Projects

This grant examines the changes teachers and students go through in their first year of implementing a New Technology High School project-based curriculum for ninth graders in two high schools. This first year of implementation is part of a phased-in implementation for subsequent grades. The NTHS approach calls for moving from more traditional approaches to mathematics and science education to project-based curricula that posits mathematics and science in the context of real-world issues and problems.

This project collects evidence supporting the validity of test instruments and initial characterization of high school teachers' background and use of materials and pedagogies. The project is constructing and validating multiple forms of test instruments that can be used for the evaluation of interventions (e.g. professional development, implementation of new curricula) and the measurement of aspects of teacher knowledge (e.g. subject matter, knowledge of student misconceptions).

This project focuses on the assessed impact of a teacher professional development (TPD) program around the applied sciences. Specifically, researchers seek to examine the measurable impact of an established teacher professional development program currently offered through the UC Davis Edward Teller Education Center. The Center delivers teacher training and curricula and draws upon an instructor cohort that pairs a regional master teacher and relevant LLNL scientists in curriculum development and delivery.

This project develops, implements, and evaluates new multimedia laboratory activities designed to engage students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). The project specifically targets artistically gifted students who are often steered towards more traditionally creative areas (e.g., arts and humanities) and away from STEM. The goals to help students understand that scientific principles permeate the creative and performing arts and that creativity and expression are also embraced by STEM.

This project aims to improve professional development programs for pre-service teachers (PSTs) as a way to improve student learning in mathematics and science. PSTs engage in a series of teaching cycles, and then engage in lesson study groups to develop, teach, and analyze a whole-class lesson. The cycle is completed by reexamining students' knowledge in teaching experiments with pairs of students. These teaching cycles are called Iterative Model Building (IMB).

The ReaL Earth Inquiry project empowers teachers to employ real-world local and regional Earth system science in the classroom. Earth systems science teachers need the pedagogic background, the content, and the support that enables them to engage students in asking real questions about their own communities. The project is developing online "Teacher-Friendly Guides" (resources), professional development involving fieldwork, and inquiry-focused approaches using "virtual fieldwork experiences."  

This project uses a mixed-methods design to test the hypothesis that key approaches to high school reform grease the mathematics and science pipelines for all students in reforming high schools. This study is intended to provide understanding of pipeline progression in reforming high schools and strategies successful schools employ to ensure timely pipeline progress for all students, particularly those historically underrepresented and underserved in mathematics and science and post-secondary education.

This project aims to find principles of instruction for developing students' visual models in science, including design principles for curriculum development, technological tools, and new pedagogical principles. The project concentrates on methods teachers use to guide class discussions while using innovative model-based curricula in middle school biology and in high school physical science.

This project covers participants' costs to attend a national conference series focusing upon supporting incipient science education research projects. A primary objective is to provide a venue in which researchers can describe their lines of inquiry and to then receive guidance and input about refining those ambitions. The other primary objective is to promote an innovative conference design in which a structured presentation format serves as an incubator for scholarly work.

Understanding Science provides an accurate portrayal of the nature of science and tools for teaching associated concepts. This project has at its heart a public re-engagement with science that begins with teacher preparation. To this end, its immediate goals are (1) improve teacher understanding of the nature of the scientific enterprise and (2) provide resources and strategies that encourage and enable K-16 teachers to incorporate and reinforce the nature of science throughout their science teaching.

This teacher professional enhancement program brings K-12 educators and polar researchers together in hands-on field experiences in the Arctic and Antarctic. Project activities and products foster the integration of research and education to produce a legacy of long-term teacher-researcher collaborations, improvement of teacher content knowledge and teaching practices, shareable online learning resources based on real-world science, improved student knowledge of and interest in the Arctic and Antarctic, and broad public engagement in polar science.

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 is creating a suite of instruments for measuring fidelity of implementation of several science and mathematics instructional materials programs and a User's Guide for customizing those instruments to other programs. The instruments are grounded in a shared conceptual framework that organizes "critical components" that the programs share. The suite was piloted and field tested in over 50 schools in Chicago.

This project is documenting how middle and secondary school science teachers first develop a perspective on science learning, translate that perspective into their own teaching practice and finally make explicit links to their colleagues. The research is investigating the impact of professional development based on model-based reasoning, supported by Lesson Study and an apprentice-like program in teacher leadership.

This project will develop 15 modules for high school students that connect biology, computation, and mathematics with corresponding teacher materials and professional development activities. The modules will draw on an approach to biological phenomena as involving information processing, in three illustrative areas conducive to learning at the high school level: Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, Mathematical Methods in Epidemiology, and Mathematical Methods in Ecology.

This project is developing a learning progression in scientific inquiry about the nature of matter. The effort will result in a research-guided system of curriculum, assessment and professional development focusing on the transition from a macroscopic to a microscopic understanding of matter that occurs in upper elementary and middle school. The project has a close collaboration with scientists and urban schools.

The project is testing a learning progression for modeling that spans the elementary and middle grades. Modeling instruction will be organized around concepts in life sciences that cumulate to a strong conceptual understanding of micro and macro evolution. The work takes place in two districts with underserved children. A curriculum strand is being created, assessments developed and a longitudinal research study conducted. The project also includes an extensive professional development model and accompanying dissemination strategy.

This project is creating age-appropriate physical science curriculum that uses balls rolling on student-constructed ramps for children age 3-8 years. Students are expected to develop practical understanding of the movement of objects along ramps and pathways that leads to knowledge about concepts of forces and motion. They will improve their ability to engage in scientific inquiry and solve engineering problems related to ramp structures, and develop positive attitudes about science and themselves as science learners.

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.

Research Experiences for Teachers (RET) programs have been designed to give teachers authentic scientific inquiry experience, but their results have remained largely unexamined. This research focuses on analyzing RET programs through description of their essential features, their efficacy in fostering teachers’ understanding and enactment of inquiry, their interaction with the personal characteristics of participating teachers, and the influence of teaching through inquiry on student learning in science.

This project is developing research-based science units for 3rd-4th grades in life, earth and physical science. The Seeds/Roots series is an integrated science-literacy instructional program based on a successful NSF-funded proof-of-concept initiative. It builds on revision of units in the Great Explorations in Math and Science Program; but updates and employs a new, multi-modal "Do it, talk it, read it, write it" learning model, with literacy used in the service of science inquiry.

This project is developing technology-rich science curriculum exemplars for grades 3-6 based on Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles. The project is testing the effectiveness of the approach and providing an exemplar that can inspire additional content and further development. A set of professional development materials to support teacher implementation of UDL science curriculum in the classroom is planned. Probes are used for lab investigations and computational models are used for experimentation in virtual environments.

This project is developing a set of instructional materials that engages students, teachers, and their parents in the science of coupled natural human (CNH) systems. Teacher guides, a website and family/community materials accompany the four student modules (which focus on an urban watershed, an urban/agricultural system, Amazonia and a polar system).

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.

This project is developing a set of instructional materials that engages students and teachers in the science of coupled natural human (CNH) systems. Teacher guides, a website and multimedia resources accompany the four student modules (which focus on an urban watershed, an urban/agricultural system, Amazonia and a polar system).