This project will conduct a study to identify instructional practices and professional development approaches for teachers and the policies needed to support ELLs' accomplishments in science and math. The study will synthesize research relevant to improving ELLs' STEM learning, offer insight into how to support both English language development and science and math learning, and provide a framework for future research to help identify the most relevant and pressing questions for the field.
Projects
This design and development project is an expansion of the Ongoing Assessment Project (OGAP), an established model for research-based formative assessment in grades 3-8, to the early elementary grades. The project will translate findings from research on student learning of early number, addition, and subtraction into tools and routines that teachers can use to formatively assess their students' understanding on a regular basis and develop targeted instructional responses.
This project addresses the fundamental challenge of how to support teachers to improve their practice. The approach uses a "live mathematics classroom" as a common text for working on practice, where participants are not only watching and discussing but are engaged in developing and learning practice. The project will generate new knowledge regarding ways in which elementary teachers of mathematics can be supported to learn effective teaching practice.
The project is a four-year, early-stage design and development project aimed to refine a state-of-the-art professional development model to prepare K-8 teachers and instructional leaders in urban schools to facilitate and support successful K-8 STEM Education. The project will specifically explore which components of the program promote teacher change, which aspects of the program support structural changes for STEM teaching in schools, and what holds promise for interdisciplinary STEM teacher development.
This project will develop and implement an innovative online mathematics professional development model designed to provide growth opportunities for teachers in rural districts who normally lack access to such opportunities. The project will focus on developing teacher capacity to enact ambitious, responsive instruction aligned with the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (CCSSM), and thus will be sustained, interactive, and of sufficient duration to help teachers transform their practices.
The purpose of this project is to investigate issues in the design and implementation of effective virtual learning communities (VLCs) for teachers and to examine the relation between teachers' reflective engagement with VLCs and their students' mathematics learning outcomes. Findings from this project will be used to build and share effective ways to support teacher learning online.
This project will study five elementary STEM schools from across the U.S. that are inclusive of students from underrepresented groups in order to determine what defines these schools and will use an iterative case study replication design to study the design and implementation of five exemplary eSTEM schools with the goal of developing a logic model that highlights the commonalities in core components and target outcomes across the schools, despite the different school contexts.
The project will develop, pilot, and validate eight discussion-oriented performance tasks that will be embedded in an online simulated classroom environment. The resulting research and development products could be used nationwide in teacher preparation and professional development settings to assess and develop teachers' ability to support classroom discussion in science and mathematics.
This professional development project engages a sample of kindergarten and 1st-grade teachers in a series of workshops, during which teachers will work individually and together to design and test new lesson plans that enhance teachers' abilities to help young children think and act like a scientist. Moreover, teachers work individually and together to construct lessons that connect science content to young learners' cultural backgrounds, interests and prior knowledge.
This project will investigate teachers' knowledge of noticing students' science thinking. The project will examine teacher noticing in practice, use empirical evidence to model the teacher knowledge involved, and design teacher learning materials informed by the model. The outcomes of this project will be a model of teachers' knowledge of noticing Appalachian students' thinking in science and the design of web-based interactive instructional materials supporting teachers' knowledge construction around noticing Appalachian students' thinking in science.
This conference will combine the annual meetings of three North Dakota organizations that focus on the development of a STEM-literate workforce to foster positive interaction and support for math and science educators in preparing their students for the workforce of tomorrow. The program will involve a statewide collaboration of higher education faculty and staff, state government and local community leaders, K-12 administrators and teachers, informal educators, and representatives of local STEM-related business and industry.
This project will explore the influence of a professional learning community model on preparing preservice and novice science teachers to teach in culturally and linguistically diverse classrooms of English language learners. The project will study the effect of a professional learning community model on teachers' self-efficacy beliefs and practices as it relates to teaching science to this population.
The main purpose of this project is to develop instructional materials for a year-long, fifth grade curriculum for all students, including ELLs. The planned curriculum will promote language-focused and three-dimensional science learning (through blending of science and engineering practices, crosscutting concepts, and disciplinary core ideas), aligned with the Framework for K-12 Science Education, the Next Generation Science Standards, and the Conceptual Framework for Language use in the Science Classroom.
Ensuring that beginning teachers are "classroom-ready" requires assessments that efficiently and validly evaluate proficiency in teaching. This project explores assessments involving simulated students as a way to assess teaching practice, which could provide an important complement, or alternative, to directly assessing teaching practice in classrooms.
This project will conduct a study to develop and field-test curricula integrating science, engineering, and language arts at the elementary level which is aligned with the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS).
The Elementary Mathematical Writing (EMW) Task Force was made up of educators with unique perspectives about elementary mathematical writing and with the goal to reach a consensus about and priorities for the types of and purposes for elementary mathematical writing. The EMW Task Force met in October 2015, analyzed elementary writing prompts and samples, standards documents, and recommendations, and identified four types of mathematical writing and their associated purposes: Exploratory, Informative/Explanatory, Argumentative, and Mathematically Creative.
This project will develop a cross-platform mathematics tutoring program that addresses the problem-solving skill difficulties of second- and third-grade students with learning disabilities in mathematics (LDM). COMPS-A is a computer-generated instructional program focusing on additive word problem solving; it will provide tutoring specifically tailored to each individual student's learning profile in real time.
This project will integrate Native Hawaiian cross-cultural practices to explore ways to help teachers know about and know how to connect resources of students' familiar worlds to their science teaching. This project will transform the ways teachers orient their teaching at the upper elementary and middle grades through professional development courses offered at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.
The main purpose of this project is to develop instructional materials for a year-long, fifth grade curriculum for all students, including ELLs. The planned curriculum will promote language-focused and three-dimensional science learning (through blending of science and engineering practices, crosscutting concepts, and disciplinary core ideas), aligned with the Framework for K-12 Science Education, the Next Generation Science Standards, and the Conceptual Framework for Language use in the Science Classroom.
This project will examine the relationship between teacher professional development associated with newly developed modules in urban ecology and the achievement and engagement of long-term English learners (LTEL). Existing Urban Ecology learning modules will be enhanced to accommodate the needs of LTELs, and teachers will participate in professional development aimed at using the new materials to effectively integrate academic science discourse and literacy development for LTELs.
The project develops a teacher professional development intervention to support student-adaptive pedagogy for multiplicative and fractional reasoning. The idea is that classroom instruction should build on students' current conceptions and experiences. It focuses on students from urban, underserved and low-socioeconomic status populations who often fall behind in the elementary grades and are left underprepared for middle grades mathematics.
This project leverages an existing game by embedding tools for studying patterns of students' decision-making and problem solving in the environment. This allows researchers to understand how students learn about computational thinking within a tool that bridges informal and formal learning settings to engage a wide variety of students. The project will also develop tools and resources for classroom teachers.
The purpose of this 4-year project is to improve student mathematics achievement by developing a mathematics intervention focused on key measurement and data analysis skills. The PM intervention will be designed for first and second grade students who are experiencing mathematics difficulties. To increase student mathematics achievement, the intervention will include: (a) a technology-based component and (b) hands-on activities.
Given the changes in instructional practices needed to support high quality mathematics teaching and learning based on college and career readiness standards, school districts need to provide professional learning opportunities for teachers that support those changes. The project is based on the TRUmath framework and will build a coherent and scalable plan for providing these opportunities in high school mathematics departments, a traditionally difficult unit of organizational change.
This project will convene stakeholders in STEM and early childhood education to discuss better integration of STEM in the early grades. PIs will begin with a phase of background research to surface critical issues in teaching and learning in early childhood education and STEM. A number of reports will be produced including commissioned papers, vision papers, and a forum synthesis report.