Projects

This project builds on the study of the Ongoing Assessment Project's (OGAP) math assessment intervention on elementary teachers and students and combines the intervention with research-based understandings of systemic reform. This project will produce concrete tools, routines, and practices that can be applied to strengthen programs' implementation by ensuring the strategic support of school and district leaders.

The project will develop and refine an electronic Test of Early Numeracy (e-TEN) in English and Spanish that will assess informal and formal knowledge of number and operations in domains including verbal counting, numbering, numerical relationships, and mental addition/subtraction. The overarching goal of the assessment design is to create a measure that is more accurate, more accessible to a wider range of children, and easier to administer than existing measures.

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.

This project will develop and test two curriculum units on the topic of evolution for high school general biology courses, with one unit focusing primarily on human case studies to teach evolution and one unit focusing primarily on case studies of evolution in other species. The two units will be compared to examine how different approaches to teaching evolution affect students and teachers.

This project will address the need for high quality evidence-based models, practices, and tools for high school teachers and the development of students' problem solving and analytical skills by leveraging novel research and design approaches using digital tools and two well-established online instructional platforms: Zoom In and Common Online Data Analysis Platform.            

The project will design an assessment based on learning progressions for the concept of function - a critical concept for algebra learning and understanding. The goal of the assessment and learning progression design is to specifically incorporate findings about the learning of students traditionally under-served and under-performing in algebra courses.

This project will develop a comprehensive framework to inform and guide the analytic design of teacher professional development studies in mathematics. An essential goal of the research is to advance a science of teaching and learning in ways that traverse both research and education.

This project will develop and test a digital platform for middle school mathematics classrooms to help students deepen and communicate their understanding of mathematics. The digital platform will allow students to collaboratively create representations of their mathematics thinking, incorporate ideas from other students, and share their work with the class.

This project will test new instructional approaches designed to help K-1 students comprehend place value. The project will emphasize the underlying relational structure of place value symbols, and target this structure with instructional materials and techniques drawn from the structure mapping literature. Its theory of action is that instruction which scaffolds structure mapping for place value will better prepare children to face the challenges of advanced operations, such as multi-digit calculation.

The fundamental purpose of this project is to support teacher practice and professional learning around oral scientific argumentation in order to improve the quality of this practice in classrooms. The key outcome of this work will be a research-informed and field-tested prototype to improve the quality of teaching and learning argumentation in middle school science classrooms usable in different learning environments.

This project will test new instructional approaches designed to help K-1 students comprehend place value. The project will emphasize the underlying relational structure of place value symbols, and target this structure with instructional materials and techniques drawn from the structure mapping literature. Its theory of action is that instruction which scaffolds structure mapping for place value will better prepare children to face the challenges of advanced operations, such as multi-digit calculation.

This project will develop and test a digital platform for middle school mathematics classrooms to help students deepen and communicate their understanding of mathematics. The digital platform will allow students to collaboratively create representations of their mathematics thinking, incorporate ideas from other students, and share their work with the class.

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.

The fundamental purpose of this project is to support teacher practice and professional learning around oral scientific argumentation in order to improve the quality of this practice in classrooms. The key outcome of this work will be a research-informed and field-tested prototype to improve the quality of teaching and learning argumentation in middle school science classrooms usable in different learning environments.

This project builds on a prior study that demonstrated increases in students' knowledge of argumentation and their performance on mathematics assessments. The project will extend the use of the argumentation intervention into all eighth grade content areas, with a specific focus on students' learning of reasoning and proof, and contribute to understanding how students' learning about mathematical practices that can help them learn mathematics better.

This project will develop and research the transformational potential of geodynamic models embedded in learning progression-informed online curricula modules for middle school teaching and learning of Earth science. The primary goal of the project is to conduct design-based research to study the development of model-based curriculum modules, assessment instruments, and professional development materials for supporting student learning of (1) plate tectonics and related Earth processes, (2) modeling practices, and (3) uncertainty-infused argumentation practices.

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.

This project will investigate the potential benefits of interactive, dynamic visualization technologies in supporting science learning for middle school students, including ELLs. This project will identify design principles for developing such technology, develop additional ways to support student learning, and provide guidelines for professional development that can assist teachers in better serving linguistically diverse students. The project has the potential to transform traditional science instruction for all students, and to broaden their participation in science.

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 will design and develop specialized instructional materials and guidelines for teaching secondary algebra in linguistically diverse classrooms. These materials will incorporate current research on student learning in mathematics and research on the role of language in students' mathematical thinking and learning. The work will connect research on mathematics learning generally with research on the mathematics learning of ELLs, and will contribute practical resources and guidance for mathematics teachers who teach ELLs.

This project will design, develop, and test a new professional development (PD) model for high school biology teachers that focuses on plant biology, an area of biology that teachers feel less prepared to teach. The new PD model will bring teachers and scientists together, in-person and online, to guide students in conducting authentic science investigations and to reflect on instructional practices and student learning.

This project will develop and test a digital monitoring tool that will enable teachers to track student learning within a digital learning system and quickly adjust classroom instructional strategies to facilitate learning. The tool will be developed for use with an existing digital curriculum for high school genetics.

The project will use a quasi-experimental design to explore students' knowledge of core algebraic concepts in middle grades (grade 6), one year after their completion of 3-year, grades 3-5 early algebra intervention. The research questions are: (1) how well students who received a specific intervention retain their understanding of algebraic concepts in future years; and (2) whether and how the intervening year of regular classroom instruction in grade 6 influences the algebra understanding of both intervention and comparison students.

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 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.