Concurrent Session

This session, led by veteran PIs and co-PIs from Georgia Tech and Concord Consortium, provides a forum for participants to explore the pros and cons of different routes toward product sustainability. The session begins with a carousel activity in which participants respond to prompt questions about challenges and models for transitioning educational resources from research projects to sustained dissemination at scale.

This session provides applied training in the principles and practice of designing and analyzing studies to address questions of moderation and mediation. Presenters outline the motivation and critical value of complementing “what works”-type questions with explanatory investigations that address for whom a program works, under what conditions it works, and how it works for different groups. A practical outline of the concepts of moderation and mediation is presented through several STEM case studies.

Improvement science offers a promising set of tools and methods for assessing the implementation of instructional improvement strategies (Bryk, Gomez, Grunow, & LeMahieu, 2015). Improvement sciences utilizes rapid assessments of change to guide the development, revision, and continued fine-tuning of new tools, processes, work roles and relationships.

This roundtable discussion begins by framing the affordances and challenges in the context of broadening the participation of Latinx middle school students in STEM+C using an equity lens (Gutiérrez, 2012). Four axes are included as part of this framework: access, achievement (in our case, understandings), identity, and power. Participants are asked to share their understandings of the issues in relation to this equity lens and share stories of opportunities and challenges, as well as ideas of how to address those challenges.

This roundtable session begins with the presentation of a model of language-rich STEM inquiry for broadening participation of English learners (ELs) in formal and informal spaces. This model, developed through the work of this DRK–12 project, brings together EL students, their families, and their STEM teachers in both formal and informal STEM learning spaces. The goal of the model is to support teachers in better utilizing their EL students’ conceptual and linguistic assets to support STEM learning goals with the larger aim of broadening participation in STEM to include more ELs.

This session contributes to a methodological strand involving experienced researchers on learning trajectories and/or learning progressions (LTs/LPs). All these researchers have empirically demonstrated the potential of LT/LP work to broaden participation by leveraging student ideas and offering engaging task designs. Presenters share new LT research on computational thinking. This topical session asks participants to respond to critical questions on the topics of validity and change followed by audience questions and comments.

For decades, the STEM education community has been moving toward modes of collaborative inquiry and social constructivism within rich and deep contexts for investigation. This includes situated learning models (e.g., cognitive apprenticeship) and student-centered learning in project-based learning environments. A primary focus in recent science education reform efforts encourages students and teachers to engage in more open inquiry and problem-solving practices that are inherent in the scientific discovery process.

This session provides an accessible introduction to the principles and practice of measuring latent traits in STEM studies as well as their implementation in common statistical software. Presenters first outline the motivation for latent traits and the practical challenges to measuring them in STEM studies. They then introduce case studies focused on measuring several different types of latent constructs associated with STEM education in different contextual settings.