Spotlights on STEM Education Research

CADRE's Spotlights explore important themes in K-12 STEM education research and development by highlighting DRK-12 project contributions, community perspectives, and important resources.

While many of the Spotlights cover cross-cutting topics, such as professional development or culturally relevant instruction, other Spotlights are focused on disciplines or subdisciplines (e.g. computer science, astronomy), STEM practices (e.g. modeling, problem solving), or project design & implementation (e.g. replication, CAREER awards).

Adapting Research Amid COVID-19 (2020)

In this Spotlight, four projects share the changes they made to their questions and/or collection, measurement, and analysis of data in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Conferences and Workshops Organized by DRK-12 Projects (2021)

This Spotlight highlights the work of DRK-12 projects focused on organizing conferences or workshops to advance their work and the STEM education field.

DRK-12 CAREER Awards (2022)

Hear from 27 DRK-12 CAREER Awardees about their work, plus advice on developing a proposal and managing an NSF grant.

DRK-12 Collaborative Projects (2023)

This Spotlight features DRK-12 collaborative projects, provides insight into the affordances and challenges of partnering with multiple organizations, and offers advice for those considering a collaborative proposal.

DRK-12 Impact Studies (2023)

This Spotlight features DRK-12 impact studies that are researching the efficacy or effectiveness of previous work.

Exploratory Research (2022)

This Spotlight features descriptions of DRK-12 funded Exploratory projects and projects that have built on a previously funded Exploratory project, and a blog with more information about this project type, including how it is different from Early-Concept Grants for Exploratory Research (EAGER).

Replication & Building Evidence (2020)

This Spotlight features perspectives, research, and resources related to building evidence in STEM education, particularly by means of replication.

Research-Practice Partnerships (2023)

Read about partnerships between researchers and practitioners to innovate and improve STEM teaching and learning, including how they were formed, the strategies and features they leverage to support equitable work together, and how they've addressed common challenges.