Projects

This project is developing and implementing a rigorous eighth grade physical science program that utilizes engineering design, LEGO™ robotics and mechanics, and a problem-based learning approach to teach mechanics, waves, and energy.

This project investigates the educational value of computer technologies for learning engineering. The project engages high school students to design, build, and evaluate an energy-efficient model house with the aid of computer simulation and design tools. 

This project is a four-year, longitudinal, mixed-methods study of 12 school districts’ implementation of elementary mathematics instructional materials. It investigates the relationships among the district level of coherence of implementation, the school level of support for implementation, the school level of use of materials, and the effects on student outcomes.

The Conference Board for the Mathematical Sciences (CBMS) is organizing and hosting a National Forum on the Content and Assessment of School Mathematics. The conference is intended to provide an opportunity for policy makers and the broad mathematics education community to provide input into the standards development process. CBMS will produce a white paper on the key issues.

This project provides visionary leadership to the education community by (a) identifying and analyzing the needs and opportunities for future STEM curriculum development and (b) recommending policy positions and actions by funding agencies and STEM educators regarding the development and implementation of STEM school curricula.

Math Pathways & Pitfalls lessons for students boost mathematics achievement for diverse students, including English Learners, English Proficient students, and Latino students. This project develops modules that increase teachers’ capacity to employ the effective and equitable principles of practice embodied by Math Pathways & Pitfalls and apply these practices to any mathematics lesson. This four-year project develops, field tests, and evaluates 10 online professional development modules.

This project addresses biology teachers and students at the high school level, responding to the exponential increases occurring in biology knowledge today and the need for students to understand the experimental basis behind biology concepts. The project studies the feasibility of engaging students in an environment where they can learn firsthand how science knowledge develops in the fields of bioinformatics and DNA science by performing collaborative, simulated experiments to solve open-ended problems.

This project is developing and testing a prototype electronic teacher's guide for a 12-week genetics unit in the NSF-funded curriculum titled Foundation Science: Biology to determine how it impacts high school teachers' learning and practice. The electronic guide, which is based on an existing print guide, has a flexible design so that it anticipates and meets the curriculum planning and support needs of teachers with different knowledge/skills profiles.

This project is revising and field testing six existing modules and developing, pilot testing, and field testing two engineering modules for required middle school science and mathematics classes: Catch Me if You Can! with a focus on seventh grade life science; and Creating Bioplastics targeting eighth grade physical science. Each module addresses an engineering design challenge of relevance to industries in the region and fosters the development of engineering habits of mind.

This project is developing a two-year, intensive professional development model to build middle-grades mathematics teachers’ knowledge and implementation of formative assessment. Using a combination of institutes, classroom practice, and ongoing support through professional learning communities and web-based resources, this model helps teachers internalize and integrate a comprehensive understanding of formative assessment into daily practice.

This project will conduct a 1.5 day regional technical assistance and information conference/workshop for Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs) to broaden their participation in the Division of Research on Learning in Formal and informal Settings (DRL) programs. The workshop will consist of faculty institutional teams and will develop their research or program ideas and to become more skillful in the preparation and development of competitive proposals.

The goals of STEM instruction are to educate a populace that is scientifically and mathematically literate and who can solve real-world problems by applying science and mathematics. This exploratory project is designed to study the effectiveness of professional development focused on the integration of mathematics and science instruction, mediated by technology tools, to improve middle school teachers' ability to teach scientific inquiry and mathematical problem solving.

The High Adventure Science project is bringing some of the big unanswered questions in Earth and space science to middle and high school science classrooms. Students will explore the mechanisms of climate change, consider the possibility of life on other planets, and devise solutions to the impending shortage of fresh water. Each curriculum module features interviews with scientists currently working on the same unanswered question.

This project is designed to enhance and study the development of elementary science teachers’ skills in managing productive classroom talk in inquiry-based physical science studies of matter. The project hypothesizes that aligning professional learning with conceptually-driven curricula and emphasizing the development of scientific discourse changes classroom culture and increases student learning. The project is developing new Web-based resources, Talk Science PD, to help elementary teachers facilitate scientific discourse.

This exploratory research and development project addresses the question, "Can students develop an understanding of the ecological nature of science (ENOS) in high school biology and environmental science classes that is useful and productive in environmental citizenship?" To address this question, the project will identify the essential elements of ENOS, investigate how these can be taught and learned, and explore how ENOS skills and understandings are used to enhance environmental citizenship.

This exploratory research and development project addresses the question, "Can students develop an understanding of the ecological nature of science (ENOS) in high school biology and environmental science classes that is useful and productive in environmental citizenship?" To address this question, the project will identify the essential elements of ENOS, investigate how these can be taught and learned, and explore how ENOS skills and understandings are used to enhance environmental citizenship.

This project operationalizes research in number, operation, and early algebra. It builds on the paradigm of Dynamic Geometry (the interactive and continuous manipulation of geometric shapes and constructions) with a new technological paradigm, Dynamic Number, centered on the direct manipulation of numerical representations and constructions. Using The Geometer’s Sketchpad as a starting point, KCP Technologies is developing new software tools to deepen students’ conceptions of number and early algebra in grades 2–8.

This project targets first- and second-grade children who struggle to develop a deeper understanding of the mathematical strand of number and operation. The research team will (a) identify the various specific cognitive obstacles of first- and second-grade students who are struggling in number and operation, and (b) explore how instructional tasks designed to address specific cognitive obstacles affect the learning trajectory of struggling learners in number and operation.

This project is developing a system for producing automated professional mentoring while students play computer games based on STEM professions. The project explores a specific hypothesis about STEM mentoring: A sociocultural model as the basis of an automated tutoring system can provide a computational model of participation in a community of practice, which produces effective professional feedback from nonplayercharacters in a STEM learning game.

This is a full research and development project addressing challenge question: How can promising innovations be successfully implemented, sustained, and scaled in schools and districts? The promising innovation is the Science Teachers Learning from Lesson Analysis (STeLLA) professional development (PD) program, which supports 4th- and 5th-grade teachers in teaching concepts in biology (food webs), physical science (phase changes), and earth science (earth’s changing surface, weather).

This project contributes to the emerging knowledge base for reform-minded middle school STEM instructional materials development through the development, field-testing, and evaluation of a prototype instructional materials module specifically designed to stimulate and sustain urban-based students’ interest in STEM. The module includes guided inquiry-oriented activities thematically linked by the standards-aligned concept of energy transfer, which highlight the fundamental processes and integrative nature of 21st century scientific investigation.

This project is refining and testing two case study units on contemporary issues in ecology for urban middle and high school students underserved in their connection to nature. The case studies are based on two Science Bulletins, digital media stories about current science produced by the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH), which use current scientific data to link ecological principles to real-world environmental issues, and to link issues to human daily life.

To meet College and Career-Ready standards in mathematics, classroom instruction must change dramatically.  As in past reform efforts, many look to professional development as a major force to propel this transformation, yet not enough is known about mathematics professional development programs that operate at scale in the United States. In this project, we evaluated one such program.

This project is developing, validating, and evaluating computer modeling-based formative assessments to improve student learning in chemistry. Activities include developing a series of computer models related to key topics in high school chemistry, developing questions to probe student understanding of matter and energy, identifying teaching and learning resources appropriate for different levels of student conceptual understanding, and developing professional development resources on integrating formative assessments into high school chemistry courses.

This project aims to advance the preparation of preservice teachers in middle school mathematics, specifically on the topic of proportionality, a centrally important and difficult topic in middle school mathematics that is essential to students’ later success in algebra. To address the need for a workforce of high-quality teachers to teach this mathematics, the project is developing a digital text that could be widely used to communicate the unique transitional nature of middle school mathematics.