Projects

Project MSSELL will conduct a two-year randomized trial longitudinal evaluation of an enhanced standards-based science curriculum model. In Year 1, the project will refine and pilot the model based on learnings from its previous developmental phase and implementation with K-3 grade students. In Years 2 and 3, the enhanced model will be implemented and studied with fifth- and sixth-grade students.

This project will work in partnership with the Santa Clara Unified School District (SCUSD) to adapt a previously designed Professional Learning (PL) model based on the District's objectives and constraints to build the capacity of teacher leaders and a program coordinator to implement the adapted PL program. The project is examining the sustainability and scalability of a PL model that supports the development of teachers' pedagogical content knowledge and instructional practices. The project is contributing knowledge about how to build capacity in districts to lead professional learning in science that addresses the new teaching and learning standards and is responsive to the needs of their local context.

This project will investigate how NGSS has been implemented in California schools during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Through a state-wide survey, analysis of administrative data, interviews and case studies, this project will assess the impact of COVID-19 on NGSS implementation on a large scale, and more importantly, the extent to which high minority, high-poverty districts are disproportionately affected. It will also identify policy options available to state and school districts. By collecting critical and timely data, this project will contribute new knowledge to understanding of the impact of COVID-19 on NGSS implementation.

Today’s schools are experiencing increasing cultural and linguistic diversity and facing the challenge of creating meaningful connections between school science and student lived experiences outside of school. Middle school is a critical time to provide fundamental knowledge and encourage interest in STEM careers. In order to best impact learners during this critical period, science teachers need improved models to support the development and delivery of relevant curriculum materials to better serve all students in their classrooms. Highly supported design teams consisting of researchers, teachers, and both school and district science specialists will co-adapt existing district-generated science units to integrate socially and culturally relevant science practices and draw on students' diverse cultural and language practices as strengths.

This project will synthesize existing literature on modeling-based instruction (MBI) in K-12 science education over the last three decades. It will rigorously code and examine the literature to conceptualize the landscape of the theoretical frameworks of MBI approaches, identify the effective design features of modeling-based learning environments with an emphasis on technology-enhanced ones, and identify the most effective MBI practices that are associated with successful student learning through a meta-analysis.

This project will examine how partnerships among state science leaders, education researchers and education practitioners cultivate vertical coherence and equity in state science education.

This project aims to create a web-based STEM Career Exploration and Readiness Environment (CEE-STEM) that will support opportunities for youth ages 16-24 who are neither in school nor are working, in rebuilding engagement in STEM learning and developing STEM skills and capacities relevant to diverse postsecondary education/training and employment pathways.

Through the integration of STEM content and literacy, this project will study the ways teachers implement project practices integrating literacy activities into STEM learning. Teachers will facilitate instruction using scenarios that present students with everyday, STEM-related issues, presented as scenarios, that they read and write about. After reading and engaging with math and science content, students will write a source-based argument in which they state a claim, support the claim with evidence from the texts, and explain the multiple perspectives on the issue.

This project aims to deepen understanding of how to support and develop early childhood science learning by articulating science and engineering practices observed in children’s play. It also aims to develop early childhood educators’ abilities to identify and support nascent science and engineering practices with young children. Through this project early childhood educators will engage in professional learning using a refined version of the Science and Engineering Practices Observation Protocol (SciEPOP), an observation tool that allows researchers to identify and describe high-quality play-based engagement with science and engineering practices. Through video-rich professional learning along with peer-based coaching, early childhood educators will grow in their ability to prepare play environments, identify nascent science and engineering practices, enhance and extend investigations through play, and record and reflect upon this learning.

This project will build on prior funding to design a next generation diagnostic assessment using learning progressions and other learning sciences research to support middle grades mathematics teaching and learning. The project will contribute to the nationally supported move to create, use, and apply research based open educational resources at scale.

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 project brings together teams of teachers, teacher educators, administrators, and researchers to inquire into the development of ambitious and equitable practices that support learning the scientific practices and creating scaffolds for the special language demands of the scientific practices, particularly for English Language Learners.

Partnership development between universities and school districts requires an understanding that each organization has a distinct institutional point of view that must be considered in defining and shaping collaborative work. The goals and objectives of each organization may not always align, and at times may compete or conflict with each other. With the understanding that successful partnerships are those where practitioners and researchers achieve high levels of trust, commitment, transparency, interdependence, and mutual benefit, this project centers on building a partnership between a university that serves a largely Hispanic student population and a rural school district that also serves a community that has long been underrepresented in STEM education and career opportunities. The partners will jointly focus on how to respond to three negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic: 1) limited access to quality learning opportunities, 2) increased student learning gaps in STEM subjects, and 3) a local teacher shortage.

This workshop provides minority serving institutions with an opportunity to engage in dialogue about effective ways to create, implement, and evaluate models of intervention that will advance knowledge about retaining underrepresented minorities in STEM fields. It will advance knowledge in life science and the biosciences for K-12 and undergraduate students attending local schools or eligible minority-serving institutions. The workshop will focus on assisting minority serving institutions with use of research designs, and review of best practices for intervention shown to be effective in helping underrepresented student cope with chronic stresses that interfere with their retention in STEM fields and careers.

The goal of this planning grant is to explicitly focus on broadening participation in the K-12 STEM teaching workforce, with the theory of action that diversifying the K-12 STEM teaching workforce would in the long term help more students see STEM as accessible to them and then be more likely to choose a STEM degree or career.

This project will focus on a networked improvement community (NIC) model of professional learning that shifts K-5 science instruction from traditional approaches to a three-dimensional design as outlined in the Next Generation Science Standards. The project will feature a multi-level model involving university educators and researchers and school district practitioners in an effort to co-defined problems of practice valuable to both parties. A mixed methods research design will examine how the NIC model develops professional capital through changes in implementation over multiple iteration.

This grant is also known as The Responsive Math Teaching Project: Developing Instructional Leadership in a Network of Elementary Schools.

The goal of this project is to build instructional leadership capacity in teachers and school-based leaders in a network of underperforming elementary schools with limited resources. Through design-based improvement research, the project is designed to enhance the knowledge, skills, and competencies of elementary teacher leaders and principals to develop a shared vision and provide ongoing support of high-quality math instruction.

The primary purpose of this international conference was for participants in the US to exchange views and discuss the latest research findings on (primary) science assessment. The conference focused on research around building assessment systems that help teachers diagnose student learning in the classroom but also link meaningfully to large-scale accountability systems (in districts or national levels). The project resulted in a report, proceedings, journal publications.

This project has pioneered simulation-based assessments of model-based science learning and inquiry practices for middle school physical and life science systems. The assessment suites include curriculum-embedded, formative assessments that provide  immediate, individualized feedback and graduated coaching with supporting reflection activities as well as summative end-of-unit benchmark assessments. The project has documented the instructional benefits, feasibility, utility, and technical quality of the assessments with over 7,000 students and 80 teachers in four states.

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.

This exploratory project aims to develop a community of individuals and organizations working together to address critical issues in K-12 computer science education by broadening the awareness of the need for curriculum computer science standards, providing multiple levels of professional development, conducting and disseminating research in computer science education, and promoting this subject as a unique field of study in schools.

This project will investigate whether six urban middle schools are implementing highly effective science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) programs based on factors identified through relevant research and national reports on what constitutes exemplary practices in 21st century-focused schools.

This project seeks to investigate the possibilities and challenges of using a participatory approach to research and design, centering Black, Indigenous, Latinx, and Hmong students and their families in imagining and creating change. The project will generate new knowledge about the possibilities and limitations of participatory design research (PDR) as a method for advancing equity in mathematics education through PDR cycles at three middle schools over the five years of the project. This approach has the potential to disrupt inequitable practices of mathematics education as well as undemocratic processes for making decisions about mathematics education. Further, it will be a catalyst for developing racially just practices and processes in mathematics education.

Research increasingly provides insights into the magnitude of mathematics teacher turnover, but has identified only a limited number of factors that influence teachers' career decisions and often fails to capture the complexity of the teacher labor market. This project will address these issues, building evidence-based theories of ways to improve the quality and equity of the distribution of the mathematics teaching workforce. 

Despite years of research and interventions to address inequities that are largely related to race, science education continues to perpetuate these inequities in both participation and outcomes in science. This CAREER project will address the need to provide science teachers with a framework for considering race and racial dynamics in science teaching as well as exemplars in science teaching and professional development to support teachers’ teaching identities and praxis.