Middle School

This poster presentation will introduce the current study findings governing the design and implementation of E-Rebuild, a 3D architecture and math game that aims to promote versatile representation and epistemic practice of mathematics for students in grades 6th-8th. Utilizing the real-time, evidence-centered in-game learning assessment and a game-level editor, E-Rebuild enables not only problem-based mathematical thinking and learning, but also adaptive learner support during gameplay and participatory design of game-based math problems.

This project has developed practical measures, and associated routines and data representations, to support the implementation of instructional improvement strategies (e.g.,coaching) in middle-grades mathematics teaching. We will describe our classroom measures, which assess students' perspectives of key aspects of the classroom learning environment; the contributions they have made to our partner districts’ improvement efforts; and how we have attended to validity in the design and use of practical measures.

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.

The goal of the design and development study, Proof in Secondary Classrooms (PISC), is to develop an innovative intervention to support the teaching and learning of mathematical proof in secondary geometry. PISC made use of features of lesson study and continuous improvement. Findings featured in the poster involve quantitative assessment results from pre-tests and post-tests administered over three years. Overall, the PISC curriculum had a statistically significant, positive impact on students' end-of-year results.

The main issue our project addresses is how students' reasoning about mathematics concepts that are not new to them (e.g., linear functions) changes when learning about a new concept (e.g., quadratic functions), and we call this phenomenon backward transfer. We specifically focus on mathematics, but believe our backward transfer research is highly relevant within and across STEM content domains more broadly.

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.

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.