Projects

This project is developing software and curriculum materials in which data generated by students playing computer games form the raw material for mathematics classroom activities. Students play a short video game, analyze the game data, conjecture improved strategies, and test their strategies in another round of the game.

The Data Games project has developed software and curriculum materials in which data generated by students playing computer games form the raw material for mathematics classroom activities. Students play a short video game, analyze the game data, develop improved strategies, and test their strategies in another round of the game.

CyberSTEM is developing and testing an integrated digital gaming network that spans homes, schools, and informal learning settings, offering a suite of digital games based on cutting-edge discoveries in the life sciences. The project asks if participation in CyberSTEM leads to increased learning in six areas: interest in science, conceptual knowledge, scientific reasoning, reflection on knowing, participating in science, and identifying as a scientist. The target audience includes youth in grades 6-9.

This project investigated the professional development needed to make teachers comfortable teaching with multi-user simulations and communications that students use every day. The enactment with OpenSim (an open source, modular, expandable platform used to create simulated 3D spaces with customizable terrain, weather and physics) also provides an opportunity to demonstrate the level of planning and preparation that go into fashioning modules with all selected cyber-enabled cognitive tools framed by constructivism, such as GoogleEarth and Biologica.

This project is developing new instructional materials for middle school earth science classes that incorporate emerging cyber-enabled technologies such as Google Earth as a transformative data analysis tool. The materials emphasize the use of claims, evidence, and reasoning in the exploration of volcanoes, earthquakes, and plate tectonics, leading students through a process of discovery to help them build a deeper understanding of the driving forces and resulting manifestations of plate tectonics.

This project is demonstrating the use of cyber-enabled technologies to build and share adaptable interventions for pre- and in-service teacher growth that effectively make use of major video collections and have high promise of success at multiple sites. The cyber infrastructure being significantly extended through this project is supporting development and documentation of additional interventions for teacher professional development using this video collection, as well as other videos that might be added in the future.

This project is developing a series of print and web resource guides in science and mathematics based on curriculum topic study (CTS), an approach developed and tested successfully. CTS is used to provide a systematic way of intellectually engaging K-12 mathematics and science teachers with national standards and cognitive research. It is used to engage teachers in thought and discussion about both content and appropriate ways of teaching that content.

Through integration of research and education, this project is providing high resolution data on the spatial distribution of the thermal state of permafrost in Alaska, improving the general knowledge of Earth's climatic patterns, bringing science to remote Alaskan villages, and providing an opportunity for younger generations to take part in understanding Earth's climatic and hydrologic systems.

This project focuses on the challenge of using assessment of relevant STEM content to improve K-12 teaching and learning. CLEAR takes advantage of new technologies and research findings to investigate ways that science assessments can both capture and contribute to cumulative, integrated learning of standards-based concepts in middle school courses. The project will research new forms of assessment that document students' accumulation of knowledge and also serve as learning events.

This project will provide a field-based science and mathematics teacher education program that supports teaching focused on students’ affective development through culturally responsive practices. The project's teacher education program takes place over a two-year period and models how culturally responsive and affective instruction can occur in the STEM classroom to engage students.

This Culturally Responsive Indigenous Science project seeks to advance this knowledge base through research and by catalyzing new approaches to Indigenous science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (ISTEM) learning. Using an ISTEM focused model, the project will develop, test, and implement a culturally responsive land-based curriculum that integrates Western science, multimodal technologies and digital tools, and Native American tribal knowledge, cultures and languages to investigate and address local environmental science and sustainability concerns.

This project connects interdisciplinary researchers and experts from four tribal nation partners to develop and implement an in-service teacher professional certificate program that integrates Indigenous Knowledge into STEM teaching. This multi-sited teacher professional development model will enroll K-12 teachers in four different Native-serving regions of the rural West into a 12-month certificate program that combines Indigenous science, Coupled Human and Natural Systems, and Land education concepts into an experiential learning cycle with local and broad study of learning with the Land. The project will add knowledge about the transferability of local epistemologies and practices and national science standards within four specific Indigenous contexts and expand space for tribal-lead professional development to transform teacher classroom practice.

This project will develop and test a web-based platform to increase the quality of teacher-administered tests in science classrooms. It draws on classroom teacher knowledge while employing the rigorous statistical methods used in standardized assessment creation and validation. The content focus is on the disciplinary core ideas for grades 6-8 physical science in the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS).

This conference will continue the workshop series Critical Issues in Mathematics Education (CIME). The topic for CIME 2018 will be "Access to mathematics by opening doors for students currently excluded from mathematics". The CIME workshops engage professional mathematicians, education researchers, teachers, and policy makers in discussions of issues critical to the improvement of mathematics education from the elementary grades through undergraduate years.

This conference will continue the workshop series Critical Issues in Mathematics Education (CIME). The CIME workshops engage professional mathematicians, education researchers, teachers, and policy makers in discussions of issues critical to the improvement of mathematics education from the elementary grades through undergraduate years. The workshop will deal with the problem of providing quality math education to all, and the barriers to doing so.

This project will study a successful, ambitious mathematics reform effort in high-needs secondary schools. The goal is to develop resources and tools to support other high-needs schools and districts in transforming and sustaining  their mathematics programs. The model focuses on the resources required for change and the aspects of the organization that support or constrain change in mathematics teaching and learning.

This five-year project investigates how to provide continuous assessment and feedback to guide students' understanding during science inquiry-learning experiences, as well as detailed guidance to teachers and administrators through a technology-enhanced system. The assessment system integrates validated automated scorings for students' written responses to open-ended assessment items into the "Web-based Inquiry Science Environment" (WISE) program.

This project is working to develop, implement, and research the introduction of data experiences and practices into a series of interdisciplinary, middle school project-based learning modules. The project examines how interdisciplinary data education can provide opportunities for students to take more control of their own learning and develop positive identities related to data, through integration with social studies and science topics. Curriculum modules and teaching resources produced by the project serve as guides for subsequent efforts at integrating data science concepts into teaching and learning in various subject areas.

This project tests whether mentoring middle school science and math teachers by University Ph.D. STEM faculty has a positive effect on the teachers' understanding of science, their teaching ability and the learning outcomes of their students. The goal of this research study is to strengthen the theoretical underpinning of best practices in middle grades math and science teaching and to enhance the knowledge base for teacher recruitment, preparation, induction and retention.

This project is developing Earth and Space Science multimedia educative curriculum materials (MECMs) and a system to facilitate teachers' learning and beliefs of scientific argumentation. The project is investigating the impact of the MECMs on teachers' beliefs about scientific argumentation and their related pedagogical content knowledge. The overarching research question focuses on how can multimedia educative curriculum materials provide support to middle school science teachers in implementing standards for constructing and critiquing arguments.

This project is developing multi-media professional development resources that will enhance PreK-8 teachers' understanding of how to employ instructional strategies from the field of literacy in developing students' scientific understanding. Four modules are resources on specific uses of science literacy; four are case studies offering examples of best practices, including video components. The 9th module provides an introduction to the theoretical underpinnings and research studies that support linking science and literacy.

This project will engage students and teachers in rich, real-world math tasks; will support future teachers and mathematics educators in adapting, designing, and implementing similar tasks; and will provide a basis for further research on the most effective ways to design and implement real-world tasks in the mathematics classroom.

This project will engage students and teachers in rich, real-world math tasks; will support future teachers and mathematics educators in adapting, designing, and implementing similar tasks; and will provide a basis for further research on the most effective ways to design and implement real-world tasks in the mathematics classroom.

The primary goal of the project is to enhance secondary mathematics teacher education for pre-service teachers by developing, implementing and disseminating resources from a four-course curriculum that brings together the study of mathematics content and pedagogy. Three of the courses are problem-based technology enhanced (PBTE) courses in Algebra and Calculus, Geometry, and Probability and Statistics. A fourth course is a capstone course in Teaching and Learning Secondary School Mathematics.