Middle School

With partners from Alaskan and Hawaiian Native communities, multiple universities, and the Concord Consortium, we are exploring approaches to designing, testing, and refining multi-perspective, middle school science instruction about coasts and coastal change. Key questions include: How can multiple perspectives be included in ways that demonstrate equity and respect rather than some perspectives being represented more deeply than others? And, what does learning look like when it authentically represents multiple perspectives?

How do we design small meaningful suggestions for instructional improvement that are easy to implement, rooted in teachers' existing practice, and have a high rate of uptake? That's the question we explore on this poster.

This project uses design-based research to develop, pilot, and refine a set of complementary online activities for preservice teachers to engage in approximations of practice to develop their ability to facilitate argumentation-focused discussions in mathematics and science. The effort has produced an integrated online practice suite (OPS) containing a coordinated and scaffolded collection of approximation of practice activities using game-based practice spaces, simulations, and virtual reality coupled with targeted feedback and support from teacher educators.

In MS-GGU, we attend to middle-school students’ understandings of coordinate systems and frames of reference prior to examining their graph construction and interpretation. The project goals are to advance knowledge of students’ developing understandings of graphs “from the ground up” with attention to underlying coordinate systems and frames of reference that comprise the coordinate systems and (b) design and empirically test tasks to support students’ learning of coordinate systems and graphs to enhance graph literacy.

This DRK-12 Impact Study project investigates the effectiveness of STEM-Innovation and Design (STEM-ID) curricula in approximately 29 middle schools, targeting 29 engineering teachers and approximately 5,000 students across middle grades in Georgia.

The project explores teachers' capacity to manage student uncertainty as a pedagogical resource that supports student’s productive struggle and the development of conceptual knowledge during project-based learning (PBL) instruction in middle school science classrooms. This project explores how teachers' instructional practices change over time with repeated use of epistemic uncertainty as a pedagogical resource to support students’ engagement in PBL, and what effect those changes have on student perceptions, practice, management of epistemic uncertainty and learning outcomes.

We propose to address a Science & Engineering Practice (e.g., scientific argumentation), a Crosscutting concept (e.g. patterns), and Disciplinary Core Ideas in each of the following foundational middle school science domains - physical science, life science, and Earth science. This study builds upon existing work around argumentation, physical science, and life science.

This project explores students learning about viral epidemics while engaging in scientific modeling. Given the multi-dimensional nature of complex issues, using different types of models is critical for robust learning about issues like pandemics. We focus on how learners coordinate sense-making across different models. Project goals include: 1) Promote learning about viral epidemics through modeling. 2) Research learning about viral epidemics and optimal ways to support student engagement with different types of models.

The Taking a Deep Dive (TaDD) study examines the residual impacts of four different professional development models on teacher learning, specifically 3-4 years after the actual PD experiences. The project is conducting a rigorous cross case analysis across participants from the different projects. Additionally, a survey was given to participants in May 2019 which was 3-4 years after their PD experience. Findings contribute to the PD landscape of PD design and survey design.

The Journal of Emerging Investigators provides middle and high school students an opportunity to participate in a peer review and publication of their original manuscript.