Science

Extending and Investigating the Impact of the High School Model-based Educational Resource (Collaborative Research: Passmore and Wilson)

Principal Investigator:

We are collaborating on a project to examine the efficacy of high school biology instructional materials that support teachers' understanding and practice of model-based reasoning as an approach to support students in developing an integrated, multidimensional understanding of science. This poster summarizes our efforts to develop assessment tasks that measure students' ability to use model-based reasoning to make sense of biological phenomena and describes our use of crowdsourced adults to pilot test the tasks.

Co-PI(s): Molly Stuhlsatz, BSCS Science Learning

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Extending and Investigating the Impact of the High School Model-based Educational Resource (Collaborative Research: Passmore and Wilson)

Principal Investigator:

We are collaborating on a project to examine the efficacy of high school biology instructional materials that support teachers' understanding and practice of model-based reasoning as an approach to support students in developing an integrated, multidimensional understanding of science. This poster summarizes our efforts to develop assessment tasks that measure students' ability to use model-based reasoning to make sense of biological phenomena and describes our use of crowdsourced adults to pilot test the tasks.

Co-PI(s): Molly Stuhlsatz, BSCS Science Learning

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

Principal Investigator:

Research shows a need for professional development (PD) that builds K-5 teachers' ability to incorporate the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) science practices into the classroom and supports their implementation of reform-minded science instruction. The Schoolyard SITES research study and PD program at the University of New Hampshire (UNH) partners elementary teachers with UNH Extension science volunteers to bring locally-relevant citizen science projects to elementary students and to increase teachers’ self-efficacy teaching science.

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Target Audience:

Integrating Science with Mathematics and Engineering: Linking Home and School Learning for All Young Learners

Principal Investigator:

This study investigates the integration of early science with mathematics and engineering and involves co-designing resources with preschool teachers and families from historically underserved communities to provide preschool children equitable STEM learning experiences. The study also explores connections between home and school learning and involves designing resources to support multilingual learners, who represent a large (and growing) proportion of the population served in public preschool programs.

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Target Audience:

Developing Teacher Noticing in Engineering in an Online Professional Development Program

Principal Investigator:

The Teacher Engineering Education Program is designed to support teacher learning in engineering education in an 18-month online asynchronous program. In this project, we collected data from two cohorts of elementary teachers (N=26) including multiple interviews throughout the program, teachers’ video recordings of their classroom teaching, and their coursework in the four required courses. This poster summarizes our central findings on teacher learning in the program, looking at teachers’ noticing and pedagogical sensemaking in engineering.

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Developing Preservice Elementary Teachers' Ability to Facilitate Goal-Oriented Discussions in Science and Mathematics via the Use of Simulated Classroom Interactions

Principal Investigator:

In this project, we developed, piloted, and studied the use of a set of performance-based tasks delivered within a simulated classroom environment in order to improve preservice elementary teachers' ability to facilitate argumentation-focused discussions in mathematics and science. We conceptualized these simulated discussions as formative assessment opportunities, and studied how teacher educators made use of them within methods courses to support preservice teachers' learning. We also examined evidence of preservice teacher learning via pre/post measures.

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Target Audience:

Developing Learning Environments that Support Molecular-Level Sensemaking

Principal Investigator:

Our team works with high school chemistry teachers to co-develop a suite of curricular materials that engage students in making sense of chemical phenomena in terms of atomic/molecular behavior. This suite of materials undergoes a regular cycle of development and refinement, guided by teachers’ sense of “what works” when implementing the materials and observations of classroom discourse practices. Our work investigates how to best support teachers as they design learning environments to promote student sensemaking.

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Target Audience:

Designing for Science Learning in Schools by Leveraging Participation and the Power of Place through Community and Citizen Science (Collaborative Research: Ballard and Henson)

Principal Investigator:

This study focuses on youth community action and science in our forests. We address questions about when and where youth cultivate their agency and create change relevant to their lives through environmental science. We explore these questions through a place-based and community-lead, forest monitoring program looking at forest health and fire risk in the wildfire prone Sierra Nevada foothills. This school-based program brings together 3rd through 5th grade teachers, students, local scientists and land managers.

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CAREER: Promoting Equitable and Inclusive STEM Contexts in High School

Principal Investigator:
In this study, high school students (N = 242) completed measures of classroom inclusivity, perceived teacher discrimination, belonging, STEM classroom engagement and STEM activism orientation. Path analyses revealed direct effects of inclusion and perceived discrimination on STEM activism orientation. Further, findings demonstrated direct effects of inclusion on belonging and on belonging and both STEM classroom engagement and STEM Activism Orientation.
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Target Audience:

CAREER: Cultivating Teachers' Epistemic Empathy to Promote Responsive Teaching

Principal Investigator:
This project aims to study and cultivate science and mathematics teachers' "epistemic empathy" the capacity for tuning into and valuing someone's cognitive and emotional experience in the process of constructing, communicating, and critiquing knowledge. The project's goals are to examine how such epistemic can be cultivated in teacher education, how it may function to promote responsive teaching, and how it may shape learners' engagement in the classroom.
 
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