The purpose of our project is to develop, test, and refine children’s computational thinking (CT) learning progressions. This research will provide early elementary educators and curriculum designers with a framework for understanding children’s development of CT and will inform future CT instruction efforts for standards, curricula, teaching practices, and assessment. This project will also provide valuable information about how to integrate CT into early mathematics education in feasible and accessible ways for classrooms.

Data science is transforming science and industry, with a strong demand for skilled professionals. The LogicDataScience (LogicDS) curriculum at Florida Virtual Schools (FLVS) introduces high school students to this field and related careers, aiming to overcome educational barriers, particularly for rural students lacking access to STEM courses and qualified teachers.

Data science is transforming science and industry, with a strong demand for skilled professionals. The LogicDataScience (LogicDS) curriculum at Florida Virtual Schools (FLVS) introduces high school students to this field and related careers, aiming to overcome educational barriers, particularly for rural students lacking access to STEM courses and qualified teachers.

Our project explores simulations focused on eliciting and interpreting elementary students’ mathematics thinking provide preservice teachers with formative assessment opportunities. They have been used with preservice teacher educators and their students three partner programs, and administered for data collection in fourteen other programs. Our studies (1) examine how feedback from the simulations strengthens preservice teachers' abilities to elicit and interpret student thinking, and (2) establish the reliability and validity of the simulations as assessment tools.

The Civic Data Project explores the potential for engaging students in investigations of civic data while learning social studies content and deepening inquiry practices. In the context of this project, civic data is defined as local, regional, or world data gathered by society/community serving organizations to monitor, examine, or address social issues. Using a collaborative co-design process, the project develops resources and activities for the social studies classroom that:

Despite its importance, there is little research on children's use of and reasoning with different approaches to multiply or divide multi-digit numbers.

We examine the effect of an AI-based assessment system that provides individualized feedback to students’ open-ended assessment responses, like explanation and scientific models in high school physical sciences. The curriculum, assessments and feedback are consistent with a previously developed three-dimensional learning progression that describes successively more complex understandings students develop about electrical interactions. We examine the effects and interpretation of this cognitive supportive, formative feedback aligned with a learning progression.

Project BEEs is a three-year project with the goal of focusing on teachers' development of engineering practices, including how teachers support their students' development of engineering-focused behaviors and mindsets with instruction. Through the use of research-based engineering curriculum, Youth Engineering Solutions, and the use of Universal Design and EBPs for Students with Extensive Support Needs our team is developing access to engineering education for students with disabilities. 

The project engages math teachers in lesson study to design and implement design-based lessons to teach geometry concepts.

Aligning the Science Teacher Education Pathway (ASTEP) functions as a Networked Improvement Community (NIC) to bridge gaps across steps along the science teacher training and development pathways. This NIC has co-created a shared vision and co-defined research agenda between university researchers, science educators and school district practitioners working together to reform teacher education across a variety of local contexts to create and implement a NGSS Toolkit for phenomenon-based lessons/ units or unpacking existing NGSS curriculum.