The Deep Structure Modeling (DSM) project addresses the pressing need to more effectively organize science teaching and learning around “big ideas” that run through disciplines. The project focus on developing knowledge around how centering science instruction on big ideas can position students in epistemically meaningful scientific evaluation, through synthesizing big ideas from phenomena and using big ideas as tools to analyze phenomena.

The rock cycle is rarely taught in conjunction with plate tectonics. The method of studying images of rock outcrops is not enough to explain how rocks are formed and transformed over time. This project has developed a simulation for students to investigate the formation and evolution of rock sequences created under specific tectonic conditions. By bridging the tectonic system and the rock genesis system, students engage in scientific practices that are authentic to how geoscientists’ work.

Computational thinking (CT) is critical in all STEM fields, but it is typically not integrated in STEM courses beyond computer science. To address this gap, our project team is developing a month-long CT-intensive biology unit, where students learn to program a robotic gripper to respond to changes in their electrical muscle activity. This provides a novel, interdisciplinary, and real-world context for students to develop their CT.

The project aims to build foundational knowledge about teacher learning to notice teaching and student thinking in new ways by using video clips of science instruction within a professional development context. Professional development is centered around the analysis of video clips depicting the implementation of three-dimensional performance assessments in science classrooms, and draws on cognitive science to enhance teacher learning from video (these include contrasting cases and self-explanation principles).

This project examines the efficacy of the Model-Based Educational Resource (MBER) for high-school biology teachers and students. Previous work on MBER has found that the materials support teachers in providing opportunities for engaging student sensemaking and modeling, are feasible to implement in diverse classroom contexts, and show promise of efficacy in increasing student achievement. With this project we are generating causal evidence investigating how this approach to teaching and learning supports Next Generation Science learning.

This project examines the efficacy of the Model-Based Educational Resource (MBER) for high-school biology teachers and students. Previous work on MBER has found that the materials support teachers in providing opportunities for engaging student sensemaking and modeling, are feasible to implement in diverse classroom contexts, and show promise of efficacy in increasing student achievement. With this project we are generating causal evidence investigating how this approach to teaching and learning supports Next Generation Science learning.

This project explores how children in grades K-2 understand visual representations of algebraic concepts. For instance, children create tables or graphs to organize information about the relationship between two quantities. They might use graphs and diagrams to explain their mathematical thinking and develop their understanding of relationships in numbers and operations. The project uses data gathered in K-2 classrooms and via interviews with children to describe their use of the visual representations.

EPK-2 is designing and testing a model of PreK-2nd grade teacher professional learning to address computational thinking. The focus is teachers’ generative development in CT as informed by collaborative, inquiry-based learning. The goal is to help teachers and schools build computational thinking pathways beginning with students’ earliest years. Research questions explore factors mediating PreK-2nd grade teachers’ learning and implementation of computational thinking in their classrooms.

Project ExCEED is a three-year project to help upper elementary and middle school teachers create and implement engineering design tasks in their classrooms that are relevant to the cultures and communities of their Native American and rural student populations. The interdisciplinary research team is studying the effectiveness of the professional development program at increasing teachers’ confidence and ability to incorporate culturally relevant engineering design into their classrooms.

This project explores the potential of lesson-centered collaboration on lessons for supporting teachers’ professional growth. Specifically, the project examines how the exchange between both domestic and international teams of teachers centered on teacher-generated lesson artifacts—in the form of storyboarded lessons and annotations of those lessons—can serve as a powerful tool for supporting teachers’ ongoing professional learning and growth through collaboration.