Projects

This project is documenting how middle and secondary school science teachers first develop a perspective on science learning, translate that perspective into their own teaching practice and finally make explicit links to their colleagues. The research is investigating the impact of professional development based on model-based reasoning, supported by Lesson Study and an apprentice-like program in teacher leadership.

This project investigates stereotype threat at the classroom level and in the context of inquiry-based instruction, in order to develop strategies and a related professional development course, using the principles of Universal Design for Learning, to help teachers learn how to mitigate stereotype threat.

This project uses sea urchin embryos to provide a curriculum module for inquiry-based biology. The curriculum is provided via a new open access website. It addresses several of the National Science Content Standards and provides a range of activities suitable for all levels of high school biology. It will provide instructional support materials such as video demonstrations, animations, time lapse videos and image galleries relevant to each exercise, as well as professional development materials.

This project develops, implements, and evaluates new multimedia laboratory activities designed to engage students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). The project specifically targets artistically gifted students who are often steered towards more traditionally creative areas (e.g., arts and humanities) and away from STEM. The goals to help students understand that scientific principles permeate the creative and performing arts and that creativity and expression are also embraced by STEM.

This project will create technology-enhanced classroom activities and resources that increase student learning of science practices in high school biology, chemistry, and physics. InquirySpace will incorporate several innovative technological and pedagogical features that will enable students to undertake scientific experimentation that closely mirrors current science research and learn what it means to be a scientist.

This project will research the knowledge and supervision skills principals' and other instructional leaders' need to support teachers in successfully integrating scientific practices into their instruction, and develop innovative resources to support these leaders with a particular focus on high-minority, urban schools. The project will contribute to the emerging but limited literature on instructional leadership in science at the K-8 school level. 

This project explores the potential of "Agent-Based Models" to assist learners to acquire environmental science concepts targeted in forthcoming Advanced Placement test standards. The investigators frame the research in a simulated scenario where "green" infrastructure is integrated into urban environments, and they propose how to use a new user interface strategy ("Paper-to-Parameters") that promises unique approaches for understanding the spatial and scalar relationships between simulation elements.

This project will design, develop, and test a new curriculum unit for high school chemistry courses that is organized around the question, "How does chemistry shape where I live?" The new unit will integrate relevant Earth science data, scientific practices, and key urban environmental research findings with the chemistry curriculum to gain insights into factors that support the approach to teaching and learning advocated by current science curriculum standards.

This project builds and tests applications tied to the school curriculum that integrate the sciences with mathematics, computational thinking, reading and writing in elementary schools. The investigative core of the project is to determine how to best integrate computing across the curriculum in such a way as to support STEM learning and lead more urban children to STEM career paths.

This project is developing and testing curriculum materials and a professional development model designed to explore the potential for introducing engineering concepts in grades 3 - 5 through design challenges based on stories in popular children's literature. The research team hypothesizes that professional development for elementary teachers using an interdisciplinary method for combining literature with engineering design challenges will increase the implementation of engineering in 3-5 classrooms and have positive impacts on students.

This project expands and augments a currently-funded NSF Noyce Track II teacher recruitment and retention grant with Quality Talk (QT), an innovative, scalable teacher-facilitated discourse model. Over the course of four years, the work will address critical needs in physics and chemistry education in 10th through 12th grade classrooms by strengthening the capacity of participating teachers to design and implement lessons that support effective dialogic interactions.

This study will investigate the integration of science with mathematics and engineering and develop resources that provide preschool children with integrated STEM learning experiences. The study will also investigate the connection between home and school learning and will develop resources that strengthen children's experiences at school and home.

This project is developing curricular materials that utilize best teaching practices in improving student understanding of statistics and data science for use in high school Algebra I, Algebra II, and Geometry courses.  Although teachers are encouraged to integrate statistics and data science in these kinds of high school courses, teachers do not have sufficient access to resources to accomplish this effectively. The distinctive feature of these curricular materials is the use of simulation-based inference methods, data visualization, and the entire statistical investigation process to improve students’ understanding of the relevance and power of statistics because these approaches are central to statistical thinking and practice.

This project will investigate the integration of engineering design, practices, and thinking into middle school life science curriculum while providing opportunities for students to foster knowledge of and increase interest in life and biosciences. The project will specifically respond to the need to create, implement, and evaluate a model intervention that will advance the knowledge base for establishing and retaining underrepresented minorities in STEM fields.

The project aims to develop and research Intelligent Science Stations, a new genre of interactive science experiences. The Intelligent Science Stations will provide students in kindergarten to 4th grade with hands-on science experiences, augmented by an intelligent agent that offers feedback based on artificial intelligence computer vision. This innovative approach offers evidence-based, personalized support and feedback to children, while also assisting teachers in integrating more inquiry-based science learning into their classrooms. By modeling behaviors like asking questions, making predictions, and explaining scientific phenomena, the interactive AI system helps teachers enhance their classroom experiences.

Students who fail algebra in the ninth grade are significantly less likely than their peers to graduate from high school on time. This project intends to test a common support strategy for at-risk students that provides an extra period of algebra, commonly known as a "double dose" condition. The Intensified Algebra (IA) is an intervention that addresses both the academic and non-academic needs of students.

This project aims to increase the education and outreach activities of scientific experiments at U.S. universities and laboratories by providing infrastructure support and a program framework for a portfolio of coherent, collaborative online science education laboratories. The project maintains an online portfolio of educational laboratories suitable for a diverse range of disciplines and provides tools and support services to assist developers in creating these educational resources.

This exploratory project seeks to understand the role that a network of tablet computers may play in elementary and middle school math and science classrooms. The study will use classroom observations, student interviews, teacher interviews and student artifacts to identify the advantages and disadvantages of these resources, understand what challenges and benefits they offer to teachers, and offer recommendations for future hardware, software, and curriculum development.

This exploratory project seeks to understand the role that a network of tablet computers may play in elementary and middle school math and science classrooms. The project uses classroom observations, student interviews, teacher interviews, and student artifacts to identify the advantages and disadvantages of these resources, to understand what challenges and benefits they offer to teachers, and to offer recommendations for future hardware, software, and curriculum development.

This project examines the first-year implementation of a program that will provide low-cost netbook computers and specialized software to fifth and sixth grade students in four schools in Southern California. The PIs collect baseline and early implementation data to determine effects of the intervention on students' academic achievement in science, academic writing in science, and interest in further STEM study.

This project is developing, testing, refining, and evaluate an intelligent, interactive, multimedia system. This intelligent tutoring system will provide high school biology students a virtual, hands-on, multimedia learning environment. It is designed to: 1) develop an innovative curricular approach for scientific literacy that is driven by national standards; 2) develop an intelligent tutoring system; 3) create an exportable Project Development Model; and 4) disseminate achievement of the above goals to science and educational communities.

This project designs, constructs, and field-tests a web-based, online collaborative environment for supporting the teaching and learning of inquiry-based high school physics. Based on an interactive digital workbook environment, the team is customizing the platform to include scaffolds and other supports for learning physics, fostering interaction and collaboration within the classroom, and facilitating a design-based approach to scientific experiments.

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.

This award will support teacher practitioners from the U.S. to attend the 2020 International Mind, Brain, and Education Society (IMBES) conference. The IMBES conference is an opportunity for scholars and educators to come together to engage in reciprocal dialogue about research and practice in biology, education, and the cognitive and developmental sciences.

This curriculum development and professional development program includes residential summer institutes with academic-year online communication for in-service teachers involved in professional development of their colleagues. During each summer institute, teachers will be introduced to sets of STEM Polar Connections Modules that will emphasize the process of scientific inquiry and will explore a variety of proven techniques for effective teaching, including inquiry-based teaching, cooperative learning, and methods for formative assessment of student learning.