Administrators

The Discovery Research K-12 program (DR-K12) seeks to significantly enhance the learning and teaching of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) by preK-12 students and teachers, through research and development of innovative resources, models and tools (RMTs). Projects in the DRK-12 program build on fundamental research in STEM education and prior research and development efforts that provide theoretical and empirical justification for proposed projects. This project scales up the PBS NewsHour Student Reporting Labs (SRL), a model that trains teens to produce video reports on important STEM issues from a youth perspective. Participating schools receive a SRL journalism and digital media literacy curriculum, a mentor for students from a local PBS affiliate, professional development for educators, and support from the PBS NewsHour team. The production of news stories and student-oriented instruction in the classroom are designed to increase student learning of STEM content through student-centered inquiry and reflections on metacognition. Students will develop a deep understanding of the material to choose the best strategy to teach or tell the STEM story to others through digital media. Over the 4 years of the project, the model will be expanded from the current 70 schools to 150 in 40 states targeting schools with high populations of underrepresented youth. New components will be added to the model including STEM professional mentors and a social media and media analytics component. Project partners include local PBS stations, Project Lead the Way, and Share My Lesson educators.

The research study conducted by New Knowledge, LLC will add new knowledge about the growing field of youth science journalism and digital media. Front-end evaluation will assess students' understanding of contemporary STEM issues by deploying a web-based survey to crowd-source youth reactions, interest, questions, and thoughts about current science issues. A subset of questions will explore students' tendencies to pass newly-acquired information to members of the larger social networks. Formative evaluation will include qualitative and quantitative studies of multiple stakeholders at the Student Reporting Labs to refine the implementation of the program. Summative evaluation will track learning outcomes/changes such as: How does student reporting on STEM news increase their STEM literacy competencies? How does it affect their interest in STEM careers? Which strategies are most effective with underrepresented students? How do youth communicate with each other about science content, informing news media best practices? The research team will use data from pre/post and post-delayed surveys taken by 1700 students in the STEM Student Reporting Labs and 1700 from control groups. In addition, interviews with teachers will assess the curriculum and impressions of student engagement.

Project Videos

2019 STEM for All Video Showcase

Title: How Video Storytelling Reengages Teenagers in STEM Learning Presenter(s): Leah Clapman & William Swift

2018 STEM for All Video Showcase

Title: PBS NewsHour's STEM SRL Transforms Classrooms into Newsrooms Presenter(s): Leah Clapman & William Swift

2017 STEM for All Video Showcase

Title: PBS is Building the Next Generation of STEM Communicators Presenter(s): Leah Clapman, John Fraser, Su-Jen Roberts, & Bill Swift

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Early childhood education is at the forefront of the minds of parents, teachers, policymakers as well as the general public. A strong early childhood foundation is critical for lifelong learning. The National Science Foundation has made a number of early childhood grants in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) over the years and the knowledge generated from this work has benefitted researchers. Early childhood teachers and administrators, however, have little awareness of this knowledge since there is little research that is translated and disseminated into practice, according to the National Research Council. In addition, policies for both STEM and early childhood education has shifted in the last decade. 

The Joan Ganz Cooney Center and the New America Foundation are working together to highlight early childhood STEM education initiatives. Specifically, the PIs will convene stakeholders in STEM and early childhood education to discuss better integration of STEM in the early grades. PIs will begin with a phase of background research to surface critical issues in teaching and learning in early childhood education and STEM. The papers will be used as anchor topics to organize a forum with a broad range of stakeholders including policymakers as well as early childhood researchers and practitioners. A number of reports will be produced including commissioned papers, vision papers, and a forum synthesis report. The synthesis report will be widely disseminated by the Joan Ganz Cooney Center and the New America Foundation.

The Discovery Research K-12 program (DRK-12) seeks to significantly enhance the learning and teaching of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) by preK-12 students and teachers, through research and development of innovative resources, models and tools (RMTs). Projects in the DRK-12 program build on fundamental research in STEM education and prior research and development efforts that provide theoretical and empirical justification for proposed project.

Recruiting and retaining effective mathematics teachers has been emphasized in national reports as a top priority in educational policy initiatives. Research indicates that the average turnover rate is nearly 23% for beginning teachers (compared to 15% for veteran instructors); turnover rates for beginning mathematics teachers are even higher. Many mathematics teachers with three or fewer years' experience begin their careers in high-needs schools and often transfer to low-need schools at their first opportunity. This reshuffling, as effective teachers move from high- to low-need schools, exacerbates the unequal distribution of teacher quality, with important implications for disparities in student achievement. Research increasingly provides insights into the magnitude of mathematics teacher turnover, but has identified only a limited number of factors that influence teachers' career decisions and often fails to capture the complexity of the teacher labor market. Thus, it is essential to understand the features, practices, and local contexts that are relevant to beginning teachers' career decisions in order to identify relevant strategies for retention. This project will address these issues, building evidence-based theories of ways to improve the quality and equity of the distribution of the mathematics teaching workforce. This support for an early CAREER scholar in mathematics policy will enhance capacity to address issues in the future.

This work will be guided by three research objectives, to: (1) explore patterns in mathematics teachers' career movements, comparing patterns between elementary and middle school teachers, and between high- and low-need schools; (2) compare qualifications and effectiveness of teachers on different career paths (e.g., movement in/out of school, district, field); and (3) test a conceptual model of how policy-malleable factors influence beginning math teachers' performance improvement and career movements. The PI will use large-scale federal and state longitudinal data on a cohort of teachers who were first-year teachers in 2007-08 and taught mathematics in grades 3-8. Three samples will be analyzed separately and then collectively: a nationally representative sample from the Beginning Teacher Longitudinal Study (about 870 teachers who represent a national population of nearly 85,970); about 4,220 Florida teachers; and about 2,410 North Carolina teachers. In addition, the PI will collaborate with Education Policy Initiative at Carolina (EPIC) at UNC-Chapel Hill to collect new data from the 2015-16 cohort of first-year teachers in NC (about 800 teachers) and follow them for 2 years. The new data collection will provide detailed and reliable measures on the quality of both pre- and in-service teacher supports in order to understand how they may be linked to teachers' career movements and performance.

The original award # of this project was 1350158.

This project investigates the variation in teachers' practice of lesson study to identify effective and scalable design features of lesson study associated with student mathematics achievement growth in Florida. Lesson study is a teacher professional development model in which a group of teachers works collaboratively to plan a lesson, observe the lesson in a classroom with students, and analyze and discuss the student work and understanding in response to the lesson. Florida is the first state to promote lesson study as a statewide professional development model for implementing the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics and improving instruction and student achievement. The original lesson study model imported from Japan poses a challenge for implementation and scalability in the United States, and there is emerging evidence that modifications have been made to make it feasible within the constraints of teachers' work schedules and school structures. Thus, there is an urgent need to investigate the variation in lesson study practice and how modified design features of mathematics lesson study are associated with improvement of student mathematics achievement. The research team will conduct a statewide survey of approximately 1,000 teachers in grades 3-8 who are practicing mathematics lesson study during the 2015-2016 academic year. They will examine variations in four design features of lesson study (structure, facilitator, knowledge resources for lesson planning, and research lesson and discussion) and their associated organizational supports. They will examine the relationships between these design features and the original lesson study model, teacher learning, and students' mathematics achievement growth.

This project is designed to advance the scholarship and practice of lesson study by: (1) identifying an effective and scalable model of mathematics lesson study with specific design features that are associated with positive teacher learning experience and improved student mathematics achievement; (2) advancing practical knowledge on how this effective and scalable model of mathematics lesson study can be practiced, based on in-depth case studies of lesson study groups; and (3) contributing to teacher learning principles that can be applied to various professional development programs in mathematics. The project will disseminate evidence regarding the characteristics of an effective and scalable mathematics lesson study model to state and district-level facilitators across the country. The project will also develop a Florida Lesson Study Network (FLSN) to share resources and facilitate communications regarding lesson study practice.