Teacher residency academies (TRAs) are gaining attention as a powerful tool for teacher preparation and professional development; however, there is a lack of empirical study demonstrating their merit. The goal of the Teacher Residency Academy Alliance (TRA2) - a partnership among Jackson State University, the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, Xavier University of Louisiana, and seven diverse urban and rural school districts in Mississippi and Louisiana - is to investigate the implementation of a TRA model to recruit, license, induct, employ, and retain 28 middle school and secondary science teachers for high-need schools that serve more than 119,000 diverse students. The Alliance will accomplish its goal by completing the following specific objectives: create a high quality, rigorous, and clinically-based teacher preparation program for aspiring middle and secondary science teachers; recruit, prepare, employ, and support an increased number of diverse (e.g., African American), effective middle and secondary science educators in high-need urban and rural schools; and contribute to the knowledge base regarding the implementation of a clinically-based science teacher preparation for middle and secondary classrooms in diverse schools. The project will enable one cohort of 28 teachers to successfully complete the TRA2 program and obtaining state licensure/certification in science teaching, a master's degree, and initiation to National Board certification.

The project's focus on middle school and secondary science helps make TRA2 unique in its approach to increase the number of high quality, culturally responsive, and licensed middle and secondary science teachers prepared to teach in the nation's high-need urban and rural schools. Project outcomes of this two year project are expected to inform the design of additional TRAs that will serve as a novel alternative to the traditional teacher preparation and post-baccalaureate certification programs common throughout the nation.

The study design will be formative. The data obtained through surveys of teachers, district leaders, and principals, telephone interviews of mentors, and from extant data, will provide important information regarding the implementation of TRA2.

The School Organization and Science Achievement (SOSA) Project will document factors explaining variations in science achievement across schools enrolling ethnically and linguistically diverse students. The research question is: what leadership and organizational features at the school level are associated with mitigating science achievement gaps? Previous school effectiveness studies demonstrate school leadership and social capital influencing student achievement; the SOSA project is unique with its focus on science achievement. Researchers at the University of Connecticut and the University of South Florida St. Petersburg, in collaboration with school districts in their respective states, will identify school leadership practices that can be connected with reductions in achievement gaps related to student ethnicity, English fluency, and social status. At the conclusion of the five-year project, the findings will take the form of recommendations about leadership practices and school organization that can be implemented in other school settings.

The project uses a mixed methods design by combining statistical modeling and qualitative data. Multiple regression analyses highlight those schools populated by fifth graders that have greater or lesser achievement gaps in science. Using social capital theory (i.e., school norms, communication channels, and trustworthiness) comparisons of positive and negative outlier schools will be made via interviews of building principals, classroom teachers and community representatives. The expectation is that schools providing more equitable science experiences to all students will exhibit stronger social capital compared to buildings with disparities in science test scores across demographic categories. These insights will be supplemented by multilevel structural equation modeling to determine the strength of association between various school climate measures (e.g., teacher-to-principal trust, correspondence between teacher and principal perceptions of leadership, and school/community ties) and science achievement as measured by statewide fifth grade science tests. In addition, growth analyses will be used to detect shifts over time and provide insights about the links between policy changes or leadership adjustments, inasmuch as science achievement gaps are affected.

By working with 150 schools in two states, this collaborative research project is designed to generate findings applicable in other school systems. Particularly in settings where science achievement gaps are large, and especially when such gaps vary between schools even when the student populations are similar, the findings from this study will have practical leadership implications. Expertise in this project includes science education, educational leadership, and statistical modeling. This complementary combination increases the depth of the project's efforts along with expanding its potential impacts. Key questions addressed by this project include: to what extent is leadership in science similar to or different from leadership in other subject areas? how do variations in leadership design (e.g., top-down versus distributed leadership) contribute to reductions in science achievement gaps? to what degree can effective leadership mitigate other factors that exacerbate the challenges of providing high quality science learning experiences for every child? Findings will be disseminated via the SOSA Project website, along with leadership development strategies. Deliverables include templates to replicate the study, case studies for professional development, and strategies for supporting the development of science teacher-leaders.

This project--led by science educators at Michigan State University, the National Geographic Society, the Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory (NREL) at Colorado State University, the Berkeley Evaluation and Assessment Research (BEAR) Center, and AAAS Project 2061, and including schools in California, Colorado, Maryland, Michigan, and Washington--builds on prior efforts with learning progressions, and is focused on key carbon-transforming processes in socio-ecological systems at multiple scales, including cellular and organismal metabolism, ecosystem energetics and carbon cycling, carbon sequestration, and combustion of fossil fuels.

The project uses an iterative design research process to develop and refine a suite of tools for reasoning and test efficacy of those tools in geographically and culturally diverse schools. The project team is:

1. Refining and validating a detailed learning progression framework covering the middle and high school years; ultimately, the framework will describe the development of students' capacity to use fundamental principles such as conservation of matter and energy to reason about carbon-transforming processes at multiple scales.

2. Refining 'Tools for Reasoning' that make hidden scientific principles - matter, energy, and scale - visible to students; the power of these tools lies in their flexible use for different processes, systems, scales, and curricular contexts.

3. Developing and refining flexible teaching strategies that engage students in cognitive apprenticeship in the practices of environmental science literacy: a) inquiry and argumentation, b) explanations and predictions, and c) decision-making about environmental issues.

4. Using and refining existing summative assessments, and developing and testing formative assessment tools; these assessment tools will provide teachers and researchers with immediate information about their students' intellectual resources and will be linked to the learning progression framework.

5. Developing, field testing, and assessing the effectiveness of six middle school and six high school units that use project tools and enact project principles; the units introduce students to fundamental principles, engage them in reasoning about carbon-transforming processes at organismal scale, and at landscape and global scales. Each unit includes a) an online formative assessment and b) activity sequences that use tools for reasoning and teaching strategies.

6. Developing, field testing, and assessing professional development materials in both face-to-face and facilitated online forms; the materials introduce teachers to learning progressions in environmental science literacy, assessment tools, tools for reasoning, teaching strategies, and teaching materials and activities, and also address difficulties that teachers encounter in using learning progressions and enacting teaching strategies.

The primary project outcomes will be coordinated instructional tools that are useful to professionals at all levels in the science education system--classroom teachers, professional developers, and developers of curricula, standards and assessments.

This is an efficacy study through which the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, the Denver Zoo, the Denver Botanic Gardens, and three of Denver's urban school districts join efforts to determine if partnerships among formal and informal organizations demonstrate an appropriate infrastructure for improving science literacy among urban middle school science students. The Metropolitan Denver Urban Advantage (UA Denver) program is used for this purpose. This program consists of three design elements: (a) student-driven investigations, (b) STEM-related content, and (c) alignment of schools and informal science education institutions; and six major components: (a) professional development for teachers, (b) classroom materials and resources, (c) access to science-rich organizations, (d) outreach to families, (e) capacity building and sustainability, and (e) program assessment and student learning. Three research questions guide the study: (1) How does the participation in the program affect students' science knowledge, skills, and attitudes toward science relative to comparison groups of students? (2) How does the participation in the program affect teachers' science knowledge, skills, and abilities relative to comparison groups of teachers? and (3) How do families' participation in the program affect their engagement in and support for their children's science learning and aspirations relative to comparison families?

The study's guiding hypothesis is that the UA Denver program should improve science literacy in urban middle school students measured by (a) students' increased understanding of science, as reflected in their science investigations or "exit projects"; (b) teachers' increased understanding of science and their ability to support students in their exit projects, as documented by classroom observations, observations of professional development activities, and surveys; and (c) school groups' and families' increased visits to participating science-based institutions, through surveys. The study employs an experimental research design. Schools are randomly assigned to either intervention or comparison groups and classrooms will be the units of analysis. Power analysis recommended a sample of 18 intervention and 18 comparison middle schools, with approximately 72 seventh grade science teachers, over 5,000 students, and 12,000 individual parents in order to detect differences among intervention and comparison groups. To answer the three research questions, data gathering strategies include: (a) students' standardized test scores from the Colorado Student Assessment Program, (b) students' pre-post science learning assessment using the Northwest Evaluation Association's Measures for Academic Progress (science), (c) students' pre-post science aspirations and goals using the Modified Attitude Toward Science Inventory, (d) teachers' fidelity of implementation using the Teaching Science as Inquiry instrument, and (e) classroom interactions using the Science Teacher Inquiry Rubric, and the Reformed Teaching Observation protocol. To interpret the main three levels of data (students, nested in teachers, nested within schools), hierarchical linear modeling (HLM), including HLM6 application, are utilized. An advisory board, including experts in research methodologies, science, informal science education, assessment, and measurement oversees the progress of the study and provides guidance to the research team. An external evaluator assesses both formative and summative aspects of the evaluation component of the scope of work.

The key outcome of the study is a research-informed and field-tested intervention implemented under specific conditions for enhancing middle school science learning and teaching, and supported by partnerships between formal and informal organizations.

Research on student learning has developed separate progressions for scientific argumentation, explanation and scientific modeling. Engaging Learners in Scientific Practices develops a learning progression that characterizes how learners integrate and interrelate scientific argumentation, explanation and scientific modeling, building ever more sophisticated versions of practice over time using the three common elements of sense-making, persuading peers and developing consensus. The learning progression is constructed through improvements in students' performance and understanding of scientific practice as measured by their attention to generality of explanation, attention to clarity of communication and audience understanding, attention to evidentiary support, and attention to mechanistic versus descriptive accounts. The project is led by researchers at Northwestern University, the University of Texas, Wright State University, Michigan State University, and the BEAR assessment group. Two cohorts of 180 students each are followed for two years from 4th to 5th grade in Illinois and two cohorts of 180 students each are followed for two years from 5th to 6th grade in Michigan The elementary school students will work with FOSS curriculum units modified to embed supports for scientific practices. Two cohorts of 500 middle school students are followed for three years from 6th to 8th grade as they work with coordinated IQWST units over three years. The outcome measures include analyses of classroom discourse, pre- and pos-test assessments of student learning, and reflective interviews grounded in students' own experiences with practices in the classroom to assess their growth across the dimensions. The BEAR team is responsible for validation and calibration of the frameworks and instruments, and design of the scheme for analysis of the data. Horizon Research performs the formative and summative evaluation. The project will produce an empirically-tested learning progression for scientific practices for grades 4-8 along with tested curriculum materials and validated assessment items that support and measure students' ability in the scientific practices of explanation, argumentation and modeling. In the process of development, an understanding is gained about how to design and test this learning progression. The framework is articulated on a website for use by other researchers and developers. The project also builds capacity by educating several graduate students.

This exploratory project, led by faculty at the University of Montana, Michigan State University, and the University of Arizona, collaborating with teachers from the Missoula, MT schools, builds on current learning progression research to study the effects of teaching Tools for Reasoning on development of middle school students' capacities to understand the Earth's hydrologic systems. The project applies a design-based research approach using iterative cycles of Tool design/revision, teacher workshops, and small-scale pilot tests of Tools through classroom experiments with teachers and students in Montana and Arizona.

The central research question being addressed is: How can learning progression-based Reasoning Tools support students in using models and representations to engage in principled reasoning about hydrologic systems? This question will be answered by analysis of data from assessments of student learning, student clinical interviews, teacher assessments, classroom observations, and teacher focus groups.

The Reasoning Tools project will contribute insight into the challenge of developing students' environmental science literacy and the reasoning skills needed to make informed citizenship decisions about 21st century water issues. Project outcomes will include materials for teaching middle school students to reason about hydrologic systems, theoretical and practical insights into the effects of teaching Tools for Reasoning, strategies for supporting students and teachers in use of the Tools, and refinements of a water systems learning progression framework.

The Measurement Approach to Rational Number (MARN) project is a collaborative effort by faculty at New York University, Iowa State University, and the Illinois Institute of Technology that is designing, developing, and testing an innovative approach to elementary students' learning in the critical areas of multiplicative reasoning, fractions, and proportional reasoning. The project team is building on the successful El'Konin-Davydov (E-D) elementary mathematics curriculum that originated in Russia to develop a curriculum framework that can be implemented in U. S. schools.

The MARN project addresses five core research questions about how rational number learning can be developed from a measurement perspective and how sociocultural theory and constructivism can contribute to design of effective learning trajectories based on that perspective. The project begins with careful analysis of the E-D curriculum embodied in Russian mathematics materials, of classroom data from a Hawaii implementation of the E-D curriculum, and of relevant prior curriculum development projects in other U. S. contexts. Work is proceeding from development of an initial curriculum framework through intensive teaching experiments to implementation and modification of the framework in the course of classroom design experiments.

The ultimate product of the research and development effort will be a rational number learning progression consisting of carefully articulated and sequenced learning goals. The curriculum framework will also include mathematical tasks to foster learning of each concept, description of predicted student learning in the context of the tasks, a set of assessment items related to each concept, and guidelines for relevant teacher interventions. Thus, the framework will provide a foundation for development of curriculum units.

This proposal outlines a research and development project that investigates how complex systems concepts supported by innovative curricular resources, technology applications and a comprehensive research and development structure can assist student learning in the domain of biology by providing a unifying theme across scales of time and space. The project seeks to address four areas of critical need in STEM education: biological sciences, complex systems, computational modeling, and equal access for all. This proposal explores how these needs are addressed through a curricular and technological intervention that structures biology learning through the framework of complex systems and computational modeling. The primary partners are the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Pennsylvania, working with eight teachers in four schools in the Boston area.

The project integrates graphical programming and simulation software, StarLogo TNG, into the standard high school biology curriculum to improve learning of biology concepts through the introduction and understanding of core complex systems processes. Instead of learning biology in discrete chunks, the chosen biological topics are connected through the framework of complex systems, and successively build in complexity from the basic building blocks of life to the interdependence and sustainability of life forms. This approach is designed to help students understand how processes at one level are connected to those at another level. The research is designed to answer the following questions: 1. Does a learning progression based on the complex systems ideas of scale and emergence enable students to make connections across biological topics, remediate known misconceptions, and apply core complex systems principles better than traditional instructional sequences? 2. What are the on-going affordances and constraints of implementation taking into consideration structural, functional and behavioral variables and what changes to project activities yield increased implementation and learning capacities? 3. Does programming of simulations increase understanding of complex systems and biology concepts compared to use of previously constructed simulations? The evaluation is designed to collect data and provide feedback on the adherence to the plan, the implementation challenged, and how research informs development.

The project anticipates a number of deliverables towards the end of the project and beyond. These include the creation of a unified high school biology curricular sequence that builds in increasing spatial and temporal scales to deepen student understanding of four core biology topics; the production, implementation and testing of curricular activities that acknowledge and ameliorate known implementation challenges; and the development of curricular strategies and tools to help teachers and students improve knowledge and skills in computational modeling, computer programming and participation in the cyberinfrastructure. In order to increase ease of integration into schools, and enhance scalability, the simulation activities are facilitated by a new web-based version of StarLogo TNG that integrates the curricular materials all of which will be distributed freely. Additional dissemination strategies include a website, conferences, a newsletter, community activities, active dissemination, and academic presentations.

This project is a collaborative effort involving scientists, science educators, and teachers from TERC, Clark University, Tufts University,and urban Massachusetts schools that aims to develop a grade 3-5 Learning Progression that will provide a coherent approach to teaching energy in elementary school and lay a strong foundation for further learning in middle school. The work draws on and complements the learning progression and curriculum for matter developed and tested in the Inquiry Project (NSF award 0628245). The project will identify a network of core concepts and principles about energy that are fundamental and general enough to be compatible with scientific ideas about energy, yet within reach of 5th graders.

This project explores the hypothesis that, while the scientific concept of energy is too abstract and difficult to understand in early grades, useful foundations can be established early on by elaborating a learning progression for energy. Clinical interviews will be administered to 24 pairs of 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders recruited from urban after-school programs, to identify precursors to the core ideas as well obstacles to learning them. This research will help the investigators design key learning experiences that could allow students to progress from initial ideas toward a scientific understanding of energy. Those learning designs will then be tested in teaching interviews with 3 small groups of students in the same settings.

The result of the project will be an outline for a grade 3-5 learning progression for energy taking into account the project research findings as well as relevant standards, curricula, and science education literature.