Educational Technology

This exploratory project supports the professional development of secondary STEM teachers by providing multiyear training around three specific areas: (1) environmental sciences themed content; (2) technology integration in the classroom, and (3) classroom-based action research within action research communities. Using virtual reality to focus on wetlands and their connection to flooding brings locally relevant STEM concepts in a real-world context that is relatable to minoritized teachers and students living in these areas.

STRIDES supports teachers to customize the curriculum to address diverse students' evolving ideas and achieve the multi-dimensional proficiency called for by the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). STRIDES catalyzes a new approach to teachers' curriculum customization. STRIDES will improve the evidence teachers have to make customization decisions by collaborating with the Educational Testing Service (ETS) to advance natural language processing (NLP) methods.

The SDLC project has developed and studied curriculum modules for non-AP high school statistics to promote interest and skills in statistical thinking and data analysis among diverse high school populations. Modules engage students with social-justice-themed data investigations using large-scale socioeconomic data from the U.S. Census Bureau and student-friendly online data visualization tools. Current study findings show growth in student interest and skills in statistical thinking and data analysis following module use.

SimSnap enables students to investigate how different environmental and genetic factors affect the health of a variety of plants and vegetables, by allowing them to seamlessly move between individual and collaborative work with peers by snapping their tablets together (by placing them next to each other) to create a single shared simulation that spans all their devices. Students then leverage these inquiry activities to support their design and building of a real community garden.

A challenge in teaching real-world computational thinking is that the thought process of solving a concrete problem can easily escalate into a complex mental model consisting of many abstract, intertwined moving parts that are often difficult for students to imagine and think through, preventing them from sorting out a solution and building up self-efficacy. Externalizing such a complicated mental process step by step through drawing representational diagrams piece by piece can be cognitively offloading.

The broader goal of our DRK-12 project is to develop and test whether simulated classroom experience with students with disabilities can improve elementary general educators' preparedness to support these students in mathematics. To support the tools' development, we have interviewed 22 leading mathematics and special educators to unearth tensions and points of convergence in how the respective fields conceptualize mathematics instruction. The poster will discuss implications of these findings for teacher preparation and development.

Every student should have the chance to experience the exciting practice of science. But far too often, students encounter only highly structured “cookbook” labs in their science classrooms. InquirySpace combines a software environment that integrates sensors, simulations, and data exploration capabilities with instructional guidance, and helps students move from fundamental data analysis and scaffolded experiments to open experiments of their own design.

Co-PI(s): Daniel Damelin and Hee-Sun Lee, Concord Consortium; Sam Gweon, Physics Front

We share the conception, design, and some activities from a curriculum based on the use of a global climate model EzGCM in secondary geoscience classrooms. Implemented through the NSF-funded CLiMES (Climate Literacy through Modeling and Epistemology of Science) project, this curriculum facilitated in-depth understanding of climate literacy concepts through model-based reasoning.

Co-PI(s): Mark Chandler, Columbia University