DRK-12 Research and Products

Publication | This paper investigates how mathematics instructors' recognition of the professional obligations of mathematics teaching varies based on their institutional environment, specifically whether they teach high school or college mathematics.
Publication | Researchers have typically identified and characterized teachers’ knowledge bases (e.g., pedagogical content knowledge and subject matter knowledge) in an effort to improve enacted instructional strategies. As shown by the Refined Consensus…
Publication | Professional noticing is an essential skill for teachers that is enacted by teachers via their embodied senses (sight, sound, etc.). To better understand the nature of teacher noticing, 44 preservice teachers (PSTs) viewed a 360 video of an…
Publication | While tragedy has struck an inordinate number of students in the past several years, not all areas of the country are at risk for every natural hazard all the time. To avoid having students feel like Chicken Little under a falling sky, the…
Publication | We describe an online citizen science platform for human brain and behavior research that uses a participatory science learning approach to engage learners in the full spectrum of scientific inquiry.
Publication | Problem solving is a central focus of mathematics teaching and learning. If teachers are expected to support students' problem-solving development, then it reasons that teachers should also be able to solve problems aligned to grade level…
Publication | The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of different data conditions on item parameter recovery and classification accuracy of three dichotomous mixture item response theory (IRT) models: the Mix1PL, Mix2PL, and Mix3PL.
Publication | Immersive 360 videos are increasingly being used in pre-service teachers (PST) education. There is preliminary evidence that this technology may benefit future educators’ focus and attention to classroom settings and events. However, more…
Publication | Teachers’ professional noticing has been described as transitioning from descriptions of general pedagogy to analysis of students’ mathematical procedures and conceptual reasoning. Such a shift is described as a transition towards more student-…
Publication | Bioinformatics—a rapidly developing discipline that integrates mathematical and computational techniques with biological knowledge for applications in medicine, the environment, and other important aspects of life—is an example of an emerging…
Publication | In super-diverse classroom contexts, students come from varied migration channels, immigration statuses, languages, countries of origin, and religions, which contribute to new and complex social configurations of the classroom. Super-diversity…
Publication | This position paper advocates supporting computer science (CS) teacher professional learning by supplementing existing curriculum-specific teacher professional development (PD) with standards-aligned PD that focuses on teachers' conceptual…
Publication | This article addresses the need and potential for students to develop problem-solving skills as part of STEM learning.
Publication | The Innovate to Mitigate project adapts crowdsourcing to support project-based STEM education, posing design challenges for secondary-school students. Students are charged with designing feasible innovative strategies to mitigate CO2 emissions…
Publication | This preliminary study explored how many representations of standard videos, animations/comics, and 360 videos are being used in mathematics methods courses to teach future teachers. Drawing on knowledge from prior studies on standard videos,…
Publication | In this paper, we present an overview of the design research used to develop a digital collaborative environment with an embedded problem-based curriculum. We then discuss the student and teacher features of the environment that promote inquiry-…
Presentation | The CADRE Learning Series was designed to provide targeted support for STEM education researchers on topics of DRK-12 needs and interests. The learning series has covered the topics of professional development and case study design.…
Publication | Ed+gineering, an NSF-funded program, adapted hands-on robotics instruction for online delivery in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This qualitative multiple case study shares the experiences of participating education students in spring 2021…
Publication | Implemented was a 45-minute per day Primary Science IDEAS intervention in grades 1–2 integrating reading and writing within science instruction in a multi-year study conducted in 8 experimental and 9 control schools. Results found a significant…
Publication | Posterior Predictive Model Checking (PPMC) is frequently used for model fit evaluation in Bayesian Confirmatory Factor Analysis (BCFA). In standard PPMC procedures, model misfit is quantified by comparing the location of an ML-based point…
Tool | STEM education-related publications that may be of interest to DR K-12 grantees.
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…
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 | 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…