Projects

Science education research shows that incorporating attention-grabbing concepts and experiences—phenomena—in science classes has the power to engage and inspire young learners. However, many elementary teachers, including those in small rural schools, may not have access to or the support to enact high-quality phenomenon-centered curriculum materials and resources in their science teaching practice. This project aims to address this problem of practice by designing, implementing, and investigating a professional learning approach that supports rural elementary teachers and administrators in incorporating local phenomena-driven science learning experiences in their classrooms.

To successfully understand and address complex and important questions in the field of environmental science, many kinds of communities’ knowledge about their local environment need to be engaged. This one-year partnership development project involves a collaboration to design an approach that would yield opportunities for K-12 students to learn about environmental science in ways that honor both traditional STEM knowledge and Native ways of knowing among the Pomo community in California.

Science education research shows that incorporating attention-grabbing concepts and experiences—phenomena—in science classes has the power to engage and inspire young learners. However, many elementary teachers, including those in small rural schools, may not have access to or the support to enact high-quality phenomenon-centered curriculum materials and resources in their science teaching practice. This project aims to address this problem of practice by designing, implementing, and investigating a professional learning approach that supports rural elementary teachers and administrators in incorporating local phenomena-driven science learning experiences in their classrooms.

Data science is fast becoming a dominant part of scientific, economic, and social scientific reasoning, as well as a necessary perspective for making life decisions that rely on data. But there is little work in either research or development with students younger than 2nd grade, and even less focusing on children not yet in kindergarten. By expanding knowledge in an emergent content area where young children are currently underserved, this set of three workshops will build capacity to create rigorous, equitable, inclusive, and culturally responsive data science teaching resources, a necessity for school readiness in the early childhood years.

STEM learning is a function of both student level and classroom level characteristics. Though research efforts often focus on the impacts of classrooms level features, much of the variation in student outcomes is at the student level. Hence it is critical to consider individual students and how their developmental systems (e.g., emotion, cognition, relational, attention, language) interact to influence learning in classroom settings. This is particularly important in developing effective models for personalized learning. To date, efforts to individualize curricula, differentiate instruction, or leverage formative assessment lack an evidence base to support innovation and impact. Tools are needed to describe individual-level learning processes and contexts that support them. The proposed network will incubate and pilot a laboratory classroom to produce real-time metrics on behavioral, neurological, physiological, cognitive, and physical data at individual student and teacher levels, reflecting the diverse dynamics of classroom experiences that co-regulate learning for all students.

The rapid onset of AI, and generative AI tools such as LLMs, amplify the need for AI literacies, including concepts, practices and ethics, for K-12 schools. Some AI literacy resources, such as AI4K12 and AI4ALL, have emerged, but it may be challenging for schools, particularly those in small districts, to navigate these resources. Furthermore, researchers need further guidance on how to support schools for AI literacy. These challenges for schools and researchers include how to coordinate planning across teachers, school leaders and researchers, how to implement across grade levels, classrooms, and content areas; how to provide training and preparation time to support lesson design and implementation; and how to support teachers in their own AI literacy. To address these needs, district leaders and teachers from Forest Park School District and researchers from the University of Illinois Chicago will engage in a one-year research practice partnership development to build a long-term RPP, co-design an AI literacy curriculum, and support professional development to implement the curriculum.

This project will develop a sustainable Research-Practice Partnership (RPP) model between the Worcester Public Schools (WPS) and the Learning Sciences Lab at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI). Together, WPI and WPS will build the collaborative infrastructure for conducting impactful STEM education research within WPS. Specifically, the RPP will establish and document shared infrastructural systematic processes and materials, brainstorm and facilitate research ideas that address pressing issues in mathematics education, and build a community of trust among researchers, administrators, teachers, and families to make future research and implementation, innovation, and collaboration more impactful, accessible, and efficient.

Elementary school students' prolonged experiences with positive numbers and operations often lead to their overgeneralizations of rules (e.g., adding always makes larger numbers, subtracting always makes smaller numbers). These overgeneralizations can make learning algebra more difficult later, particularly when students must simultaneously learn algebra, negative numbers, and operations with negative numbers. The purpose of this project is to design and develop educational games centered on negative number concepts that target students before they learn algebra in middle school. Earlier exposure to and learning about negative numbers could increase students' motivation, understanding of connections between positive and negative numbers, and preparation for algebra.

Preschool and kindergarten-aged children are still developing the skills needed to reflect on and manage their own thinking, a process often referred to as metacognition. Without strategic support from their teachers, young children may struggle to make sense of inquiry-based science activities and possibly form enduring misconceptions that may hamper future science learning. Yet, many teachers are unfamiliar with the metacognitive processes or how to intentionally facilitate their development. This project explores both how to improve early childhood teachers' understanding of metacognition and develop strategies to guide teachers in using language and feedback to more effectively support emerging metacognition and science learning in young children.

Significant resources have been invested in workforce development to ensure the world is prepared for the growth of the quantum industry, yet relatively little work has focused on K-12 education. This project will address the challenge of effectively engaging K-12 students in this new area and teaching them complex quantum science concepts by developing a toolkit of K-12 quantum frameworks that will serve as a guide for building student understanding of quantum concepts over time. This project will identify the alignment of content across grade levels required for teaching quantum within the disciplines of chemistry, physics, mathematics, and computer science.

This project synthesizes research on teacher learning to distill ideas and develop a new, deeper understanding of how preK-12 teacher professional learning in mathematics and science influences teacher beliefs, knowledge, and practice. This study will provide information that enables states, districts, and schools to elevate the quality of teacher professional learning in STEM to lead to more effective instruction that fosters more and better STEM student engagement and learning and motivates more students to choose STEM careers.

Elementary school students' prolonged experiences with positive numbers and operations often lead to their overgeneralizations of rules (e.g., adding always makes larger numbers, subtracting always makes smaller numbers). These overgeneralizations can make learning algebra more difficult later, particularly when students must simultaneously learn algebra, negative numbers, and operations with negative numbers. The purpose of this project is to design and develop educational games centered on negative number concepts that target students before they learn algebra in middle school. Earlier exposure to and learning about negative numbers could increase students' motivation, understanding of connections between positive and negative numbers, and preparation for algebra.

Elementary school students' prolonged experiences with positive numbers and operations often lead to their overgeneralizations of rules (e.g., adding always makes larger numbers, subtracting always makes smaller numbers). These overgeneralizations can make learning algebra more difficult later, particularly when students must simultaneously learn algebra, negative numbers, and operations with negative numbers. The purpose of this project is to design and develop educational games centered on negative number concepts that target students before they learn algebra in middle school. Earlier exposure to and learning about negative numbers could increase students' motivation, understanding of connections between positive and negative numbers, and preparation for algebra.

Coding is a key part of computer science, and promoting opportunities that engage learners in coding is vital to the U.S. workforce development. This project builds upon prior research that created a free coding app, OctoStudio, which is widely available for use in elementary and secondary schools. The goals of the project are twofold: First, the team will develop and design features that broaden the technology so that it is more accessible for more users. Second, the team will explore the usability of these new features across potential users. The new features will have potential to allow blind and low vision users to meaningfully engage in coding, which ultimately benefits society by broadening the STEM workforce and bringing coding to a greater population of students.

Scientific sensemaking is core to learning and doing science. Oral and written language, visual and numerical representations, physical models, and other forms of communication are vital to scientific sensemaking, yet research has not yet fully explored how science curricula can be customized to account for the unique communicative repertoires of individual learners within elementary science classes. This project will address this important gap in practice by developing a suite of tools that elementary teachers can use to customize existing open-source, standards-aligned science curricula, such that these curricula are better able to support students with a range of communicative strengths, including multilingualism.

This project will investigate how to design an after-school mathematics space within a school setting that can challenge and expand both students' and teachers' conceptions of what doing mathematics means and teach them to see participation in the discipline in increasingly nuanced and expansive ways. The study focuses on designing an after-school program to support recreational mathematics activities for elementary students. At the same time, teachers who are supporting the after-school program with students will have the opportunity to learn to notice different forms of mathematical participation and learning.

As artificial intelligence (AI) becomes increasingly embedded in the technologies used by both students and teachers, it is essential for them to understand how to be safe while using AI. Furthermore, AI and cybersecurity technology together are better at detecting malicious activities than conventional security systems. The need to blend the two disciplines into a single, integrated curriculum for K-8 education is highlighted by the interconnectedness of AI and cybersecurity as complementary systems. This project will "plant the seeds" of these literacies by spiraling content on topics from computer programming, internet fundamentals, and introduction to data and AI along with cybersecurity topics in small doses throughout students' K-8 education. This project will lay the foundation for the students to eventually develop a comprehensive understanding of how different technologies work and interact.

Throughout the United States, elementary classrooms include students with a range of communicative practices and strengths, including strengths in speaking one or more languages, and strengths in generating and understanding different types of representations. Although an emerging body of research has begun to explore how individual teachers can productively leverage these communicative strengths toward enhanced science learning and further develop language through science, there is currently little research on how larger-scale district infrastructures can be designed to support science learning that leverages and supports language development. This project will address this critical gap by developing a process through which school districts can design comprehensive infrastructures that leverage a broad range of linguistic and communicative practices for enhanced science learning among elementary students.

Scientific sensemaking is core to learning and doing science. Oral and written language, visual and numerical representations, physical models, and other forms of communication are vital to scientific sensemaking, yet research has not yet fully explored how science curricula can be customized to account for the unique communicative repertoires of individual learners within elementary science classes. This project will address this important gap in practice by developing a suite of tools that elementary teachers can use to customize existing open-source, standards-aligned science curricula, such that these curricula are better able to support students with a range of communicative strengths, including multilingualism.

As STEM education researchers work to improve STEM teaching and learning in schools and districts across the nation, rural communities are often overlooked. There is a definite critical need for STEM education research focused on rural communities. Rural schools typically have less funding for STEM programs, have trouble recruiting and retaining quality STEM teachers, and have less access to STEM learning opportunities. Yet, rural communities possess an abundance of ingenuity, resourcefulness, and collective problem-solving skills. This project works to address this need by bringing together researchers, rural educators, and workforce leaders in rural communities to support the mutual exchange of knowledge and learning around pressing problems in rural K-12 STEM education, understanding rural ingenuity within teaching STEM, and STEM education's connection with the local workforce.

This project addresses a crucial need in K-12 science teacher education to respond to local school district needs for high-quality science teaching and the role of teacher education programs to develop programs that provide prospective teachers the best opportunity for success as science teachers. Specifically, the project aims to advance science teacher education by applying a pragmatic, iterative approach to developing teacher education program resources and tools that will support the implementation of evidence-based STEM teaching and learning practices in K-12 science classrooms. The project will identify evidence-based STEM teaching and learning practices through a systematic review of K-12 STEM education research and resources. Rather than generate new evidence, the project leverages the evidence that already exists to support educators in adapting and sustaining existing high-quality practices that have already demonstrated positive impacts on students' STEM learning.

This project addresses the critical need for improved mathematics education of elementary teachers and their students by preparing and supporting Elementary Mathematics Specialists (EMSs) who are highly effective mathematics teachers and teacher leaders. The program provides these EMSs with professional development grounded in research-informed practices and focuses on refinement of an existing program. The project aims to develop ambitious, responsive mathematics instruction and to provide high-quality coaching to teacher candidates and novice teachers.

As artificial intelligence (AI) becomes increasingly embedded in the technologies used by both students and teachers, it is essential for them to understand how to be safe while using AI. Furthermore, AI and cybersecurity technology together are better at detecting malicious activities than conventional security systems. The need to blend the two disciplines into a single, integrated curriculum for K-8 education is highlighted by the interconnectedness of AI and cybersecurity as complementary systems. This project will "plant the seeds" of these literacies by spiraling content on topics from computer programming, internet fundamentals, and introduction to data and AI along with cybersecurity topics in small doses throughout students' K-8 education. This project will lay the foundation for the students to eventually develop a comprehensive understanding of how different technologies work and interact.

Rapid changes in computing, especially with advances in artificial intelligence, are reshaping the future needs of society and the demands on the STEM workforce. More than ever, computer science (CS) education is critical for all children. Many schools are looking for ways to introduce CS skills and thinking in the elementary grades. Whereas some initiatives have focused on coding as its own endeavor, not integrated with subjects like mathematics, science, or literacy, developers and researchers are increasingly exploring ways that programming and computational thinking (CT) can be integrated into core content. This project will design and study resources that build teacher capacity to integrate CS/CT into mathematics by building on the investigators' prior work developing integrated Math+CS modules in grades 2-5.