12 through other organizations devoted to advancing research, development, evaluation, or practice in K-12 STEM education.

This overview is intended to describe the scope and depth of research and development DR K-12 has funded and to identify areas that could be advanced by further investigations by CADRE. The overview summarizes the 351 projects that met the criteria for inclusion and...

What does the United States need to do to build future generations’ knowledge and skills in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), and what kinds of research and innovation can enable the needed changes in teaching and learning? This brief describes...

This article describes a project that holds the development of Fidelity of Implementation (FOI) measures as its primary goal and has developed a suite of data collection tools designed to be used across multiple programs. It describes the foundation of the suite—a...

Terrazas-Arellanes, F., Knox, C., Rivas, C., & Walden, E. (in press). English Language Learners’ Online Science Learning: A Case Study. In J. E. Aitken (Ed.), Cases on communication technology for second language acquisition and cultural learning. Hershey, PA: IGI...

A 2-page summary of the ASPECT project, including project goals, approach, year one accomplishments, early findings, current efforts, and early impacts.

The Concord Consortium has developed 19 activities for teaching and learning algebra that are available online or as an app for iPad or Android tablet computers. These activities—which cover a variety of algebra topics, from linear equations to transformations of...

The Award and Administration Guide(AAG) provides information regarding the NSF
award cycle from issuance and administration of an award through closeout.

Dynamic visualisations capture aspects of scientific phenomena that are difficult to communicate in static materials and benefit from well-designed scaffolds to succeed in classrooms. We review research to clarify the impacts of dynamic visualisations and to identify...

Examining discourse of a team of pre-service teachers within an IEL engineering design challenge

The Next Generation Science Standards can transform how teaching and learning unfold in the classroom. Here's what they look like —and how you can get started.

One of the many challenges that teachers face in mathematics classrooms is determining how much of the verbal and written explanations help students accomplish instructional goals. The challenge is greater in linguistically diverse classrooms because the explanations and...

This paper explores how robotics can be used as a new educational tool in a Montessori early education classroom.

This paper introduces SketchMiner, which uses drawing topologies to automatically interpret learner-generated sketches.

In this session, participants discuss knowledge synthesis in process regarding STEM teachers’ participation in professional learning communities: What have we learned and what are the implications for other NSF projects?

NCLB defines success exclusively as test scores, fostering strategies that compromise substantive
learning. This session focuses on conceptual and theoretical frameworks for exploring this issue.

Project overview poster presented at 2010 DrK-12 PI meeting.

Chapter in Mathematics Teachers at Work: Connecting Curriculum Materials and Classroom Instruction.

This interactive session examines the different data sources for evidence of PCK in biology
teachers involved in professional development experiences linked to educative curriculum
materials.