Science

This exploratory project supports the professional development of secondary STEM teachers by providing multiyear training around three specific areas: (1) environmental sciences themed content; (2) technology integration in the classroom, and (3) classroom-based action research within action research communities. Using virtual reality to focus on wetlands and their connection to flooding brings locally relevant STEM concepts in a real-world context that is relatable to minoritized teachers and students living in these areas.

In prior work, BSCS studied STeLLA, a video-based analysis-of-practice professional learning (PL) model and found that it enhanced elementary science teacher and student outcomes. But the face-to-face model is difficult to scale. We present the results of a two-year design-based research study to translate the face-to-face PL into a facilitated online experience. The purpose is to create an effective, flexible, and cost-efficient PL model that will reach a broader audience of teachers.

Co-PI(s): Gillian Roehrig, University of Minnesota

STRIDES supports teachers to customize the curriculum to address diverse students' evolving ideas and achieve the multi-dimensional proficiency called for by the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). STRIDES catalyzes a new approach to teachers' curriculum customization. STRIDES will improve the evidence teachers have to make customization decisions by collaborating with the Educational Testing Service (ETS) to advance natural language processing (NLP) methods.

Streams of Data is pursuing early stage research to address: How can the use of professionally collected, scientific data support the development of data literacy skills in elementary students, and what types of scaffolds are necessary to realize this potential? In the first year, baseline research examined the analytical thinking approaches children intuitively use when making meaning from different types of data with minimal scaffolding? We explored commonplace scenarios of data and conventional data representations.

SimSnap enables students to investigate how different environmental and genetic factors affect the health of a variety of plants and vegetables, by allowing them to seamlessly move between individual and collaborative work with peers by snapping their tablets together (by placing them next to each other) to create a single shared simulation that spans all their devices. Students then leverage these inquiry activities to support their design and building of a real community garden.

Science Coordinators Advancing a Framework For Outstanding Leadership Development (SCAFFOLD) develops and studies a PD program for District Science Coordinators (DSCs) in one Southeastern state. DSCs can have partial or full responsibility for supporting science teachers in their districts, but little is known about their training and impact on teachers. The goal is to determine the impact of DSCs on teachers and if they are in need of PD to enhance their work with teachers.

Co-PI(s): Brooke A. Whitworth, Clemson University

A challenge in teaching real-world computational thinking is that the thought process of solving a concrete problem can easily escalate into a complex mental model consisting of many abstract, intertwined moving parts that are often difficult for students to imagine and think through, preventing them from sorting out a solution and building up self-efficacy. Externalizing such a complicated mental process step by step through drawing representational diagrams piece by piece can be cognitively offloading.

The project is pursuing two coordinated goals associated with science teaching and learning in the COVID-19 pandemic: 1) create COVID-related curriculum materials and 2) conduct research on teaching and learning in the pandemic. We partnered with 12 teachers to create and enact a model-oriented, issue based curricular unit about COVID-19. Research efforts focus on how teachers enact the materials and how and where students get information about the pandemic as they are living through it.

Co-PI(s): Pa Friedrichsen and Laura Zangori, University of Missouri

The main goal of the 5DMASTERS (Making Aligned Science Tasks Equitable for Rural Students) project is to support rural science teachers to shift to assessment of students’ learning that includes five dimensions: using disciplinary core ideas, science & engineering practices, and cross-cutting concepts, and meaningfully connecting to students’ interests and identities. We will share results from our ethnographic study of rural teachers’ instructional contexts, along with the initial design of our online professional learning course.

To support equitable access to place-based science learning, the PeBLES2 team is developing and testing a model to support elementary teachers in incorporating locally relevant phenomena into instructional materials intentional designed to be locally-adapted. We are developing two units that could be used in any region across the country with built-in opportunities and embedded supports for teachers to purposefully adapt curriculum to include local phenomena. Professional learning experiences will further help teachers incorporate place-based approaches.