DRK-12 Research and Products
Publication | This overview is intended to describe the scope and depth of research and development DR K-12 has funded and to identify areas that could be advanced by further investigations by CADRE. The overview summarizes the 248 projects that met the…
Publication | The central goal of this study was to create a new diagnostic tool to identify organic chemistry students’ alternative conceptions related to acid strength. Twenty years of research on secondary and college students’ conceptions about acids and…
Publication | Research in student knowledge and learning of science has typically focused on explaining conceptual change. Recent research, however, documents the great degree to which student thinking is dynamic and context-sensitive, implicitly calling for…
Publication | This paper describes Supporting Research, Service and Teaching in Mathematics Education, or STaR, is a program designed to support new faculty who have taken a tenure-track mathematics education position in a U.S. institution of higher…
Publication | The Oceans of Data project has made an attempt to define and confront what is “hard” for students and teachers who attempt to use large, online professional data sets. We feel passionately that it’s important for us to do this to prepare today’s…
Publication | The goal of this project was to create an inquiry activity to teach symmetry elements and symmetry operations in an inorganic chemistry course. Many students experience difficulty when building and mentally manipulating three-dimensional mental…
Publication | “Recent research emphasizes that teacher quality alone cannot improve student achievement at scale. School leadership, staff collaboration, and a positive climate are among essential organizational elements that contribute to meaningful change…
Publication | This study explores what students understand about enzyme–substrate interactions, using multiple representations of the phenomenon. In this paper we describe our use of the 3 Phase-Single Interview Technique with multiple representations to…
Publication | A middle school mathematics teacher taught native English speakers for the first fifteen years of her career. As immigrants from other countries moved into the community and student demographics began to change, she realized that she was not…
Publication | “Specialized schools still represent a tiny fraction of U.S. public education. However, they may not only produce better results than traditional programs; they also can serve as models for schools seeking to improve.” Read this brief to…
Tool | Organized around six themes for establishing and nurturing successful partnerships, the Education R&D Partnership Tool includes a Work Sheet that prompts reflection and discussion on prominent issues, as well as a parallel Reference Sheet with…
STEM Smart Brief: Improving STEM Curriculum and Instruction: Engaging Students and Raising Standards
Publication | “For effective K–12 STEM instruction to become the norm, schools and districts must be transformed.” Read this brief to learn more about curriculum and instructional methods that engage students in the learning process.
Publication | Redistricting can provide a real-world application for use in a wide range of mathematics classrooms.
Publication | Throughout my career, I have collaborated with dedicated and hard-working teachers who have opened their classrooms so that others could learn from them. Yet, one teacher, Sara, stood out from all the others. From the first time I visited Sara's…
Tool | Every Learning Experience in Foundation Science Begins with a brainstorming activity. This six minute video explains how brainstorming can be used to determine prior knowledge of your students, introduce new content, and establish a safe classroom…
Publication | “When students from non-mainstream backgrounds receive equitable learning opportunities, they are capable of attaining science outcomes comparable to their mainstream peers. The same is true for mathematics and, presumably, for other STEM…
Publication, Tool | To foster knowledge use among policy makers or practitioners requires a substantial effort that invests in sustained interaction and enlists a range of supports for the prospective knowledge users. This paper discusses some options for…
Publication | This article reports findings from a research and professional development project at two high schools located in low-income, urban communities of color. The project collaborates with teachers on improving their instructional practices, using a…
Publication | Many of us learned about dominant and recessive genes in a humdrum high school biology class. Some of us may still recognize the terms and symbols twenty or thirty years later—are your eyes bb or Bb? But, as it turns out, a very small number of…
Publication | “Providing a richness of resources unavailable in any classroom, informal science institutions across the country have developed exemplary partnerships with public schools—and have room for more.” Read this brief to explore how out-of-school…
Publication | Each DR K-12 project has formative and summative evaluation, which are different from the project’s own R&D activities and instead should support and measure the effectiveness of those activities. This paper discusses evaluation options for…
Publication | Laurie H. Rubel (Brooklyn College) discusses a teacher learning community for high school teachers in New York City organized to develop practices of culturally relevant mathematics pedagogy. This project, named CureMap, emphasizes the…