TERC researchers are collaborating with STEM educators, curriculum/software developers, scientists, social scientists, and statisticians to explore:

• how large scientific and social scientific data sets could provide a vehicle for secondary students to learn about statistical ideas
• how developing an understanding of statistics could contribute to learning about the science and social science content
• the characteristics of curricular supports and software tools that could promote rigorous engagement with statistical ideas among secondary students

The project builds on the increasing availability of a variety of large data sets, and on students’ inherent interest in data sets related to “hot” topics such as the environment and climate change, the human genome, economic justice issues, space exploration, and medical research.

Through reviewing literature and discussing ideas with advisors and colleagues, the project developed several hypotheses about potential affordances for students in working with large data sets. In the final year of the project, we tested several of these hypotheses by developing activities and using interviews and observations of secondary students engaging with these activities to gather evidence of their potential, analyzing and writing about these interviews, presenting this work at conferences, and submitting a paper about this work to a peer-reviewed journal.

The Undergraduate Science Course Reform Serving Pre-service Teachers: Evaluation of a Faculty Professional Development Model project is informally known as the National Study of Education in Undergraduate Science (NSEUS). This 5-year project focuses on critical needs in the preparation and long-term development of pre-service, undergraduate, K-6 teachers of science. The goal is to investigate the impact on these students of undergraduate, standards-based, reform entry-level science courses developed by faculty in the NASA Opportunities for Visionary Academics (NOVA) professional development model. Twenty reform and 20 comparison undergraduate science courses from a national population of 101 diverse institutions participating in NOVA, stratified by institutional type, were be selected and compared in a professional development impact design model. Data is being collected in extended on-site visits using multiple quantitative and qualitative instruments and analyzed using comparative and relational studies at multiple points in the impact design model. Criteria for success of the project will be determined by conclusions drawn from the research questions; including evidence and effect sizes of short-term impacts on undergraduate students and long-term effects on graduated in-service teachers in their own classroom science teaching; identification of characteristics of undergraduate reformed courses that produce significant impacts; identification of characteristics of effective faculty, and effective dissemination.