Administrators

The Discovery Research K-12 (DRK-12) program supports projects that enhance learning and teaching of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics by preK-12 students, teachers, administrators, and parents. This project will contribute to that mission by developing resources for teachers and administrators that will provide instructional guidance for teaching about the Ebola virus and other epidemics of infectious diseases that may arise. The resources to be developed will include guidelines for administrators and teachers, and these resources will be distributed both in print form and through the Web portals of project partners, including the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA), the National Science Education Leadership Association (NSELA), and the Council of State Science Supervisors (CSSS). Policy briefs related to teaching and learning about Ebola and will be tailored for specific organizations, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, and the National Education Association. The informational needs of teachers and administrators will be determined through large-scale surveys of teachers and science supervisors of school districts and states. The resources developed by the project are expected to have broad impacts nationwide in helping schoolteachers and administrators respond constructively to the spread of misinformation that often accompanies outbreaks of infectious diseases, such as Ebola.

To determine the informational needs of teachers and administrators, the project will develop and administer three surveys: a teacher survey, a survey for school district science supervisors, and a survey for state science supervisors. The surveys will probe knowledge about Ebola and infectious diseases, where respondents get their information, how such information is incorporated into instruction, and what factors affect their responses. Survey items will be validated through expert review and follow-up cognitive interviews with a subset of responders. The project intends to survey 3,000 teachers and all members of NSELA and CSSS. Findings from the surveys and related interviews will be used to develop informational materials and policy briefs that can be used by teachers and districts to guide instructional practices and policies related to teaching about Ebola and related epidemics. Science teachers are uniquely positioned to counteract the spread of misinformation that often accompanies quickly emerging, science-related issues, and this project has the potential to provide much-needed guidance in providing reasoned, constructive responses.

There is increased demand for K-12 teacher professional development that yields improvements in student learning and achievement. This need is particularly high given widespread adoption of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in mathematics which challenges teachers to incorporate mathematical thinking and problem solving into their instruction. The professional development challenge is exacerbated as our nation's demographics continue to shift, increasing the number of English language learners in school districts throughout the U.S. To meet this demand, the educational community must develop large-scale, system-level professional development programs aligned with the CCSS that are scalable and sustainable. The project team from Stanford University will work with middle school mathematics teachers in San Francisco Unified School District to develop their capacity to conduct professional development for the teachers in their schools. A central goal of this project is to develop models and resources for effective professional development and preparation of professional development leaders in mathematics with special attention to students who are English language learners. These models and resources will: provide school districts with the tools to build local capacity and provide sustainable professional development to all middle school mathematics teachers; improve the quality of teaching and, in turn, make important progress toward ensuring that all students in middle school can achieve the mathematical skills and understandings identified in the new standards; and meet the needs of English language learners. In addition, the Stanford team will contribute to the knowledge base in mathematics education, professional development and English language learners.

In previous work, the team developed two interconnected models--the Problem-Solving Cycle (PSC) and the Mathematics Leadership Preparation (MLP) models for preparing professional development leaders. The PSC model consists of a series of interconnected workshops organized around a problem that can be solved using multiple representations and solutions and can be adapted for multiple grade levels. Each cycle focuses on a different math problem. During the first cycle, teachers collaboratively solve the focal math problem and develop plans for teaching it to their students. Teachers then teach the lesson in their classes and the lessons are videotaped. Subsequent workshops focus on participants' classroom experiences teaching the problem. The goals of these workshops are to help teachers learn how to build on student thinking and to explore a variety of instructional practices. They rely heavily on video clips from the PSC lesson to foster productive conversations and situate the conversations in teachers' classroom instruction. The MLP model is designed to prepare Math Leaders to facilitate the PSC. The MLP prepares teachers to lead professional development for their colleagues. These models showed promise of effectiveness in improving middle school mathematics teachers' knowledge and practice, developing math professional development leaders, and improving student achievement. Investigators intend to refine and test the design of the PSC and MLP models and develop resources that can be used by other schools and districts, as well as conduct an evaluation of the work.

Although K-8 principals are responsible for instructional improvement across all subject areas, their focus has traditionally been on literacy and mathematics and only occasionally on science content and practice. New standards and assessments in science require that principals and other instructional leaders provide significant support to teachers to help them successfully integrate scientific practices into their instruction. There is evidence that these instructional leaders often lack the knowledge, resources or skills to provide this support. This project will research the knowledge and supervision skills principals' and other instructional leaders' need to support teachers in successfully integrating scientific practices into their instruction, and develop innovative resources to support these leaders with a particular focus on high-minority, urban schools. The project will contribute to the emerging but limited literature on instructional leadership in science at the K-8 school level.

The resources developed will involve: (1) Introducing scientific practices (including rationales, descriptions and vignettes illustrating each of the 8 scientific practices); (2) Using tools in schools (providing an observation protocol, teacher feedback form and improvement planning template); and (3) Analyzing sample video (including links to video of K-8 science instruction, completed supervision tools, explanations of their coding, and discussion of how to use them with teachers). The project will conduct in-depth interviews with four principals, work with 25 principals in the Boston Public Schools to iteratively design and test the resources. The project will also develop a measure of Leadership Content Knowledge of Scientific Practices (LCK-SP) which will be used to assess principals' knowledge. The project's research component will: (1) investigate principals' current knowledge about scientific practices and methods for supervision of science instruction; and (2) examine how resources can be designed to support instructional leaders' content knowledge of scientific practices.

The Graphing Research on Inquiry with Data in Science (GRIDS) project is a four-year full design and development proposal, addressing the learning strand, submitted to the DR K-12 program at the NSF. GRIDS will investigate strategies to improve middle school students' science learning by focusing on student ability to interpret and use graphs. In middle school math, students typically graph only linear functions and rarely encounter features used in science, such as units, scientific notation, non-integer values, noise, cycles, and exponentials. Science teachers rarely teach about the graph features needed in science, so students are left to learn science without recourse to what is inarguably a key tool in learning and doing science. GRIDS will undertake a comprehensive program to address the need for improved graph comprehension. The project will create, study, and disseminate technology-based assessments, technologies that aid graph interpretation, instructional designs, professional development, and learning materials.

GRIDS will start by developing the GRIDS Graphing Inventory (GGI), an online, research-based measure of graphing skills that are relevant to middle school science. The project will address gaps revealed by the GGI by designing instructional activities that feature powerful digital technologies including automated guidance based on analysis of student generated graphs and student writing about graphs. These materials will be tested in classroom comparison studies using the GGI to assess both annual and longitudinal progress. Approximately 30 teachers selected from 10 public middle schools will participate in the project, along with approximately 4,000 students in their classrooms. A series of design studies will be conducted to create and test ten units of study and associated assessments, and a minimum of 30 comparison studies will be conducted to optimize instructional strategies. The comparison studies will include a minimum of 5 experiments per term, each with 6 teachers and their 600-800 students. The project will develop supports for teachers to guide students to use graphs and science knowledge to deepen understanding, and to develop agency and identity as science learners.