Projects

This project is investigating the learning that can take place when elementary school students are directly involved in the collection, sense-making, and analysis of real, personally-meaningful data sets. The hypotheses of this work are that by organizing elementary statistics instruction around the study of physical activities, students will have greater personal engagement in data analysis processes and that students will also develop more robust understandings of statistical ideas.

This project is researching and developing a new version of the Scratch programming language to be called ScratchJr, designed specifically for early childhood education (K-2). This work will provide research-based evidence regarding young children's abilities to use an object-oriented programming language and to study the impact this has on the children's learning of scientific concepts and procedures. 

This project is studying how young children in grades K-2 understand mathematical concepts that are foundational for developing algebraic thinking. Researchers are contributing to an ongoing effort to develop a learning trajectory that describes how algebraic concepts are developed. The project uses teaching experiments, with researchers talking directly to students as they explore algebraic ideas. They explore how students think about and develop concepts related to covariation, representations of functions, relationships among variable, and generalization.

This project will build and validate learning trajectories (LTs) in mathematics for fraction, ratio, and for decimal and percent to represent learning by grades 3-7 students. A system will be developed to automate data collection for field testing assessment items to determine students' attainment of proficiency levels. Three LTs will be produced and validated along with over 125 assessment items for each of these three trajectories. These assessment items will be useful for diagnosing student learning.

This project is researching and developing a new version of the Scratch programming language to be called ScratchJr, designed specifically for early childhood education (K-2). This work will provide research-based evidence regarding young children's abilities to use an object-oriented programming language and to study the impact this has on the children's learning of scientific concepts and procedures.

This project is developing a model for integrating best practices in technology-supported instructional design and formative assessment for genetics instruction in upper elementary, middle and high school. Using the Web-based Inquiry Science Environment platform, the project is developing school curriculum that scaffold and model scientific practices, enable students to interface with real-world problems, provide opportunities for students to make connections between visible phenomena and underlying genetic processes, and promote student monitoring and reflection on learning.

This effectiveness study focuses on the scale-up of a model of curricular and teacher professional development intervention aimed at improving science achievement of all students, especially English language learners (ELLs). The model consists of three basic components: (a) inquiry-oriented science curriculum, (b) teacher professional development for science instruction with these students, and (c) school resources for science instruction.

This project is conducting a longitudinal study of the effects of a pre-service elementary science education.  Through overlapping studies on the pre-service teachers (PSTs) and in-service teachers who are graduates of the program, this project is seeking to analyze the impact of three essential dimensions of teacher preparation: inquiry-based science content courses, science methods/practicum courses, and k-12 mentor teachers.

This project designs materials and an accompanying support system to enable the development of expertise in the teaching of mathematics at the elementary level. The project has four main components: online professional development modules; practice-based assessments; resources for facilitators; and web-based technologies to deliver module content to diverse settings. Three modules are being developed and focus on fractions, reasoning and explanation, and geometry. Each module is organized into ten 1.5 hour sessions.

This project will modify the teacher preparation program for preK-8 teachers. The program is designed to help pre-service teachers learn mathematics well, learn to access students' cultural funds of knowledge, and learn to encourage students' mathematical thinking. The developers are designing (a) modules that can be used in teacher preparation courses, (b) a mentoring program for new teachers, and (c) on-line networks to facilitate collaboration among participating teachers and institutions.

This project is focused on creating, testing, refining, and studying a computer-based, individualized, interactive learning system for intermediate/middle school students or by teachers in classrooms. This learning system is called Individualized Dynamic Geometry Instruction and will contain four instructional modules in geometry and measurement that reflect the recommendations of the Common Core State Standards.

This is an exploratory study to identify critical aspects of effective science formative assessment (FA) practices for English Language Learners (ELLs), and the contextual factors influencing such practices. FA, in the context of the study, is viewed as a process contributing to the science learning of ELLs, as opposed to the administration of discrete sets of instruments to collect data from students. The study targets Spanish-speaking, elementary and middle school students.

This is an exploratory study to identify critical aspects of effective science formative assessment (FA) practices for English Language Learners (ELLs), and the contextual factors influencing such practices. FA, in the context of the study, is viewed as a process contributing to the science learning of ELLs, as opposed to the administration of discrete sets of instruments to collect data from students. The study targets Spanish-speaking, elementary and middle school students.

This project is developing and testing a curricular learning progression of early algebra objectives and activities for students in grades 3 - 5. The goal of the work is to provide teachers with curricular guidance and instructional resources that are useful in preparing students for success in study of algebra at the middle grade level. The project is also developing and validating assessment tools for evaluating student progress toward essential pre-algebra mathematical understandings.

This is an exploratory study to identify critical aspects of effective science formative assessment (FA) practices for English Language Learners (ELLs), and the contextual factors influencing such practices. FA, in the context of the study, is viewed as a process contributing to the science learning of ELLs, as opposed to the administration of discrete sets of instruments to collect data from students. The study targets Spanish-speaking, elementary and middle school students.

The project is studying the impact of the mathematics and science intensive pre-service preparation program for elementary school teachers.  The project includes assessments of pre-service teachers' math and science content, teacher performance, self-report surveys, and teacher interviews. Each of the study dimensions (Knowledge Dimension, Teaching Performance, and Perspectives on the Program) will be assessed at three time points across this longitudinal study, providing a model for elementary teacher development of STEM teaching.

This research study is examining the persistence of improved teacher skills achieved during the K-2 Science & Technology Assistance for Rural Teachers and Small Districts project (K-2 STARTS). K-2 STARTS provided four years of professional development to teachers in 16 rural school districts with high populations of traditionally underserved students. Project data indicates that the project increased teacher content knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, abilities to integrate science and literacy and to use research-based instructional strategies.

This project supports the participation of 50 U.S. elementary, middle, and high school mathematics teachers or supervisors, graduate students, community college/university mathematics teachers, mathematicians and teacher educators or researchers to attend the Twelfth International Congress for Mathematical Education (ICME-12) to be held in Seoul Korea from June 8 to July 15, 2012.

In this project, investigators will convene a group of 15 African American science educators, scientists, and doctoral student scholars and assign them to small work groups to design and conduct multi-site micro-research studies on learning activities that promote science learning and teaching. Work groups will investigate different learning and teaching approaches used in K-12 rural and urban school settings to identify effects on student science learning using quantitative, qualitative, or mixed design studies.

The new ViSTA Plus study explores implementation of a program for pre-service/beginning teachers that is fully centered on learning from an analysis-of-practice perspective, addressing the central research question of "What is the value of a videocase-based, analysis-of-practice approach to elementary science teacher preparation?" The project is producing science-specific, analysis-of-practice materials to support the professional development of teacher educators and professional development leaders using the ViSTA Plus program at universities and in district-based induction programs.

This project is studying measurement practices from pre-K to Grade 8, as a coordination of the STEM disciplines of mathematics and science. This research project tests, revises and extends learning trajectories for children's knowledge of geometric measurement across a ten-year span of human development. The goal will be to validate all components of each learning trajectory, goal, developmental progression, and instruction tasks, as well as revising each LT to reflect the outcomes of the experiments.

This project is studying three models of professional development (PD) to test the efficacy of a practicum for grade 3-5 in-service teachers organized in three cohorts of 25. There will be 75 teachers and their students directly impacted by the project. Additional impacts of the project are research results and professional development materials, including a PD implementation guide and instructional videos.

This project investigates 3rd-grade students' model-based reasoning about hydrologic systems and how teachers scaffold students' engagement in modeling practices. The research builds upon existing modeling frameworks to guide the development and integration of a long-term conceptual modeling task into the Full Option Science System (FOSS) Water module. The data collected from this project can help inform science curriculum materials development and elementary teacher preparation efforts designed to foster reform-oriented, model-centered elementary science learning environments.

This project will develop a new assessment for children ages 3-7 to provide teachers with diagnostic information on a child's development of mathematics facility on ten domains such as counting, sequencing, adding/subtracting, and measurement. The Comprehensive Research-based Mathematics Ability (CREMAT) is being developed using innovative psychometric models to reveal information about children on specific attributes for each of the 10 domains.

This project is developing evidence about the efficacy of the Engineering is Elementary curriculum under ideal conditions by studying the student and teacher-level effects of implementation. The project seeks to determine the core elements of the curriculum that support successful use. The findings from this study have broad implications for how engineering design curricular can be developed and implemented at the elementary level.