DRK-12 Research and Products
Publication | Educational games are an increasingly popular teaching tool in modern classrooms. However, the development of complementary tools for teachers facilitating classroom gameplay is lacking. We present the results of a participatory design process…
Publication | This article focused on expansive, meaningful, and equitable modeling practice.
Publication | Do your students ever share ideas that are only peripherally related to the discussion you are having? We discuss ways to minimize and deal with such contributions.
Publication | As the discipline of statistics education broadens to data science education, there is a need to examine how practices in data science can inform work in K-12. We synthesize literature about statistics investigation processes, data science as a…
Publication | This article addresses the nature of student-generated representations that support students’ early algebraic reasoning in the realm of generalized arithmetic.
Publication | Despite the importance of developing elementary science teachers' content knowledge for teaching (CKT), there are limited assessments that have been designed to measure the full breadth of their CKT at scale. Our overall research project…
Publication | This article reports on the first three years of a teacher-led professional development program on the Navajo Nation. We draw on both quantitative and qualitative data from our end-of-year surveys to highlight some of the early lessons we have…
Publication | This article focused on creating virtual research experiences using digitized museum specimens.
Publication | To address the lack of a classroom observation protocol aligned with integrated STEM, the author team developed one to measure the degree of integrated STEM instruction implemented in K-12 science and engineering classrooms. This study…
Publication | The purpose of this study was to investigate fourth-grade students’ sensemaking of a word problem. Sensemaking occurs when students connect their understanding of situations with existing knowledge. We investigated students’ sensemaking through…
Publication | In this article, authors described the six-phase data investigation process for analyzing large-scale quantitative and categorical data.
Publication | We use an online Content Knowledge for Teaching (CKT) assessment that measures PSTs’ CKT in one science area: matter and its interactions. In this study, we analyzed process data from administering the online CKT matter assessment to 822 PSTs…
Publication | Facilitating discussions is a key approach that science teachers use to engage students in scientific argumentation. However, learning how to facilitate argumentation-focused discussions is an ambitious teaching practice that can be difficult to…
Publication | To build a sustainable future, science and engineering education programmes should emphasise scientific investigation, collaboration across traditional science topics and disciplines, and engineering design, including design and evaluation of…
Publication | This study examines technology-enhanced teacher responses and students’ written mathematical explanations to understand how to support effective teacher responding and the centering of students’ mathematical ideas. Although prior research has…
Publication | Eliciting and interpreting students’ ideas are essential skills in teaching, yet pre-service teachers (PSTs) rarely have adequate opportunities to develop these skills. In this study, we examine PSTs’ patterns of discourse and perceived learning…
Publication | Climate change, and the rise of the natural hazards that climate change brings, has been at the top of news feeds every week over the past year. Extreme events such as floods, droughts, and wildfires are expected to increase in the future. What…
“Should We Build This?”: Student Reasoning in Intentionally Facilitated Socio-technical Design Talks
Presentation | We are developing case studies of specific types of teacher-supported conversation in which students are asked to consider design decision-making not just as a technical task, but as a complex socio-technical activity with ethical, economic,…
Product for Educators | The CS-STEM Network offers research-based curricula created by Carnegie Mellon Robotics Academy that focus on teaching big ideas with robotics. Over 20 curriculum options provide support for LEGO, VEX, Arduino, and Virtual robot…
Publication | One challenge facing the fields of mathematics education and special education is how to design instruction on fraction concepts that can meet the needs of diverse learners. An innovation that shows promise is to base instructional design upon…
Publication | This study explored the use of a three-part suite of practice-based activities -- one- and two-player online simulations, an avatar-based simulation, and a virtual teaching simulator—for supporting preservice teachers in learning how to…
Publication | This review synthesizes insights from 23 NSF-funded projects, totaling $40 million, that studied mathematical and scientific argumentation in STEM education from prekindergarten (PreK) to Grade 12. The projects reported on both studies of…
Publication | Young researchers are often excluded from the scholarly processes of peer-review and publication, which are cornerstones of scholarly work. The Journal of Emerging Investigators is an open access journal dedicated to publishing the research of…
Theoretical Diversity and Inclusivity in Science and Environmental Education Research: A Way Forward
Publication | As distinct communities of practice (COP), science education research (SER) and environmental education research (EER) have both matured a great deal in recent decades, coming to include a greater diversity of theoretical perspectives,…
Publication | Mastery goal structures, which communicate value for developing deeper understanding, are an important classroom support for student motivation and engagement, especially in the context of science learning aligned with the Next Generation…