Projects

This project aims to (1) determine ways in which Evidence-Centered Design enhances the quality of large-scale, technology-based science assessments for middle school grades and high school equivalency; (2) implement resulting procedures in operational test development; (3) evaluate the efficiency, effectiveness and generalizability of these procedures, and (4) disseminate findings to the assessment community.

In response to the critical need for scholars with deep content knowledge in chemistry and the specialized training to conduct CER, this capacity building project prepares scholars whose research marries expertise in instrument design with extensive literature on chemistry misconceptions, resulting in the development of concept inventories as reliable and valid measures of student learning for use by chemistry teachers (both high school and post-secondary) and chemistry education researchers.

This project is creating five video-case modules for use in professional development of middle school mathematics teachers. The materials are designed to develop teachers' understanding of mathematics knowledge for teaching similarity. In total, 18-24 video cases will be produced, which, taken together, form the curriculum of a 45- to 60-hour professional development course.

This project employs sensing technologies to help transform students' physical actions during play into a set of symbolic (computer) representations in a physics simulation and to engage the children in a developmentally appropriate and powerful form of scientific modeling. The students are in grades K–1 at UCLA's elementary school, and the intervention is based on the existing content unit on Force and Motion.

This conference, convened in May 2008, produced a conceptual framework, a research agenda, and an instructional unit for elementary mathematics methods classes. A total of 35 participants were invited to attend, and participating faculty members were asked to bring a graduate student. The conference was scheduled for 2.5 days supplemented with significant pre-conference and post-conference activities.

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.

This project examines the nature of adaptive expertise in mathematics education, exploring relationships between this concept from cognitive psychology and effective middle school mathematics instruction. One goal of the project is to operationalize adaptive expertise in mathematics classroom using three dimensions: cognitive models of professional competence, instructional practices, and professional learning. Then, researchers seek to determine whether teachers who are more effective at raising student achievement are more or less adaptive.

This project creates eight half-year units in two subject areas—Force and Motion, and Energy Systems— for three grade bands, pre-K–1, 2-3 and 4–6. These projects integrate engineering, science, math literacy and art in the context of design, construction and testing of toys using inexpensive or recycled materials.

This project aims to (1) investigate whether or not it is possible to successfully scale-up and adapt the Capacity Building Systems Model used in the Gadsden Mathematics Initiative and improve mathematics achievement for all students in a larger school district, and (2) replicate success in broadening the participation of underrepresented groups in entering STEM field by closing the achievement gap and raising the achievement level of underrepresented students in mathematics.

This project forms communities of practice among K-6 teachers using Web-based resources that allow audio and video connections in real time (http://justaskateacher.com) and conducts research that examines the impact of these communities of practice on school programs, teaching practices, and student achievement. We invite K-6 teachers and teacher educators to join us at http://justaskateacher.com.

This project uses media such as Science Bulletin Snapshots to engage students with current research and to foster scientific understanding and civic engagement. Through environmental case studies, students learn to develop hypotheses, analyze scientific data, and make conclusions. To address the objectives, the project will create inquiry-based case studies to situate several central ecological principles, as determined by national and state standards, into the context of environmental issues.

This study is aimed at exploring the components and impact of a teacher professional development model on teacher performance and student achievement and motivation in STEM disciplines at schools serving large numbers of minority students. It also aims to research and evaluate the impact of teachers who provide students with school experiences that are geared toward fostering high academic achievement.

The PuM project develops and conducts research on a learning continuum for seamless instruction in middle school physical science and high school physics. The ultimate goal is to use physics as the context to develop mathematics literacy, particularly with students from underrepresented populations and special needs students. The research component analyzes the effects of the curriculum on students' learning while simultaneously investigating teachers' pedagogical content knowledge in a variety of forms.

This project is designed to enhance an existing interdisciplinary high school science curriculum—Astrobiology in the Secondary Classroom (ASC)—in an innovative way and conduct research to determine the effectiveness of these materials in three different underrepresented student populations—African Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americas—experiencing an achievement gap in STEM areas at five sites. Improvements will focus on program alignment and increased use of data sets made available by research scientists.

This project addresses middle school students’ learning of science through the improvement of their inquiry science skills. The main goal is to develop a rigorous, technology-based assessment system for standards-aligned assessment of inquiry skills in six physical science content areas (i.e., Properties of Matter; Elements, Compounds, and Mixtures; Motion of Objects; Forms of Energy; and Heat Energy). Assessments are aligned with the Massachusetts Curricular Framework and National Science Education Standards.

This study explores the ways middle school mathematics teachers implement standards-based curriculum materials in urban schools. It takes the view that instructional materials are cultural tools and examines how teachers use these tools to plan and implement the curriculum in their classrooms. The study is using a mixed methods approach that combines surveys of teachers in 30 schools in the Newark Public Schools district and closer observations of teachers in selected case schools.

This project is comparing and evaluating different models for the delivery of online professional development aimed at elementary science teachers. The focus is on asynchronous (anytime, anywhere) and minimally facilitated models, because these approaches hold promise for reaching large numbers of teachers in a cost-effective way. The research capitalizes on experiences with BCM's award-winning, high traffic website for educators, BioEd Online.

This project researches the use of cyberinfrastructure to implement a strategy for using online telescopes as a laboratory to engage middle and high school students in cutting edge science research while providing them with significant new opportunities to apply STEM concepts, practice inquiry, and design and learn about the nature of scientific discovery.  

This project has two goals:

1) to discover methods that can efficiently obtain information about the effects of high school programs on eventual college success. Methods we are considering include obtaining transcripts from post-secondary institutions, surveying high school graduates, and obtaining information from the National Student Clearinghouse.

2) to explore how students who studied Contemporary Mathematics in Context (Core Plus) or the Integrated Mathematics Program (IMP) fare in post secondary institutions.

This project augmenting the traditional professional development model with an online professional development platform—the Active Physics Teacher Community—that provides just-in-time support for teachers as they are enacting targeted units of the Active Physics curriculum. Teachers are helped in preparing lessons by providing them with formal instruction related to the lessons they are teaching in the classroom. In addition, teachers can participate in a moderated forum where they can share experiences.

This project improves science learning by students who are not achieving their potential in high quality inquiry-based programs. The project aims to achieve its goal by developing a computer program, My Science Tutor, which students will use immediately following classroom science investigations to reinforce and extend concepts embedded in the investigations. The program uses a lifelike animated character to engage students in guided learning activities and conversational tutorial dialogs that stimulate scientific reasoning.

SPRINTT uses an innovative, live, online training format to train hundreds of teachers in how to teach life, Earth, and physical science content in a polar context. Polar scientists directly inform the content and participate in the training. SPRINTT provides teachers with existing and adapted, high-quality, standards-based curriculum materials and collaborates with science and education partners to simplify research data and create a user-friendly interface from which students perform their own authentic polar research projects.

This project uses Antarctic pack-ice penguins to hook students into exploring how science investigates changes in Earths biota and climate. The project builds on a pilot effort, called Penguin Science, and will develop PowerPoint presentations, short video \"webisodes,\" background reading material, and live and interactive website components to engage students in ongoing field research. Students, K-14, will be involved in climate-change research that will include ecology, sedimentology, paleontology, glaciology and oceanography.

This project develops mixed-initiative dialog and speech recognition technologies to encourage students to speak and reason about science concepts. It is part of a larger collaboration to help fourth and fifth grade students who are not achieving their potential in high quality inquiry-based programs. The larger collaboration develops and evaluates a computer program, MyST, to interactively engage students in spoken tutorial dialogs of four science investigations to reinforce and extend their understanding of science concepts.

This project partners high school science teachers and students with particle physicists working in experiments at the scientific frontier. These experiments are searching for answers to fundamental questions about the origin of mass, the dimensionality of spacetime and the nature of symmetries that govern physical processes. Among the experimental projects at the energy frontier with which the project is affiliated is the Large Hadron Collider, which is poised at the horizon of discovery.