Projects

This project compares the effects on algebraic learning when using the Connected Math Program to the effects of using other (non-NSF supported) middle school mathematics curriculum materials at the middle school level. The algebra focus skills/concepts to be assessed are: conceptual understanding and problem solving; algebraic manipulative skills; solution strategies, representations and mathematical justifications.

This project builds on prior efforts with learning progressions, and is focused on key carbon-transforming processes in socio-ecological systems at multiple scales, including cellular and organismal metabolism, ecosystem energetics and carbon cycling, carbon sequestration, and combustion of fossil fuels. The primary project outcomes will be coordinated instructional tools that are useful to professionals at all levels in the science education system--classroom teachers, professional developers, and developers of curricula, standards and assessments.

This project will provide an empirically-supported learning progression for a key scientific practice, scientific modeling. The specific instructional materials created as part of the project can serve as a model other developers can use to design materials supporting scientific modeling and other practices. The model for educative curriculum materials as a form of teacher support can be adapted to support teacher learning about modeling or other scientific practices in other curriculum materials.

This workshop developed a new, comprehensive, research-based framework for assessing environmental literacy. By bringing together, for the first time, experts in research, assessment, and evaluation from the fields of science education, environmental education, and related social science fields, this project accessed and built its work on the literature and the insights of many disciplines.

This project aims to advance the preparation of preservice teachers in middle school mathematics, specifically on the topic of proportionality, a centrally important and difficult topic in middle school mathematics that is essential to students’ later success in algebra. To address the need for a workforce of high-quality teachers to teach this mathematics, the project is developing a digital text that could be widely used to communicate the unique transitional nature of middle school mathematics.

The objectives of this proposed conference are to: (1) review current research on the achievement gap in mathematics and science with a focus on school-related variables that adversely affect outcomes from low-income and minority students; (2) discuss teacher quality and effective teaching in STEM; (3) identify effective strategies and models that promote equity in education and close the STEM achievement gap; and (4) build collaborative, interdisciplinary partnerships for addressing the U.S. achievement gap in STEM.