Middle

Creating Inclusive PreK–12 STEM Learning Environments

Cadre-Admin — Mon, 29 Oct 2018 17:05:15 +0000

Creating Inclusive PreK–12 STEM Learning Environments

Broadening participation in PreK–12 STEM provides ALL students with STEM learning experiences that can prepare them for civic life and the workforce. In this way, broadening participation has the potential to transform society by reducing social and economic inequities, and by bringing new knowledge to scientific problems and solutions.

Schools, districts, and states must take deliberate action to broaden participation and create inclusive learning environments. These actions will vary at each level of the education system. This brief highlights steps for education decision-makers to take to improve STEM education for ALL students.

READ THE BRIEF

Learn more about the broadening participation topical group members and contributors, and their projects.

SUGGESTED CITATION: Powell, A., Nielsen, N., Butler, M., Buxton, C., Johnson, O., Ketterlin-Geller, L, McCulloch, C., (2018). Creating Inclusive PreK–12 STEM Learning Environments. Waltham, MA: Education Development Center. Retrieved from /resources/broadening-participation-policy-practice-brief.

Cadre-Admin Mon, 10/29/2018 - 13:05

Designing and Implementing Data Lessons in Secondary Education

Cadre-Admin — Thu, 29 Jan 2026 13:36:18 +0000

Designing and Implementing Data Lessons in Secondary Education

This study examines how secondary teachers incorporated the six-phase Data Investigation Process (Lee et al., 2022) into classroom lessons following a professional learning experience. Analysis of 13 lesson plans, interviews, and survey responses revealed that while most lessons addressed multiple phases, few supported full engagement across all six. Framing the Problem was the most consistently attended-to phase, often grounded in authentic contexts and clear investigative questions. In contrast, Explore and Visualize was less developed, frequently limited by specific learning goals constraints. Lessons that integrated technology, especially CODAP, were more likely to support deeper student exploration and reasoning. Findings underscore the need for thoughtful instructional design.

Cadre-Admin Thu, 01/29/2026 - 08:36

https://uni-muenster.sciebo.de/s/G4Czt8A6BL4oygf?dir=/&editing=false&openfile=t…

The Data Investigation Process Classroom Poster

Cadre-Admin — Wed, 28 Jan 2026 20:28:39 +0000

The Data Investigation Process Classroom Poster

When assisting students in a data investigation, it can be useful to help them develop key ways of thinking and dispositions that are helpful in developing expertise in conducting data investigations like a statistician or data scientist. It can be useful for students to see a reminder of this process and key considerations. This poster version of the Data Investigation Process that can be used in your classroom for this purpose.

Cadre-Admin Wed, 01/28/2026 - 15:28

https://cdn.instepwithdata.org/DataInvestigationProcessPoster.pdf

The Data Investigation Process

Cadre-Admin — Wed, 28 Jan 2026 20:03:40 +0000

The Data Investigation Process

Today, the ability to make sense of data is essential. K-12 students need educational experiences that can assist them in developing data literacy for global citizenry, and career and college pathways related to statistics and data science (e.g., Engel, 2017; Gould, 2017). Statistics and practices with data are included in standards and goals across the K-12 curriculum. Science puts a heavy emphasis on reasoning from and with data to understand scientific phenomena. English and Social Studies include ensuring data and appropriate visualizations are used to support arguments as well as to understand historical trends, and often inequities, in social structures of our world. Mathematics curricula emphasize measurement data and graphic displays in elementary grades and a strong focus on statistics and probability from grades 6-12. Throughout K-12, students should develop a practice of using data in investigations of real-world phenomena through processes that will prepare them to be data-literate citizens and open doors for data-intensive career pathways in sciences, technology, engineering, journalism, medicine, sports analytics, business, mathematics, statistics, and data science.

Cadre-Admin Wed, 01/28/2026 - 15:03

https://cdn.instepwithdata.org/DataInvestigationProcess.pdf

Designing Online Professional Learning to Support Advances in Teaching Strategies in Statistics and Data Science

Cadre-Admin — Wed, 28 Jan 2026 19:42:53 +0000

Designing Online Professional Learning to Support Advances in Teaching Strategies in Statistics and Data Science

This paper describes the design of an innovative online platform that has over 50 hours of learning experiences to support educators in further advancing their understandings and pedagogical skills in teaching statistics and data science to learners age 11-18+. Two frameworks are described that support effective classroom practices: a Data Investigation Process and Seven Dimensions of Teaching Statistics and Data Science. Examples of features and interface designs are included to illustrate how the frameworks work together to support teachers' learning in a cohesive way, even as they personalize their experience and engage in different learning pathways.

Cadre-Admin Wed, 01/28/2026 - 14:42

https://uni-muenster.sciebo.de/s/Dt99KYP89NFSxoa?dir=/&editing=false&openfile=t…

Examining Teachers’ Professional Learning in an Online Asynchronous System: Personalized Supports for Growth and Engagement in Learning to Teach Statistics and Data Science

Cadre-Admin — Wed, 28 Jan 2026 19:22:42 +0000

Examining Teachers’ Professional Learning in an Online Asynchronous System: Personalized Supports for Growth and Engagement in Learning to Teach Statistics and Data Science

Teachers’ professional learning often includes online components. This study examined how a case of 37 teachers utilized a specific online asynchronous professional learning platform designed to support teachers’ growth in learning to teach statistics and data science in secondary schools in the United States. The platform’s features and learning materials were designed based on effective online learning designs, supports for self-guided learning, and research on the teaching and learning of statistics and data science. We paid particular attention to the features we designed into the platform to support self-regulation and personalizing the experiences to meet their preferred learning goals such as allowing for free choice of learning materials, flexibility of when and how long to engage, providing personal recommendations based on user input, internal systems to track progress, and generating certificates of completion. In this study, we used a case study with both quantitative and qualitative data to examine whether teachers had gains in meeting learning goals related to their development in teaching statistics and data science, had sustained engagement, and found the features for personalization supportive for their learning. Results showed, overall, positive growth towards meeting learning goals and making small changes towards improved classroom practice. Most teachers were generally engaged in sustained ways across the study period, though we found six different patterns of completion that highlight ways in which teachers’ goal-directed and self-regulated learning occurred within the busy schedules of educators. Several personalized features, especially the recommendations and tracking system, were highly utilized and perceived as supportive of teachers’ learning.

Cadre-Admin Wed, 01/28/2026 - 14:22

https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7102/14/11/1236

The Value of Video Annotations: Noticing Different Modes and Aspects of Student Thinking

Cadre-Admin — Tue, 27 Jan 2026 22:30:50 +0000

The Value of Video Annotations: Noticing Different Modes and Aspects of Student Thinking

The purpose of this study is to explore if and how different types of video annotations support pre-service teachers (PSTs) in learning how to notice student multimodal, or verbal and non-verbal, mathematical thinking. We implemented a video club intervention in a middle grades mathematics methods class. We asked PSTs to annotate classroom videos using two types of annotations. The first type was a pinning tool, which allowed the PSTs to mark video timestamps. The second type was a drawing tool, which allowed PSTs to draw directly on the video. We found that when PSTs used the pin tool, they largely attended to students' verbal thinking. In contrast, with the draw tool, PSTs began to attend to more of students' non-verbal thinking. When PSTs attended to verbal student thinking, they mostly interpreted it in terms of students' disciplinary understanding. When PSTs attended to non-verbal thinking, they reasoned about additional aspects of student thinking including affect, communication goals, and students' processes for learning the content. These findings have implications for PD design that supports teachers in expanding their multimodal noticing.

Walton, M., Moon, P., & Walkoe, J. (2026). The value of video annotations: Noticing different modes and aspects of student thinking. School Science and Mathematics. https://doi.org/10.1111/ssm.70009

Cadre-Admin Tue, 01/27/2026 - 17:30

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ssm.70009

NERIF: GPT-4V for Automatic Scoring of Drawn Models

Cadre-Admin — Mon, 15 Dec 2025 23:15:21 +0000

NERIF: GPT-4V for Automatic Scoring of Drawn Models

Engaging students in scientific modeling practice is critical for developing their competence in using scientific knowledge to explain phenomena and design solutions. Student-drawn models are frequently used to investigate students’ proficiency in scientific modeling. However, scoring student-drawn models is time-consuming and requires technical expertise. The recently released GPT-4V(ision) provides a unique opportunity to facilitate the automatic scoring of scientific models with its image classification capability. To utilize GPT-4V for automatic scoring, we developed Notation-Enhanced Rubric Instruction for Few-Shot Learning (NERIF), a method that employs instructional notes and scoring rubrics. We randomly sampled a set of balanced data (N = 900) of models drawn by middle school students for six science modeling tasks. Each model was classified by GPT-4V into one of three categories: “Beginning,” “Developing,” Or “Proficient.” GPT-4V’s classifications were compared with human experts’ consent labeling. Results show that GPT-4V’s average scoring accuracy was mean = 0.51 (SD = 0.037). Specifically, average scoring accuracy was 0.64 for the Beginning category, 0.62 for the Developing class, and 0.26 for the Proficient class, indicating that the more complex student-drawn models become, the more challenging they are to score. A qualitative analysis further revealed how GPT-4V (a) retrieves information from image input, (b) identifies characteristics of student-drawn models and describes them, and (c) refers to the scoring rubric and instructional notes to assign scores. This study suggests that utilizing GPT-4V with the NERIF method for the automatic scoring of student-drawn models in science education is promising, though improving scoring accuracy remains an important challenge.

Lee, G. & Zhai, X. (2025). NERIF: GPT-4V for automatic scoring of drawn models. Journal of Science Education and Technology. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10956-025-10262-9

Cadre-Admin Mon, 12/15/2025 - 18:15

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10956-025-10262-9

Middle School Students’ Meanings of Points from Quantitative and Covariational Reasoning Perspectives

Cadre-Admin — Mon, 15 Dec 2025 23:08:30 +0000

Middle School Students’ Meanings of Points from Quantitative and Covariational Reasoning Perspectives

We examine the meanings students give to points when they are graphing relationships between quantities in dynamic, experiential contexts. Using data from teaching experiments with middle-grades students, we illustrate two main categories of meanings: iconic and quantitative. We then introduce four distinct subcategories of meanings: (a) iconic and transformed iconic translations (a point represents an object or location), (b) nonunited points (a point represents a single quantity’s magnitude), (c) spatial-quantitative multiplicative objects (a point is an object or location with quantitative properties), and (d) quantitative multiplicative objects in conventional and nonconventional planes (a point represents two quantities’ magnitudes). We discuss the implications of these meanings for research, teaching, and curriculum development.

Tasova, H. I. & Moore, K. C. (2025). Middle school students’ meanings of points from quantitative and covariational reasoning perspectives. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 56(5), 233–258. https://doi.org/10.5951/jresematheduc-2023-0178

Cadre-Admin Mon, 12/15/2025 - 18:08

https://pubs.nctm.org/view/journals/jrme/56/5/article-p233.xml

Interrogating Whiteness in Mathematics Education Research: A Discourse Analysis of Storylines About Latiné Communities

Cadre-Admin — Mon, 15 Dec 2025 22:50:39 +0000

Interrogating Whiteness in Mathematics Education Research: A Discourse Analysis of Storylines About Latiné Communities

Society produces storylines about Latiné communities, including their placement in racial and linguistic hierarchies, that permeate the mathematics classroom and research in mathematics education. We conducted a discourse analysis of the enunciations used in top-tier mathematics education journals about these communities. The majority of articles we examined functioned to maintain white supremacy by centering dominant (white) storylines and values to maintain a racial hierarchy, with whites above Latiné and other marginalized groups. However, our findings also illuminate the counter-stories of Latiné communities in mathematics education research literature. We call for a more critical look at the field of mathematics education research and the norms that have been set for conducting, disseminating, and reflecting on research endeavors about marginalized groups.

Jones, S. R. & Gómez Marchant, C. N. (2025). Interrogating whiteness in mathematics education research: A discourse analysis of storylines about Latiné communities. Journal for Research in Mathematics, 56(5), 283–303. https://doi.org/10.5951/jresematheduc-2021-0093

Cadre-Admin Mon, 12/15/2025 - 17:50

https://pubs.nctm.org/view/journals/jrme/56/5/article-p283.xml