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Examining Elementary School Science Achievement Gaps Using an Organizational and Leadership Perspective
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There is the tendency to explain away successful urban schools as indicative of the heroic efforts by a tireless individual, effectively blaming schools that underperform for a lack of grit and dedication. This study…
Professional development aligned with AP Chemistry curriculum: Promoting science practices and facilitating enduring conceptual understanding
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The recent revisions to the advanced placement (AP) chemistry curriculum promote deep conceptual understanding of chemistry content over more rote memorization of facts and algorithmic problem solving.…
Science for All: A new breed of schools is closing achievement gaps among students and may hold the key to a revitalized 21st-century workforce
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Lynch, S.J. (2015, Aug. 1). Science for All: A new breed of schools is closing achievement gaps among students and may hold the key to a revitalized 21st-century workforce. Scientific American.…
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The Innovative Technology in Science Inquiry (ITSI) project is a learning portal with hundreds of free, customizable science, math, and engineering activities funded by the National Science Foundation…
To customize or not to customize? Exploring science teacher customization in an online lesson portal
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New technologies are increasingly giving science teachers the ability to access and customize science lessons. However, there is substantial debate in the literature about whether and under what…
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To examine the value of the electronic teacher guide (eTG) as a curriculum planning and teaching tool,
it was important to study it in the contexts of teachers’ actual planning, teaching, and reflecting.
This paper…
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An effective curriculum helps you support students' science learning, understanding, and achievement. But what does "effective" mean? This video gives you the inside scoop on what makes a curriculum effective and flags…
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"Content coherence"--ideas presented in a connected, sequential way--plays a big role in effective science instruction. Watch this video to find out how it works and how students benefit!…
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No one curriculum can meet the needs of all students and teachers. This video describes why a teacher might want to modify a curriculum and how he or she would go about it.
No one curriculum can meet…
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This brief gives an overview—and by no means a comprehensive one—of several NGSS-aligned projects in the areas of curriculum, instruction, assessment, and professional development.
This brief gives an…
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An electronic teacher guide (eTG) was developed to determine whether a digital guide could better support teachers in implementing an inquiry-based curriculum and in enhancing their practice. Developed as a proof-of-…
I Want to be the Inquiry Guy! How Research Experiences for Teachers Change Beliefs, Attitudes, and Values About Teaching Science as Inquiry
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This qualitative study examined how and why research experiences for teachers (RETs) influenced middle and high school science teachers’ beliefs, attitudes, and values about teaching science as inquiry. Changes teachers…
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Though addressing sources of uncertainty is an important part of doing science, it has largely been neglected in assessing students' scientific argumentation. In this study, we initially defined a scientific argumentation…
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Pallant, A., & Pryputniewicz, S. J. (2015). Great Questions Make For Great Science Education. @Concord 19(1) 4-6.
Climate Change
Earth Science
Science…
Invaluable values: an expectancy-value theory analysis of youths’ academic motivations and intentions
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While Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) fields have increased in importance over the past decade, minorities have remained traditionally underrepresented in these fields. In this study we seek to better…
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The importance of valuing student ideas in science education stands on firm empirical, theoretical, and moral grounds. However, the reasons for which one might value student ideas are often not explicitly distinguished,…
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The logic underlying inclusive STEM high schools (ISHSs) posits that requiring all students to take advanced college preparatory STEM courses while providing student-centered, reform-oriented instruction, ample student…
Threatened by Stereotype: An investigation of the effect of stereotype threat on female and minority students’ STEM learning in the context of a computer intervention
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To contribute to the growing field of STEM education, we examined the presence of stereotype threat for
female and African American students during a large-scale computing intervention. Namely, this paper
examines whether…
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This brief explores factors that contribute to opportunity gaps in STEM education based on race, ethnicity, gender, ability, and socioeconomic status. It showcases the work of several DR K-12 projects and describes…
Partnership Building as a Broadening-Participation Strategy: Helping Researchers and Developers Bridge the Gaps in STEM Education
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This brief examines the continued underrepresentation of African Americans, Latinos, Native Americans, and women of all racial and ethnic backgrounds in STEM fields; explains the benefits of collaboration around broadening…
Constructing Assessment Tasks that Blend Disciplinary Core Ideas, Crosscutting Concepts, and Science Practices for Classroom Formative Applications
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How do we measure knowledge in use? In this paper we describe how we use principles of evidence-centered design to develop classroom-based science assessments that integrate three dimensions of science proficiency—…
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How can research-based findings and advances help society to re-envision STEM learning and education? This report captures key takeaways, strategies, and challenges identified during the November 2015 workshop, including:…
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This paper traces the research-design-develop-test cycle of a haptically-enhanced science simulation designed to teach upper-elementary students core ideas about matter, phase change, and the role of intermolecular forces…
An exploration of teacher learning from an educative reform-oriented curriculum: Case studies of teacher curriculum use
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This study raises questions and makes suggestions for future educative curriculum development and teacher preparation.
Educative curriculum materials provide teachers with authentic opportunities to…
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In this study, we surveyed 42 middle school science teachers and conducted follow-up interviews with 25 to investigate the factors that teachers believe impact their argumentation instruction.
Science…
Learning in a community of practice: Factors impacting English-learning students’ engagement in scientific argumentation
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This case study uses the conceptual framework of communities of practice to investigate the relationship between English-learning students' argumentation and their middle school sheltered English immersion (SEI) science…
Pedagogical content knowledge of argumentation: Using classroom contexts to assess high quality PCK rather than pseudoargumentation
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In this paper, we present lessons learned from a development process to conceptualize, design, and pilot a measure of teachers' PCK of argumentation.
Despite the recent emphasis on science practices,…
Scientific argumentation for all? Comparing teacher beliefs about argumentation in high, mid and low SES schools
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In this study we explored the scientific argumentation beliefs of teachers in low, mid, and high SES schools.
Ensuring all students have opportunities to engage in scientific argumentation is a key goal…
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This study investigates the models of elementary content specialization (ECS) in elementary mathematics and science and the affordances and constraints related to ECS—both generally and in relation to specific models…
STEM starts early: Grounding science, technology, engineering, and math education in early childhood
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This report summarizes the latest research findings on the importance and impact of early STEM across the child's ecological systems, as well as the critical importance of framing communications about early STEM in an…
Using students' conceptions of air to evaluate a guided-inquiry activity classifying matter using particulate models
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This paper describes a guided-inquiry activity designed for the first week of a first-year high school chemistry course.
This paper describes a guided-inquiry activity designed for the first week of a…
Tool Trouble: Challenges with using self-report data to evaluate long-term chemistry teacher professional development
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The purpose of this study was to compare the ability of different instruments, independently developed and traditionally used for measuring science teachers’ beliefs in short-term interventions, to longitudinally measure…
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Kinematics is a topic students are unknowingly aware of well before entering the physics classroom. Students observe motion on a daily basis. They are constantly interpreting and making sense of their observations,…
No teacher is an island: Bridging the gap between teacher’s professional practice and research findings
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This paper outlines some key considerations for developing productive teacher collaborations and provides examples of teacher PD programs that have successfully brought chemistry education research faculty and high school…
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When asked what plants need for photosynthesis, many students can correctly recall the reaction equation and state that plants require CO2, H2O, and light. Many students, however, do not understand that these reactants are…
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This report describes how particulate diagrams were incorporated in a high school chemistry course, provides a rubric developed for assessing students’ particulate drawings, and summarizes the impact of particulate-level…
Tool trouble: Challenges with Using Self-Report Data to Evaluate Long-Term Chemistry Teacher Professional Development
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The purpose of this study was to compare the ability of different instruments, independently developed and traditionally used for measuring science teachers’ beliefs in short-term interventions, to longitudinally measure…
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No longer only for the elite, a new generation of science high schools could help low-income and minority students get better jobs.
No longer only for the elite, a new generation of science high schools…
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This Sprout Pro in a classroom handbook is designed to give you a starting point for integrating Sprout Pro into your learning environment and igniting your students’ creativity.
Sprout Pro was…
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The authors evaluated the effects of P-SELL, a science curricular and professional development intervention for fifth-grade students with a focus on English language learners (ELLs). Using a randomized controlled trial…
Elementary teachers’ science knowledge and instructional practices: Impact of an intervention focused on English language learners
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As part of a three-year curricular and professional development intervention focused on English language learners (ELLs), this study examined the intervention's effect on teachers' science knowledge and instructional…
School Resources in Teaching Science to Diverse Student Groups: An Intervention’s Effect on Elementary Teachers’ Perceptions
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Elementary school teachers’ perceptions of school resources (i.e., material, human, and social) for teaching science to diverse student groups were examined across three school districts from one state. As part of a 3-year…
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In this exploratory study, we present typologies that represent two primary challenges teachers faced in developing coherent conceptual storylines in their lesson design, and examine the extent to which professional…
Practice What You Teach: A Video-Based Practicum Model of Professional Development for Elementary Science Teachers
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This study examines an innovative professional development program that provides teachers with an opportunity to practice pedagogical strategies in a low stakes classroom context.
This study examines an…
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This article describes a new open-source systems modeling tool called SageModeler and a curricular approach designed to support students and teachers in engaging in systems modeling.
Systems are a…
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This study tests that logic model by comparing the high school experiences and achievement of students in ISHSs and comparison schools in North Carolina.
The logic underlying inclusive STEM high schools…
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In this study, we analyze log data to examine the granularity of students’ interactions with automated scores and feedback and investigate the association between various students’ behaviors and their science performance…
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There is an urgent need to develop appropriate instruments to measure student engagement in math and science for the fields of research and practice. The present study developed and validated student- and teacher-report…
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In this study, we conducted in-depth interviews with 106 students from sixth to twelfth grade and 34 middle and high school teachers about how they conceptualized math and science engagement and disengagement…