This project will design and research a professional development (PD) model in which elementary teachers experience integrated, place-based, culturally sustaining STEM curriculum focused on local watersheds and grounded in local Native American cultural values and knowledge. The teachers will then design and implement their own culturally relevant STEM unit, guided by the PD, which is situated within their local watershed and Indigenous community.
Projects
This project focuses on developing anti-racist mathematics teaching and learning practices that have led to inequitable school experiences for Black, Indigenous, and Latinx students. This study is a partnership with school and central office leaders from one district and educational researchers from three universities with expertise in both educational leadership and mathematics education. Partnership activities include documenting how leaders learn and develop anti-racist leadership practices and then measuring the impact on teachers’ instruction and students’ experiences.
The project is designing a web-based, district-led professional development implementation, focusing on improving mathematics discourse practices in K-2 classrooms, with particular attention to emergent multilingual learners. Building on two prior NSF-funded projects, the All Included in Mathematics K-2 New Extensions professional learning program will develop and research the impact of an augmented model for mathematics professional development on K-2 student learning through the addition of supports for coaches and leaders to the existing professional development model.
This project aims to restructure middle school science education around Grand Challenges (GCs) such as pandemics, climate events, and diminishing biodiversity. Anchoring science education around grand challenges can motivate students learning and provide a meaningful context for science curriculum and assessment. By engaging in the units around GCs, middle school science teachers and students will have opportunities to work with real data, engage in argumentation based on evidence, and take part in solutions to the grand challenges.
This project will develop and test a learning progression for middle school physical science that incorporates the three dimensions identified in Next Generation of Science Standards (NGSS): the Disciplinary Core Ideas of matter, interaction, and energy; the Science and Engineering Practices of constructing explanations and developing and using models; and the Crosscutting Concepts of cause and effect and systems and system models. Bringing together all three NGSS dimensions is an innovation that allows for the project to explore the variety of learning pathways that students may follow as they apply scientific knowledge and practices to make sense of compelling phenomena or solve complex problems.
Familial presence in school supports children’s learning. However, few models exist that illustrate forms of familial presence in STEM learning that center familial cultural knowledge and practice. The project will produce a model for familial engagement in STEM along with instructional tools and illustrative case-studies that can be used by teachers and school districts nationally in support of increasing students’ STEM learning. This three-year study investigates new instructional practices that support rightful familial presence in STEM as a mechanism to address the continued racial and class gaps in STEM achievement for historically marginalized students.
Effective “early” algebra interventions in elementary grades that can develop all students’ algebra readiness for later grades are needed. This study will use an experimental design to test the effectiveness of a Grades K–2 early algebra intervention when implemented in diverse classroom settings by elementary teachers. The broader impact of the study will be to deepen the role of algebra in elementary grades, provide much-needed curricular support for elementary teachers, and strengthen college and career readiness standards and practices.