DRK-12 Research and Products

Publication | This qualitative study examines how a group of undergraduate and graduate students in an upper-level ecosystem ecology course at a research university in the southeastern part of the United States engage in a task that requires constructing an…
Publication | This article examines how federal/state-level policy guidance and local context have influenced district and school leader responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as how these external/internal factors might provide a window into K-12 crisis…
Publication | This study applied the many-facet Rasch measurement (MFRM) to assess students’ knowledge-in-use in middle school physical science.
Publication | The dimensionality of the epistemic orientation survey (EOS) was examined across four occasions with item factor analysis (IFA). Because of an emphasis on the knowledge generation of epistemic orientation (EO), four factors were selected and…
Product for Educators | Apps for examining proportional relationships of various kinds.
Product for Educators | Repository of project simulation tasks and data.
Publication | Design-based research is uniquely positioned to adapt instructional resources quickly to meet the needs of teachers and students. This chapter explores how researchers adapted and improved two educative tools over the course of two academic…
Publication | Science identity development begins in school-aged years, when multilingual students (MLs) are often marginalised in the classroom due to language challenges and low expectations placed on them. This descriptive multiple case study explores the…
Presentation | Teachers are increasingly participating in RPPs with the goal of improving their schools and districts. However, we know little about what teachers learn from their involvement in RPPs. This study explores teacher learning over the course of…
Publication | Teacher–teacher feedback is an important feature of professional learning. However, deeply ingrained socio-pedagogical norms may affect both the nature and content of feedback, constraining its effectiveness. Prior studies have reported that…
Publication | This study aimed to assess the effectiveness of a professional development program rooted in knowledge generation theory. Specifically, it sought to examine the changes in teachers' three orientations following the completion of the…
Publication | Practical research article from Science Scope.
Publication | This study investigated novice mathematics teachers participating in an online teacher education course focused on covariational reasoning and understanding the behavior of functions. The analysis centered on documenting the emergence of…
Publication | In this paper we use an existing history learning game with an active audience as a research platform for exploring how humor and "snarkiness" in the dialog script affect students' progression and attitudes about the game.
Publication | This position paper advocates supporting CS teacher professional learning by supplementing existing curriculum-specific teacher PD with standards-aligned PD that focuses on teachers' conceptual understanding of CS standards and ability to adapt…
Publication | Teachers experience challenges in effectively using formative assessment practices in their classrooms. In the US, only 28% of elementary teachers report using formative assessment. This study highlights the need to design resources to meet…
Publication | In this article, we—a team of science teachers and a university researcher—present the processes of adapting existing curricular resources to promote equitable learning experiences for diverse learners. Using a middle school ecology unit as an…
Publication | Narrative as a game design feature constantly yields mixed results for learning in the literature. The purpose of this exploratory mixed-methods case study was to examine design heuristics and implications governing the role of narratives in a…
Publication | This study explores undergraduate engineering and education students’ perspectives on their interdisciplinary teams throughout the rapid transition to online learning and instruction from a face-to-face to a virtual format.
Publication | A growing number of studies have shown the benefits of K-12 integrated science and engineering education. With this study, we add to the literature by documenting the relationship between STEM learning and engagement, and the demographic…
Publication | This article offers spatial reasoning math activities for school and home learning.
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 describes resources that are freely available to help teachers navigate the peer review and publication processes and guide their students through the successful completion of submission and publication of their research papers.…
Presentation | K- 12 Computer Science (CS) education is developing rapidly but still lacks a comprehensive measure for CS teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). We respond to this need by describing the design of a CS-PCK instrument for ‘Algorithms…
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.