The Learning by Evaluating (LbE) project will develop, refine, and test an educational innovation in which 9th grade students evaluate sample work as a starting point in engineering design cycles. Students will compare and discuss the quality and fit to context of completed design artifacts. Teachers will collaboratively review and refine the LbE approaches and map the LbE materials into the curriculum.
Projects
Using high school statewide longitudinal data from Maryland from 2012-2022, this study will first document who has taught STEM-CTE courses over this period. After exploring the teaching landscape, the study will then explore whether qualifications (i.e., education, credentials, teaching experience) of teachers in STEM-CTE high school courses were associated with their students’ success.
The goal of this project is to study the design and development of community-centered, job-embedded professional development for classroom teachers that supports bias reduction. The project team will partner with three school districts serving racially, ethnically, linguistically, and socio-economically diverse communities, for a two-year professional development program. The aim is to reduce bias through: analyzing and designing mathematics teaching with colleagues, students, and families to create classrooms and schools based on community-centered mathematics; engaging in anti-bias teaching routines; and building relationships with parents, caretakers, and community members.
The goal of this project is to study the design and development of community-centered, job-embedded professional development for classroom teachers that supports bias reduction. The project team will partner with three school districts serving racially, ethnically, linguistically, and socio-economically diverse communities, for a two-year professional development program. The aim is to reduce bias through: analyzing and designing mathematics teaching with colleagues, students, and families to create classrooms and schools based on community-centered mathematics; engaging in anti-bias teaching routines; and building relationships with parents, caretakers, and community members.
This project builds on exploratory work engaging in mathematics professional learning with paraeducators to provide a professional learning experience focused on teaching and learning mathematics in grades PreK-3.
Previous research has shown that play is an important vehicle for exploration, understanding, and learning because play involves many of the same features as sophisticated disciplinary engagement in mathematics. Despite work documenting the value of play broadly, little research has directly addressed how play could be supported or the value of doing so in mathematics classrooms. The purpose of this project is to investigate play in early elementary math education through a four-year longitudinal study that documents teacher learning and connects teacher practice with in-depth qualitative analyses of children over multiple years.
This project is exploring teachers' capacity to manage student epistemic uncertainty as a pedagogical resource that supports student’s productive struggle and the development of conceptual knowledge during project-based learning instruction in middle school science classrooms.
The Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (CCSSM) problem-solving measures assess students’ problem-solving performance within the context of CCSSM math content and practices. This project expands the scope of the problem-solving measures use and score interpretation. The project work advances mathematical problem-solving assessments into computer adaptive testing. Computer adaptive testing allows for more precise and efficient targeting of student ability compared to static tests.
The goal of this project is to study the design and development of community-centered, job-embedded professional development for classroom teachers that supports bias reduction. The project team will partner with three school districts serving racially, ethnically, linguistically, and socio-economically diverse communities, for a two-year professional development program. The aim is to reduce bias through: analyzing and designing mathematics teaching with colleagues, students, and families to create classrooms and schools based on community-centered mathematics; engaging in anti-bias teaching routines; and building relationships with parents, caretakers, and community members.
The project focuses on the development of formative assessment tools that highlight assets of students’ use of crosscutting concepts (CCCs) while engaged in science and engineering practices in grades 9-12 Life Sciences.
The Framework for K-12 Science Education has set forth an ambitious vision for science learning by integrating disciplinary science ideas, scientific and engineering practices, and crosscutting concepts, so that students could develop competence to meet the STEM challenges of the 21st century. Achieving this vision requires transformation of assessment practices from relying on multiple-choice items to performance-based knowledge-in-use tasks. However, these performance-based constructed-response items often prohibit timely feedback, which, in turn, has hindered science teachers from using these assessments. Artificial Intelligence (AI) has demonstrated great potential to meet this assessment challenge. To tackle this challenge, experts in assessment, AI, and science education will gather for a two-day conference at University of Georgia to generate knowledge of integrating AI in science assessment.
The Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (CCSSM) problem-solving measures assess students’ problem-solving performance within the context of CCSSM math content and practices. This project expands the scope of the problem-solving measures use and score interpretation. The project work advances mathematical problem-solving assessments into computer adaptive testing. Computer adaptive testing allows for more precise and efficient targeting of student ability compared to static tests.
This study addresses two open questions in mathematics education and teacher learning research related to groupwork monitoring. Using contemporary information visualization techniques and open-source tools, alongside a video-based coaching activity, teachers will a) analyze classroom video records featuring group math discussions and b) uncover and investigate their specific interactions with student groups as well as their overall approach to this important phase of their lessons. Through these tools, teachers will develop strategic and integrated understandings of effective groupwork monitoring strategies. As a result of this work, teachers and researchers will be able to better connect teachers’ monitoring choices to students’ peer-to-peer math talk.
The goal of this project is to study the design and development of community-centered, job-embedded professional development for classroom teachers that supports bias reduction. The project team will partner with three school districts serving racially, ethnically, linguistically, and socio-economically diverse communities, for a two-year professional development program. The aim is to reduce bias through: analyzing and designing mathematics teaching with colleagues, students, and families to create classrooms and schools based on community-centered mathematics; engaging in anti-bias teaching routines; and building relationships with parents, caretakers, and community members.
This project aims to support teachers to engage their students in mathematical problem posing (problem-posing-based learning, or P-PBL). P-PBL is a powerful approach to the teaching and learning of mathematics, and provides students with opportunities to engage in authentic mathematical practices.
This project will develop a process for creating a shared, state-wide vision of high-quality mathematics instruction. It will also develop and study the resources to implement that vision at the state, district, and school levels. In addition, the project will investigate a collaborative process of designing and implementing high-quality mathematics instruction at a state level.
This project will develop a process for creating a shared, state-wide vision of high-quality mathematics instruction. It will also develop and study the resources to implement that vision at the state, district, and school levels. In addition, the project will investigate a collaborative process of designing and implementing high-quality mathematics instruction at a state level.
This project will develop a process for creating a shared, state-wide vision of high-quality mathematics instruction. It will also develop and study the resources to implement that vision at the state, district, and school levels. In addition, the project will investigate a collaborative process of designing and implementing high-quality mathematics instruction at a state level.
This project will develop a process for creating a shared, state-wide vision of high-quality mathematics instruction. It will also develop and study the resources to implement that vision at the state, district, and school levels. In addition, the project will investigate a collaborative process of designing and implementing high-quality mathematics instruction at a state level.
Increased focus on school accountability and teacher performance measures have resulted in STEM instruction that emphasizes content and procedural knowledge over critical thinking and real-world applications. Yet, critical thinking and application are essential in developing functional scientific literacy skills among students. This need is perhaps most pressing in economically depressed urban settings. One strategy to promote STEM engagement and learning is to make clear and meaningful connections between STEM concepts, principles, and STEM-related issues relevant to the learner. Socioscientific issues (SSI) and the Social Justice STEM Pedagogies (SJSP) framework can provide a powerful avenue for promoting the desired kinds of engagement. This collaborative research project is designed to investigate the effectiveness of a professional development (PD) program for STEM teachers to develop their pedagogical content knowledge in teaching SSI and SJSP.
Increased focus on school accountability and teacher performance measures have resulted in STEM instruction that emphasizes content and procedural knowledge over critical thinking and real-world applications. Yet, critical thinking and application are essential in developing functional scientific literacy skills among students. This need is perhaps most pressing in economically depressed urban settings. One strategy to promote STEM engagement and learning is to make clear and meaningful connections between STEM concepts, principles, and STEM-related issues relevant to the learner. Socioscientific issues (SSI) and the Social Justice STEM Pedagogies (SJSP) framework can provide a powerful avenue for promoting the desired kinds of engagement. This collaborative research project is designed to investigate the effectiveness of a professional development (PD) program for STEM teachers to develop their pedagogical content knowledge in teaching SSI and SJSP.
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 addresses a critical need to help middle school teachers learn to incorporate data science in their teaching. It uses an open-source platform called the Common Online Data Analysis Platform (CODAP) as a tool for teachers to learn about data science and develop resources for students’ learning. The project team will develop a framework for teachers’ knowledge of data science teaching and learning. Insights from the project will help develop effective practices for teaching data science and understanding how students learn data science.
In COVID Connects Us, the project team investigates the challenges of learning how to support justice-centered ambitious science teaching (JuST). The project team will partner with networks of secondary science teachers as they first implement a common unit aimed at engaging youth in science and engineering practices in ways that are culturally sustaining, focused on explanation-construction and intentionally anti-oppressive. The teachers will then use their shared experiences to revise future instruction in ways that are justice-centered and that engage students in the ways research suggests is important for their learning.
This project will develop an integrated, justice-oriented curriculum and a digital platform for teaching secondary students about data science in science and social studies classrooms. The platform will help students learn about data science using real-world data sets and problems. This interdisciplinary project will also help students meaningfully analyze real-world data sets, interpret social phenomena, and engage in social change.