Curriculum

Uncovering Middle School CS Students’ Understanding of Variables and Control Structures: A Cognitive Think-Aloud Approach

This poster presents findings on middle school students’ understanding of core computer science (CS) concepts, such as variables and control structures, using cognitive think-aloud interviews with eight students. Each student worked on 16-22 formative assessment tasks designed to assess understanding on the ‘Algorithms and Programming’ middle school CS standards. Our study describes students’ interpretations of the CS concepts and discusses potential factors influencing student interpretations. Significance and next steps are described.

Author/Presenter

Hui Yang

Satabdi Basu

Daisy Rutstein

Arif Rachmatullah

Carol Tate

Christopher Ortiz

Eliese Rulifson

Lead Organization(s)
Year
2023
Short Description

This poster presents findings on middle school students’ understanding of core computer science (CS) concepts, such as variables and control structures, using cognitive think-aloud interviews with eight students.

Justice-Centered STEM Education with Multilingual Learners: Conceptual Framework and Initial Inquiry into Pre-service Teachers’ Sense-Making

When pressing societal challenges (e.g., COVID-19, access to clean water) are sidelined in science classrooms, science education fails to leverage the knowledge and experiences of minoritized students in school, thus reproducing injustices in society. Our conceptual framework for justice-centered STEM education engages all students in multiple STEM subjects, including data science and computer science, to explain and design solutions to pressing societal challenges and their disproportionate impact on minoritized groups.

Author/Presenter

Scott E. Grapin

Alison Haas

N’Dyah McCoy

Okhee Lee

Year
2023
Short Description

Our conceptual framework for justice-centered STEM education engages all students in multiple STEM subjects, including data science and computer science, to explain and design solutions to pressing societal challenges and their disproportionate impact on minoritized groups. In the first part of this article, we extend our conceptual framework by articulating the affordances of justice-centered STEM education for one minoritized student group that has been traditionally denied meaningful STEM learning experiences: multilingual learners (MLs). In the second part of the article, we report on an initial inquiry into how 14 undergraduate pre-service teachers made sense of our conceptual framework after participating in lessons from our COVID-19 instructional unit.

Energy and Your Environment (EYE): Place-based Curriculum Unit to Foster Students’ Energy Literacy

This chapter describes our middle school energy literacy project to develop, implement, and test curriculum materials for a unit titled Energy and Your Environment (EYE). EYE fosters place-based education by using the school building to enhance systems thinking about energy consumption and flow between the building and surrounding environment. Within the curriculum unit, students first consider the carbon footprint of buildings.

Author/Presenter

Suzy Otto

Laura B. Cole

Rebekah Snyder

R. Tanner Oertli

Sepideh Fallahhosseini 

Lead Organization(s)
Year
2023
Short Description

This chapter describes our middle school energy literacy project to develop, implement, and test curriculum materials for a unit titled Energy and Your Environment (EYE). EYE fosters place-based education by using the school building to enhance systems thinking about energy consumption and flow between the building and surrounding environment.

Scaling STEM-ID—Research Strategies to Inform Initial Scaling of Middle School Engineering Curricula

This work-in-progress paper discusses ****, a three-year middle school Engineering and Technology course sequence that integrates foundational mathematics and science in an engineering context through challenges that introduce students to advanced manufacturing tools such as computer aided design (CAD) and 3D printing and incorporate engineering concepts such as pneumatics, aeronautics, and robotics. The paper will describe research strategies informing the initial scaling of the **** curricula following its iterative development over several years in a previous large-scale project.

Author/Presenter

Dyanne Baptiste Porter

Jessica D Gale

Meltem Alemdar

Sunni Haag Newton

Abeera P. Rehmat

Talia Capozzoli

Jeffrey H Rosen

Jasmine Choi

Roxanne Moore

Year
2023
Short Description

This work-in-progress paper discusses a three-year middle school Engineering and Technology course sequence that integrates foundational mathematics and science in an engineering context through challenges that introduce students to advanced manufacturing tools such as computer aided design (CAD) and 3D printing and incorporate engineering concepts such as pneumatics, aeronautics, and robotics.

Designing Educative Tools for Scientific Argumentation: A Case Study of DBR Before and During the Pandemic

Design-based research is uniquely positioned to adapt instructional resources quickly to meet the needs of teachers and students. This chapter explores how researchers adapted and improved two educative tools over the course of two academic years. The educative tools were designed to support scientific argumentation through supporting students to develop task models of NGSS storyline routines. Both educative tools were developed, field-tested, and improved in the context of two different middle school science curricula in the city of Chicago.

Author/Presenter

Steven McGee

Randi McGee-Tekula

Anne Britt

Kathryn E. Rupp

Karyn Higgs 

Lead Organization(s)
Year
2023
Short Description

Design-based research is uniquely positioned to adapt instructional resources quickly to meet the needs of teachers and students. This chapter explores how researchers adapted and improved two educative tools over the course of two academic years. The educative tools were designed to support scientific argumentation through supporting students to develop task models of NGSS storyline routines.

Scientific Communities of Practice: K–12 Outreach Model Around Organism Responses to Repeated Hurricane Disturbances

Collaboration between ecologists and learning scientists can give rise to powerful models for scientific outreach within ecology. This paper presents a process by which learning scientists and ecologists codesigned a science curriculum that invites students to join an ecological community of practice. In the Journey to El Yunque middle school science curriculum, students engage with simulation models generated from data gathered by Luquillo Long Term Ecological Research (LUQ LTER) scientists.

Author/Presenter

Kathleen M. Easley

Jess K. Zimmerman

Steven McGee

Randi McGee-Tekula

Lead Organization(s)
Year
2023
Short Description

Collaboration between ecologists and learning scientists can give rise to powerful models for scientific outreach within ecology. This paper presents a process by which learning scientists and ecologists codesigned a science curriculum that invites students to join an ecological community of practice.

Why Is Engineering Design Important for All Learners?

Engineering design systematically identifies needs, wants, and problems and then devises solutions to address them. A central component of our work is guiding students in the engineered design of solutions to local environmental problems.

Songer, N. B. (2023). Why is engineering design important for all learners?. Open Access Government April 2023, pp.300-301. https://doi.org/10.56367/OAG-038-10193

Author/Presenter

Nancy Butler Songer

Lead Organization(s)
Year
2023
Short Description

Engineering design systematically identifies needs, wants, and problems and then devises solutions to address them. A central component of our work is guiding students in the engineered design of solutions to local environmental problems.

Inspiring STEM Education Focused on Solutions

Nancy Butler Songer, from the University of Utah, makes a call for collective action to create a new curriculum focused on the design of solutions.

Songer, N. B. (2023). Inspiring STEM education focused on solutions. Open Access Government July 2023, pp.322-323. https://doi.org/10.56367/OAG-039-10836

Author/Presenter

Nancy Butler Songer

Lead Organization(s)
Year
2023
Short Description

Nancy Butler Songer, from the University of Utah, makes a call for collective action to create a new curriculum focused on the design of solutions.

How Do We Design Curricula to Foster Innovation, Motivation and Interest in STEM Learning?

Purpose
The authors designed a science and engineering curricular program that includes design features that promote student interest and motivation and examined teachers' and students' views on meaningfulness, motivation and interest.

Design/methodology/approach
The research approach consisted of mixed methods, including content analyses and descriptive statistics.

Author/Presenter
Julia E. Calabrese

Nancy Butler Songer

Holly Cordner

Daniel Kalani Aina Jr

Lead Organization(s)
Year
2023
Short Description

The authors designed a science and engineering curricular program that includes design features that promote student interest and motivation and examined teachers' and students' views on meaningfulness, motivation and interest.

Youth as Essential Problem-Solvers of Our Futures

Nancy Butler Songer, Associate Provost of STEM Education at the University of Utah, discusses the importance of supporting and including young people as part of environmental decision-making teams and key problem-solvers of our futures.

Songer, N. B. (2023). Youth as essential problem-solvers of our futures. Open Access Government October 2023, pp. 312-313. https://doi.org/10.56367/OAG-040-10836

Author/Presenter

Nancy Butler Songer

Lead Organization(s)
Year
2023
Short Description

Nancy Butler Songer, Associate Provost of STEM Education at the University of Utah, discusses the importance of supporting and including young people as part of environmental decision-making teams and key problem-solvers of our futures.