Projects

The goal of the study is to craft a research agenda that will examine the value of an integrated STEM education to students (K-12) in terms of learning achievement, motivation, and career aspirations. The final report summarizes the findings from the data gathering and analysis and the committee's conclusions and recommendations for a research agenda. This report is disseminated through presentations, publication of print and online articles and editorials and briefings to relevant stakeholders.

The study includes two and a half years of preparation and support for all the mathematics instructional leaders (ILs) within a large urban school district with a substantial minority student enrollment. These ILs will implement the Problem-Solving Cycle model with the mathematics teachers in their schools. Researchers will analyze the preparation and support that ILs need, the quality of their implementation, and the impact of the PD process on ILs, teachers, and students.

Identifying with engineering is critical to help students pursue engineering careers. This project responds to this persistent large-scale problem. The I-Engineering framework and tools address both the learning problem (supporting students in learning engineering design) and the identity problem (supporting students in recognizing that they belong in engineering). 

The goal of this project is to accelerate the progress of early-career and pre-service science teachers from novice to expert-like pedagogical reasoning and practice by developing and studying a system of discourse tools. The tools are aimed at developing teachers' capabilities in shaping instruction around the most fundamental science ideas; scaffolding student thinking; and adapting instruction to diverse student populations by collecting and analyzing student data on their thinking levels.

This project will develop an online curriculum-based supported by a teacher professional development (PD) program by rebuilding an existing life science unit of Biological Sciences Curriculum Study (BSCS) Middle School Science. The project is designed to be an exemplar of fully digital Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) aligned resources for teachers and students, creating an NGSS-aligned learning environment combining disciplinary core ideas with science and engineering practices and cross-cutting concepts.

This project will support the participation of 55 U.S. K-12 mathematics teachers or supervisors, graduate students, community college/university mathematics teachers, mathematicians, mathematics teacher educators and mathematics education researchers to attend the Thirteenth International Congress for Mathematical Education (ICME-13) to be held in Hamburg, Germany, July 24-31, 2016. The project will also prepare an educational status report (called the Fact Book) for the United States.

The Third National Conference on Doctoral Programs in Mathematics Education will bring together a group of faculty members in mathematics education from a range of institutions that currently graduate doctorates in mathematics education. 

This project is developing a data literacy curriculum for 7th grade students which is composed of four two-week units to be taught in social studies, mathematics, science and English courses. The curriculum utilizes data on water use and quality in Ohio, chosen because other communities will have comparable data to modify the curriculum to meet their needs. Central to the curriculum are the issue of fairness and how data are used to make societal decisions.

This project will develop and study three week-long middle school lab units designed to teach spatial abilities using a blend of physical and virtual (computer-based) models. "ThinkSpace" labs will help students explore 3-dimensional astronomical phenomena in ways that will support both understanding of these topics and a more general spatial ability. Students will learn both through direct work with the lab unit interface and through succeeding discussions with their peers.

This project will develop and study three week-long middle school lab units designed to teach spatial abilities using a blend of physical and virtual (computer-based) models. "ThinkSpace" labs will help students explore 3-dimensional astronomical phenomena in ways that will support both understanding of these topics and a more general spatial ability. Students will learn both through direct work with the lab unit interface and through succeeding discussions with their peers.

This project addresses the growing need for research to support teachers in developing expertise in responsive decision making in which teachers elicit and build on children's mathematical thinking in the midst of instruction.

This project seeks to understand the practical rationality that undergirds teachers’ actions as they meet subject-specific goals of the teaching of algebra and geometry. The study develops a collection of representations of teaching that showcase possible classroom episodes and allows practitioners to ponder alternatives in teaching. The representations are built on computer animations and other forms of sequential art that display action over time.

This project is developing and testing a set of 12 curriculum modules designed to engage high school students and their teachers in the process of applying computational concepts and methods to problem solving in a variety of scientific contexts. The project perspective is that computational thinking can be usefully thought of as a specialized form of mathematical modeling.

This project contributes to the small research base by exploring the validity of Technology-Enhanced Items (TEIs) in the context of elementary geometry. The project addresses three research questions: 1) To what extent are TEIs a valid measurement of geometry standards in the elementary grades?; 2) To what extent do TEIs provide an improved measurement compared to SR items?; and 3) What are the general characteristics of mathematics standards that might be better measured through TEIs?

This project provides support for the U.S. National Commission on Mathematics Instruction, a primary means for ensuring U.S. participation in mathematics education at the international level. The project will facilitate interaction with mathematicians and mathematics educators from around the world as issues about instructional practices are addressed. The participation of representatives of USNC/MI on the international stage opens venues for collaborative research and opportunities to learn about successful practices from other countries.

This project proposes to design, implement, and investigate the impact on students of an innovative curriculum supplement called the Spectrum Laboratory. The Spectrum Lab will be an online, interactive learning environment that enables students to make use of the database of publicly available spectra from research scientists, as well as from students.

This project aims to create and test an innovative educational approach for bringing STEM learning experiences to underserved youth. It will co-create and study an outdoor robotic-augmented playground called the “Smart Playground” and a corresponding series of classroom lessons. The Smart Playground will be co-designed with Latinx families and educators to engage children in developing computational thinking skills and learning about robotics in a physical environment using a culturally sustaining approach. Research and evaluation will examine whether exposure to the Smart Playground and corresponding classroom activities have an impact on the development of computational thinking in young children.

This project aims to create and test an innovative educational approach for bringing STEM learning experiences to underserved youth. It will co-create and study an outdoor robotic-augmented playground called the “Smart Playground” and a corresponding series of classroom lessons. The Smart Playground will be co-designed with Latinx families and educators to engage children in developing computational thinking skills and learning about robotics in a physical environment using a culturally sustaining approach. Research and evaluation will examine whether exposure to the Smart Playground and corresponding classroom activities have an impact on the development of computational thinking in young children.

This project aims to create and test an innovative educational approach for bringing STEM learning experiences to underserved youth. It will co-create and study an outdoor robotic-augmented playground called the “Smart Playground” and a corresponding series of classroom lessons. The Smart Playground will be co-designed with Latinx families and educators to engage children in developing computational thinking skills and learning about robotics in a physical environment using a culturally sustaining approach. Research and evaluation will examine whether exposure to the Smart Playground and corresponding classroom activities have an impact on the development of computational thinking in young children.

Current curriculum materials for elementary science students and teachers fail to provoke the following essential questions during science instruction: What is evidence? Why do you need evidence? The goal of this project is to identify whether and how elementary school students formulate answers to these questions and develop concepts of evidence and understandings of the nature of scientific evidence.

The Science of Atoms and Molecules is supplemental material, constituting about 10% of the course work and providing a progressive understanding of the centrality of atomic scale phenomena and their implications in each discipline. Upgrading the computational models developed in the Molecular Workbench, the materials allow students to experience the atomic world and build models that can be used to understand and predict macroscopic phenomena.

The Science and Mathematics Simulated Interaction Model (SIM) project will design and clinically test simulations for teachers. The hypothesis is that simulations will identify strengths and misconceptions in teachers' understanding of content and pedagogy, increase instructional capacity, and advance student achievement. The SIM will be for pre-service and induction-stage teachers. The simulations will focus on common problems of practice, challenges, dilemmas, issues that mathematics and science teachers encounter at the secondary level.

Focusing on the Southwest Desert ecoregion, this conference addresses the need for research on effective instructional methods that can be used to support students' science learning in school gardens. The conference will lead to the development of an ecoregional model for garden-based science teaching (GBST) that builds on regional ecological and cultural resources to engage teachers and students in richer and more relevant science learning experiences.

This project aims to determine whether curricula designed to support teacher and student learning have positive impacts on teacher knowledge, attitudes, and instructional practices; to what degree educative curricula help teachers with more and less experience teaching ELLs and how level of teaching experience relates to teacher knowledge, attitudes, and instructional practices; and the effects of the educative curricula in high implementation settings on ELLs knowledge and attitudes in science, and developing English proficiency.

This research project is an investigation of the role that examples play in helping learners become proficient in proving mathematical conjectures. Researchers are building a framework that characterizes the development of example use as students advance from middle school into post secondary school. Using this developmental information, the researchers are creating instructional strategies that help students think about the nature and value of proof as well as how to construct a mathematical proof.