Reading List: Recent DRK-12 Project Publications

This article describes how diagrams can be a powerful tool to develop and communicate mathematical understanding for English language learners.

This conversion mixed method study analyzed student work samples and teacher lesson plans from seven exemplary inclusive STEM high schools to better understand at what level teachers at these schools are engaging and developing student 21st Century skills.

In this article, authors explore a variety of types of responsive teaching and elaborate a specific type of responsive teaching—epistemologically responsive science teaching.

This case study investigates U.S. eighth-grade (age 13) mathematics students’ conceptions about the validity of a direct argument after the students received instruction on the eliminating counterexamples (ECE) framework.

This paper investigates how one elementary school child with specific visual motor integration differences constructed a unit fraction concept.

This mixed-method study was designed to examine whether middle school students’ in-game actions are likely to promote certain types of learning engagement (i.e., content and cognitive engagement).

This study analyzes the engineering design behaviors of 108 ninth-grade U.S. students using principal component analysis and cluster analysis.

This study investigates a formative feedback system integrated into an online science curriculum module teaching climate change.

This article reports an efficacy study of an elementary engineering curriculum, Engineering is Elementary, that includes a set of hypothesized critical components designed to encourage student engagement in practices, connect engineering and science learning, and reach diverse students.

This article reports on how three prospective teachers had differing opportunities to demonstrate their skills in the context of the field assessment, but similar opportunities in the context of the simulation assessment.

This brief describes how to support equity for students, teachers, and communities through place-based science education strategies.

In this article, authors explain how 114 years of Hawaiian-language newspapers starting in 1834 extend our knowledge of natural disasters into the nineteenth century and to precontact times.

In this Journal of Science Teacher Education article, Jarod Kawasaki and William Sandoval report on one teachers’ efforts to re-design an entire instructional unit as a coherent storyline about forces and motion as a part of a multiyear professional development project around the NGSS.

This article discusses supporting inquiry in an online learning environment.

The purpose of this report is to sketch a tentative theoretical structure with the potential to anchor curricular decisions and inform further research on early probability learning.

This paper discusses the extent to which one case study elementary school child with identified learning disabilities (LDs) made sense of composite units and unit fractions.

In this article, authors present a comparative case study examining the epistemological framing dynamics of two novice urban teachers and argue that the stances that novice teachers adopt toward engineering learning and knowledge are consequential for the opportunities they create for students.

This study offers a critical exploration of how to design instruction that simultaneously supports students' science and graph understanding within complex inquiry contexts.

Authors report on the use of bilingual constructed response science assessments in the context of a research and development partnership with secondary school science teachers.

In this study, the authors propose and validate a model of adaptive expertise needed for teachers to successfully deliver NGSS-informed computer-supported complex systems curricula in high school science classrooms.

In this replication and extension study, we explore these issues, drawing on evidence from a multi-year study of over 200 fourth- and fifth-grade US teachers. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses of these data suggested a single dimension for teacher knowledge.

Authors share results from a quasi-experimental study that examines growth in students’ algebraic thinking practices of generalizing and representing generalizations, particularly with variable notation, as a result of an early algebra instructional sequence implemented across grades 3–5.

The purpose of this study was to identify affordances and limitations of using order and value comparison tasks versus number placement tasks to infer students’ negative integer understanding and growth in understanding.

Authors investigate ways to support students in integrating their understanding of density concepts through a graph that is linked to a simulation depicting the relationship between mass, volume, and density.

In this article, authors demonstrate that line following via multimodal feedback is possible on touchscreens and present guidelines for the presentation of such non-visual graphical concepts.

Authors discuss some of the affordances and constraints of using online teaching simulations to support reflection on specific pedagogical actions.

This paper illustrates how the combination of teacher and computer guidance can strengthen collaborative revision and identifies opportunities for teacher guidance in a computer-supported collaborative learning environment.

The purpose of the current study was to explore different ways for teachers to engage in Professional learning experiences (PLEs) and how these approaches might enable the field to scale up these efforts in a sustainable manner.

Authors describe a complementary way of studying the connections between different aspects of noticing, one that stresses the content of teachers noticing. They report on a study in which participants were shown depictions of students reacting to the launch of a complex task. Participants then chose among a variety of possible interpretations and teacher responses.

The aim of this study was to assess evidence for the validity of General Mindset (GM) and Engineering Mindset (EM) surveys that we developed for fifth-grade students (ages 10-11).

In this article, authors discuss an online Earth science curriculum module called, “Will there be enough fresh water?” designed to engage students in thinking about uncertainty as part of writing scientific arguments.

This article looks at context-based approaches to science instruction. Authors studied the effects of changes to a set of secondary science teacher education programs, all of which were redesigned with attention to the Secondary Science Teaching with English Language and Literacy Acquisition (SSTELLA) instructional framework, a framework for responsive and contextualized instruction in multilingual science classrooms.

In this article, authors argue for deliberate attention to clarifiable ambiguity as a critical aspect of attending to meaning and as a necessary precursor to productive use of student mathematical thinking.

Test scoring procedures should align with the intended uses and interpretations of test results. In this paper, we examine three test scoring procedures for an operational assessment of early numeracy, the Early Grade Mathematics Assessment (EGMA). Current test specifications call for subscores to be reported for each of the eight subtests on the EGMA. This test scoring procedures has been criticized as being difficult for stakeholders to use and interpret, thereby impacting the overall usefulness of the EGMA for informing decisions. We examine the psychometric properties including the reliability and distinctiveness of the results and usefulness of reporting test scores as (1) total scores, (2) subscores, and (3) composite scores. These test scoring procedures are compared using data from an actual administration of the EGMA. Conclusions and recommendations for test scoring procedures are made. Generalizations to other testing programs are proposed.

In recent years, prominent organizations have released large-scale policy reports on the state of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education in the United States, with particular emphasis on curricula and instructional practices. The purpose of this paper was to examine the curriculum and instruction occurring at high performing STEM-focused high schools that have no academic conditions for student admission. This study conducted a cross-case analysis across eight case studies of contextually different but well-regarded inclusive STEM high school. Common themes that emerged included different hierarchical levels of design and implementation (classroom-level, cross-cutting school level, school-wide) as well as responsive design of curriculum and instruction. Unique contextual differences are discussed as well as implications for replication of inclusive STEM school design.

Authors discuss how teachers used MECMs and whether that use impacted their beliefs about the practice of scientific argumentation.

Authors describe the design principles of iPlan, a web-based tool provides access to educative curriculum materials in an online interactive learning platform, and discuss implications for designing educative and online systems for teacher learning.

Authors describe an alternative model of online math videos that feature unscripted dialogue of secondary school students, who convey sources of confusion and resolve the dilemmas that arise during problem solving.

Authors discuss student dimensions of expertise when engaged in modeling and simulation practices and describe how students used their cognitive and metacognitive knowledge to approach a computational challenge.

The purpose of this study is to investigate students’ experimentation strategies while they work on a design challenge.

This article describes the effect of simulation-enabled Learning by Design learning experiences on student-generated heuristics that can lead to solutions to problems.

This article focuses on the impacts of a program designed to prepare elementary classroom teachers to mentor preservice teachers for effective science instruction.

This article describes key features of a hybrid professional development (PD) program that was designed to prepare elementary classroom teachers to mentor preservice teachers for effective science instruction.

This article describes how research-based learning progressions can be used to enhance the analysis and response to student work.

In this paper, the author theorizes reciprocal noticing as a relational practice through which teachers and students exchange roles as knowers by reciprocating each other’s noticing as they study mathematics concepts.

This study investigated N = 57 Kindergarten through second grade children’s performance on a programming assessment after engaging in a 6-week curricular intervention called ScratchJr.

Scientific modeling affords opportunities for students to develop representations, make their ideas visible, and generate model‐based explanations for complex natural systems like the water cycle. This study describes a comprehensive evaluation of a 5‐year, design‐based research project focused on the development, implementation, revision, and testing of an enhanced, model‐centered version of the Full Option Science System (FOSS) Water (2005) unit in third grade classrooms.

Linear Algebra and Geometry is aimed at preservice and practicing high school mathematics teachers and advanced high school students looking for an addition to or replacement for calculus. The materials are organized around carefully sequenced problems that help students build both the tools and the habits that provide a solid basis for further study in mathematics. Requiring only high school algebra, it uses elementary geometry to build the beautiful edifice of results and methods that make linear algebra such an important field.

In this article, authors describe how we engaged grade 3–5 students in an engineering design activity supported with relevant reading, writing, and talking tasks embedded within the engineering design activity.

The purpose of this study is to explore to what extent supporting elementary teachers’ PCK about teaching engineering would improve their beliefs that students’ engineering learning can be influenced by effective engineering instruction.

This study is focused on engineering for sustainable communities (EfSC) in three middle school classrooms.

In this article, it is argued that the construct of rightful presence, and the coconstructed “making present” practices that give rise to moments of rightful presence, is 1 way to consider how to make sense of the historicized and relational nature of consequential learning.

This paper describes HASbot, an automated text scoring and real‐time feedback system designed to support student revision of scientific arguments.

Use these ideas to diagnose and address common conceptual obstacles that inhibit students’ success.

This study uses a mixed-method sequential exploratory design to examine influences on urban adolescents’ engagement and disengagement in school.

Authors examine how dialogic instruction, a socially dynamic form of instruction, was associated with four learning emotions in mathematics: enjoyment, pride, anger, and boredom.

This study examined the relationship between student-centered mathematics instruction and adolescents’ behavioral, cognitive, emotional, and social engagement in mathematics and whether the relationship differed by ethnicity.

A school-wide and multi-contextual perspective on student engagement in school.

Preschoolers investigate force and motion with a digital journal.

Using structural equation modeling, the researchers test a path model of various physics identity constructs, extending an earlier, established model. In this paper, they also compare a preliminary structural analysis of students' physics identities before and after the career lesson, with an eye towards understanding how students' identities develop over time and due to these experiences.

An investigation of elementary teachers’ noticing of students’ ideas and their thinking surrounding their noticing practice.

This paper explores the CAT Capability Flow, which begins to describe the processes and sub-skills and capabilities involve in computational algorithmic thinking (CAT). To do this, authors engage in an approach which results in an initial flowchart that depicts the processes students are engaging in as an iteratively-refined articulation of the steps involved in computational algorithmic thinking.

In this study, authors use Phenomenological Variant Ecological Systems Theory as a strengths‐based approach to investigate 10 undergraduate Black women’s perceptions of race and gender on their STEM identity development and engagement.

Based on a mixed methods study of a statewide survey and interviews of district professional development directors, we found that district requirement of lesson study, funding provision, and future sustainability plan were significantly and positively associated with a broader implementation of lesson study within the district. Implications for educational leaders at local educational agencies are discussed.

Based on a teacher survey of lesson study, this study found that facilitators’ focus on student thinking, the quality of materials, and duration of lesson study were significantly associated with teacher participation in an effective inquiry process, which in turn is associated with perceived positive changes in teacher knowledge, self-efficacy, and expectation.

In this article, the authors outline the main components and the iterative design process we undertook to ensure that the professional supports are relevant and effective for teachers and children.

The purpose of this study was to develop and validate a survey of opportunities to participate (OtP) in science that will allow educators and researchers to closely approximate the types of learning opportunities students have in science classrooms.

Features approaches for leveraging PCK research in STEM learning across formal and informal settings.

Authors discuss insights from research on K-16 climate education.

Shifting people’s judgments toward the scientific involves teaching them to purposefully evaluate connections between evidence and alternative explanations.

The present paper documents a quasi-experimental study where high school Earth science students completed these instructional scaffolds, including an explanation task scored for evaluative levels (erroneous, descriptive, relational, and critical), along with measures of plausibility reappraisal and knowledge.

The goal for this proceeding is to foster the conversation about validation using examples and to communicate information about validation in ways that are broadly accessible.

The study’s purpose is to describe content validity evidence related to new problem-solving measures currently under development.

In this study we investigate the teaching of the associative property in a natural classroom setting through observation of classroom video of several elementary math classes in a large urban school district.

This study reports how an expert Chinese teacher implements mathematics textbook lessons in enacted instruction.

This article describes a tool to build, ensure, and solidify students’ understanding of quantitative relationships.

This study explores how preservice teachers (PSTs) transfer the intended specialized content knowledge (SCK) to elementary classrooms.

This article explores how students’ integer value comparisons differed based on question phrasing (which temperature is hottest, most hot, least hot, coldest, most cold, least cold) and on numbers presented (positive, negative, mixed) within the context of temperature.

This study explores how teachers describe, or frame, expectations for classroom discussions pertaining to the science practice of argumentation. Authors use the theoretical lens of a participation framework to examine how teachers emphasize particular actions and goals for their students' argumentation.

Authors investigate in-service teachers’ scientific engagement in a blended online science inquiry course. A key implication of this study is the importance of instructional attention to epistemology and affect to create online learning environments that promote productive framings of scientific inquiry.

This study utilized the methodology of Improvement Science “Plan, Do Study, Act” cycles in order to design a Three-Dimensional Mapping Tool (3D Map) as a visual scaffold for use in science teaching methods courses to support preservice teachers in unpacking the components of NGSS and to promote discourse related to the three-dimensionality of planning instruction.

The purpose of this study is to characterize teachers’ orientations toward using student mathematical thinking as a resource during whole-class instruction.

Using existing literature, authors create a hypothetical framework of cognitive processes associated with studying informal best fit lines and refine the framework using data from a cycle of design-based research about building students’ understanding of covariation.

In this article, we draw upon the Conceptual Profile Theory to discuss the negotiation of meanings related to the energy concept in an 11th grade physics classroom.

The present study examined changes in high school biology and technology education pedagogy during the first year of a three-year professional development (PD) program using the INSPIRES educative curriculum.

Project Accelerate is a partnership program between Boston University (BU) and the nation’s high schools combining the supportive infrastructures from the students’ traditional school with a highly interactive private edX online instructional tool to bring a College Board accredited AP Physics 1 course to schools not offering this opportunity. During the 2015-16 academic year, Boston University piloted this model with four Boston Public School (BPS) high schools and three small suburban high schools. During the first year of the pilot, students enrolled in Project Accelerate outperformed their peer groups enrolled in traditional AP Physics 1 classrooms.

In this study, we examined the relevance of CI in biochemical contexts and first explored the ways in which practicing biochemists consider CI relevant in their work.

This paper studies key usability parameters governing accurate rendering of haptically-perceivable graphical materials

The current study investigates two questions: (1) Do screen size and grid density impact a user's accuracy on pattern-matching tasks? (2) Do screen size and grid density impact a user's time on task?

This article looks at strategies that create access while maintaining the cognitive demand of a mathematics task.

This editorial is part of a special issue of Investigations in Mathematics Learning Critical Approaches that was inspired by a Disability in Mathematics Education working group.

The authors fuse Universal Design for Learning (UDL), differentiation, and talk moves into three key planning and pedagogy considerations.

This study sheds light on three teaching competencies: Pre-service teachers’ (PSTs’) professional noticing of student mathematical reasoning and strategies, their ability to assess the validity of student reasoning and strategies, and to select student strategy for class discussion.

The purpose of this paper is to report results of a systematic cross-case analysis exploring the extent of engineering learning opportunities in five exemplar Inclusive STEM High Schools (ISHSs).

The goal of this paper is to examine whether having female robotics teachers positively impacts girls’ performance on programming and robotics tasks.

The purpose of our quasi‐experimental study was to examine the effectiveness of Quality Talk Science, a professional development model and intervention, in fostering changes in teachers’ and students’ discourse practices as well as their conceptual understanding and scientific argumentation. Findings revealed treatment teachers’ and students’ discourse practices better reflected critical‐analytic thinking and argumentation at posttest relative to comparison classrooms.

In this study, we examine the short-term and long-term effects of interactive visualizations in improving linguistically diverse eighth-grade students’ understanding of properties of matter and chemical reactions during inquiry instruction.

This study proposes and investigates the effects of a three‐dimensional thinking graph (3DTG) that allows learners to combine in a single image, problem information, subject knowledge (key concepts and their relationships), and the hypothesizing and reasoning process involved in exploring a problem, to support inquiry learning.

In this conceptual article, we reframe inclusive science instruction by examining the literature in science and multicultural education and describe five elements to support teachers in realizing inclusive science instruction as a pedagogical shift.

In this study we examined 5th-grade teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) for 1 particular core idea: the small particle model (SPM) of matter. We assessed teachers’ initial PCK through a lesson plan task, the Content Representation tool, and interviews and then adapted and tested a scoring rubric to facilitate comparison of teachers’ PCK.

Eight middle school mathematics teachers’ perceptions and uses of curriculum materials and the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (CCSSM) were investigated.

In this study we investigate the teaching of the associative property in a natural classroom setting through observation of classroom video of several elementary math classes in a large urban school district.

This article focuses on the career paths in higher education taken by 351 doctoral graduates in mathematics education and provides insight into their career path and their resulting workload.

Our work suggests re-conceptualization of research concerning students’ over reliance on example-based reasoning, moving from a view of such reasoning as a stumbling block to quickly overcome toward a view of such reasoning as a necessary and critical foundation in learning to prove.

This brief offers insights from National Science Foundation-supported research for education leaders and policymakers who are broadening participation in science, technology, engineering, and/or mathematics (STEM). Many of these insights confirm knowledge that has been reported in research literature; however, some offer a different perspective on familiar challenges.

This proof of concept study investigated a secondary science teacher preparation intervention in six university programs across Arizona, California, and Texas. Researchers and science method instructors (SMIs) collaboratively restructured respective science method courses to hold fidelity to an interrelated set of instructional practices that attend to science learning as envisioned in a Framework for K–12 Science Education, while also creating contextualized spaces for language and literacy development targeted to English learners (ELs), but also supportive of “mainstream” students.

This article examines recognition by presenting the case of a physics teacher, Dr. D, and his student, Kristina, to address the question: What are the ways in which a young woman perceives recognition from her teacher?

This column provides how-to strategies and practical advice for the science teacher.

This column describes creating a classroom culture for engineering.

This study explores how technology can support idea exchanges in ways that value individuals’ prior ideas, and allow students to use these ideas to benefit their own and their peers’ learning.

The imperative that all students, including English learners (ELs), achieve high academic standards and have opportunities to participate in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) learning has become even more urgent and complex given shifts in science and mathematics standards. As a group, these students are underrepresented in STEM fields in college and in the workforce at a time when the demand for workers and professionals in STEM fields is unmet and increasing. However, English learners bring a wealth of resources to STEM learning, including knowledge and interest in STEM-related content that is born out of their experiences in their homes and communities, home languages, variation in discourse practices, and, in some cases, experiences with schooling in other countries. English Learners in STEM Subjects: Transforming Classrooms, Schools, and Lives examines the research on ELs’ learning, teaching, and assessment in STEM subjects and provides guidance on how to improve learning outcomes in STEM for these students. This report considers the complex social and academic use of language delineated in the new mathematics and science standards, the diversity of the population of ELs, and the integration of English as a second language instruction with core instructional programs in STEM.

This paper seeks to provide a resource for prospective DRK-12 awardees by identifying some of the theories that current and recent DRK-12 awardees are using in their research on broadening participation.

This brief draws on research supported by the National Science Foundation to highlight important considerations for educators and others who design and provide STEM educational experiences for young children.

Critical evaluation underpins the practices of science. In a three-year classroom-based research project, we developed and tested instructional scaffolds for Earth science content in which students evaluate lines of evidence with respect to alternative explanations of scientific phenomena. This paper documents a quasi-experimental study where high school Earth science students completed these instructional scaffolds, including an explanation task scored for evaluative levels, along with measures of plausibility reappraisal and knowledge.

In the growing field of K-12 engineering education, there is limited research that highlights the experiences of youth from historically marginalized communities within engineering learning environments. This study offers insights into the ways in which two groups of elementary school students constructed approaches for participating in the engineering design practice of collaborative reflective decision-making. Findings suggest that students conceptualized urban, engineering learning environments as spaces for risk management. This notion of managing risks informed their participation in collaborative decision-making, and the ways in which they viewed themselves as doers of engineering. Implications for this study include the continued need for the development of methodologies and frameworks that provide opportunities to uncover these potential risks, and design supports for student participation in engineering design practices.

The ubiquity of touchscreen, mobile tablet technology has resulted in a plethora of “apps for learning” yet few leverage the learning sciences as a design driver. This paper describes our approach to integrating the learning sciences with best practices in app design: a design framework that involves researchers and developers in a co-development process to create apps based on research and evidence. Our framework centers around a learning blueprint which is intended to serve as a “boundary object.” This boundary object facilitates a design process that allows the design team to focus on both children’s engagement and learning. Here we describe the challenges that our project team encountered and our approaches to overcome those challenges on the Next Generation Preschool Math (NGPM) project, a development and research effort devoted to creating a supplemental preschool math curriculum supplement with integrated digital apps.

This study reports results from 113 students and three science teachers from two low-income urban middle schools participating in SciLG. It highlights the role of students’ views of themselves as competent, related, and autonomous in the garden, as well as their engagement and re-engagement in the garden, as potential pathways by which garden-based science activities can shape science motivation, learning, and academic identity in science.

This executive summary captures the results of the National Survey on Supporting Struggling Mathematics Learners in the Middle Grades, a study designed and conducted by EDC. T

This resource provides access to a classroom video of a lesson from the project's middle school ecosystems unit, and the related student scaffold and scoring rubric.

This resource provides access to the entire middle school ecosystems unit, along with the EQuIP review.

Building on the work of teacher noticing, this study investigated teachers’ noticing of students’ thinking evident in artifacts from their science teaching context.

The study examines geometry teachers' video club discussions in a two-year professional development intervention that combined lesson study, video clubs, and animation discussions to promote teacher noticing of students' prior knowledge.

This article focused on equitable mathematics instruction for U.S. and Korean preservice teachers.

This article focuses on problem-based lessons in teacher professional development.

This chapter focuses on the design of simulation assessments to learn about pre-service teachers’ capabilities with eliciting and interpreting student thinking.

This conference paper explains how EarSketch affects student persistence.

In this article, authors evaluated the effects of three instructional interventions designed to support young children’s understanding of area measurement as a structuring process.

This chapter examines what aspects of Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching of Proving (MKT-P) can be observed in written scenarios of classroom interactions, produced by pre-service teachers of mathematics.

Ambitious Science Teaching outlines a powerful framework for science teaching to ensure that instruction is rigorous and equitable for students from all backgrounds. The practices presented in the book are being used in schools and districts that seek to improve science teaching at scale, and a wide range of science subjects and grade levels are represented.

This article reports a study of the specific knowledge of and skills with teaching practice that novices bring to teacher education with respect to one teaching practice, eliciting student thinking in elementary mathematics, and describes the use of a standardized teaching simulation to learn about novices’ skills.

In this article, students use data and models to make a difference in their own school yard.

This article describes a four-step strategy used in our professional development program to help elementary science teachers recognize and create lesson plans with coherent conceptual storylines.

In this study, we investigated how high school credit recovery students worked in small groups and used computer-based scaffolds to conduct scientific inquiry in a problem-based learning unit centered on water quality.

The CADRE Early Career Guide offers advice from experienced DR K-12 awardees on becoming a successful researcher in the field of STEM education. The guide also profiles a support program, the CADRE Fellows, for doctoral students in STEM education research.