The Center for Technology and School Change (CTSC) at Teachers College, Columbia University and the Center for Environmental Research and Conservation (CERC) at Columbia University's Earth Institute are working in partnership with three STEM focused New York City schools (K-8) to develop a systemic, transformative approach for interdisciplinary STEM teaching and learning. The planned model prepares teachers to design innovative, authentic STEM projects, and supports administrators in leading such efforts.

CTSC has identified key elements of a robust design process to help teachers move from business- as-usual pedagogy to dramatically new practices in content, pedagogy, and technology use. The program also identifies an interdisciplinary STEM perspective, supported with experts from CERC who provide STEM fieldwork expertise as part of the overall design. Moreover, the project creates research and educational collaborations with diverse, community-based groups (e.g., urban nature centers). The project uses a mobile learning platform to leverage social networking among schools, teachers, students, STEM experts, parents and the community.

The goal of the grant is to establish a culture of inquiry with all partners in order to develop interdiciplinary, authentic STEM learning environments. Design-based research provides iterative cycles of implementation to explore and refine the approach as a transformative model for STEM programs. The model supports a sustainable approach by building the capacity of schools to focus on design issues related to content, pedagogy, and leadership.

There is an increasing gap between the use of cyber-enabled resources in schools and the realities of their use by students in out of school settings. This project explores the potential of information and communications technologies (ICT) as cognitive tools for engaging students in scientific inquiry and for enhancing teacher learning. A comprehensive professional development program of over 240 hours, along with follow-up is used to determine how teachers can be supported to use ICT tools effectively in classroom instruction to create meaningful learning experiences for students, reduce the gap between formal and informal learning, and improve student learning outcomes. In the first year, six teachers from school districts in Utah and New York are prepared to become teacher leaders and advisors. Then three cohorts of 30 teachers matched by characteristics are provided professional development and field test units over two years in a delayed-treatment design. Biologists from Utah State University and New York College of Technology develop four modules that meet the science standards for both states -- the first being changes in the environment. Teachers are then guided to develop additional modules. The key technological resource to be used in the project is the Opensimulator 3D application Server (OpenSim), an open source, modular, expandable platform used to create simulated 3D spaces with customizable terrain, weather and physics.

The effects of the professional development program are measured by classroom observations using RTOP and Technology Use in Science Instruction (TUSI), selected interviews of teachers and students, and validated assessments of student learning. An external evaluator assesses the quality of the professional development activity and the quality of the cyber-enabled learning resources and reviews the research design and implementation. An advisory board will monitor the project.

The principal outcome of this project will be insight into the professional development needed to make teachers comfortable teaching with the kinds of multi-user simulations and communication technologies that students use everyday. The enactment with OpenSim also provides an opportunity to demonstrate the level of planning and preparation that go into fashioning modules with selected cyber-enabled cognitive tools such as GoogleEarth and Biologica.

(Note: This project was originally awarded to the Lead Organization, Utah State University under the Award #1020086 and for the Funding Period:  Wed, 09/01/2010 - Mon, 08/31/2015. Due to a change in institution by the PI of the project, a new award was issued: Award # 1258854)

As part of a SAVI, researchers from the U.S. and from Finland will collaborate on investigating the relationships between engagement and learning in STEM transmedia games. The members of U.S. Team for this project come from TERC, WGBH and Northern Illinois University. The project involves two intensive, 5 day workshops to identify new measurement instruments to be integrated into each other's research and development work. The major research question is to what degree learners in the two cultures respond similarly or differently to the STEM learning games.

This workshop, hosted by the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) and the Institute for Computing in Humanities, Arts and the Social Sciences (I-CHASS), convenes leading practitioners and scholars of innovation to collectively consider how education in the US might be reconfigured to both support and teach innovation as a core curriculum mission, with a focus on STEM education. Workshop participants identify and articulate strategies for creating and sustaining learning environments that promise the development of innovative thinking skills, behaviors and dispositions and that reward students, faculty and administrator for practicing and tuning these skills. A wiki or other private online space will be created where participants will be encouraged to continue discussions or comment further on ideas generated over the course of the workshop. Mapping social networks of and among participants provides insights into how innovation practices are shared and spread across relationships and networks. Findings from the workshop will be made available to others through a public web site.

This project supports the development of technological fluency and understanding of STEM concepts through the implementation of design collaboratives that use eCrafting Collabs as the medium within which to work with middle and high school students, parents and the community. The researchers from the University of Pennsylvania and the Franklin Institute combine expertise in learning sciences, digital media design, computer science and informal science education to examine how youth at ages 10-16 and families in schools, clubs, museums and community groups learn together how to create e-textile artifacts that incorporate embedded computers, sensors and actuators. The project investigates the feasibility of implementing these collaboratives using eCrafting via three models of participation, individual, structured group and cross-generational community groups. They are designing a portal through which the collaborative can engage in critique and sharing of their designs as part of their efforts to build a model process by which scientific and engineered product design and analysis can be made available to multiple audiences.

The project engages participants through middle and high school elective classes and through the workshops conducted by a number of different organizations including the Franklin Institute, Techgirlz, the Hacktory and schools in Philadelphia. Participants can engage in the eCrafting Collabs through individual, collective and community design challenges that are established by the project. Participants learn about e-textile design and about circuitry and programming using either ModKit or the text-based Arduino. The designs are shared through the eCrafting Collab portal and participants are required to provide feedback and critique. Researchers are collecting data on learner identity in relation to STEM and computing, individual and collective participation in design and student understanding of circuitry and programming. The project is an example of a scalable intervention to engage students, families and communities in developing technological flexibility.

This research and development project provides a resource that engages students in middle and high schools in technology rich collaborative environments that are alternatives to other sorts of science fairs and robotic competitions. The resources developed during the project will inform how such an informal/formal blend of student engagement might be scaled to expand the experiences of populations of underserved groups, including girls. The study is conducting an examination of the new types of learning activities that are multiplying across the country with a special focus on cross-generational learning.

Ocean Tracks: Investigating Marine Migrations in a Changing Ocean, a collaboration between Education Development Center, Inc. (EDC), and Stanford University's Hopkins Marine Station, is developing a unique model of how to enable high school students to use authentic scientific data via an interactive Web-interface. Ocean Tracks is developing and classroom testing powerful Web-based visualization and analysis tools derived from state-of-the-art knowledge about how to support student inquiry with data. An interactive website provides access to near-real-time and archival data from electronically tagged marine animals, drifting buoys, and Earth-orbiting satellites collected through the Global Tagging of Pelagic Predators, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Adopt-a-Drifter, and MY NASA DATA programs. Powerful Web-based visualization and analysis tools, derived from state-of-the-art knowledge about how to support student inquiry with data, allow students to learn and apply core concepts in ecology, biology, environmental science, earth science, oceanography, and climate science.

Concurrently, agencies such as the NSF, NOAA, and NASA are making significant investments in sophisticated cyberinfrastructures (CI) that will make available a treasure trove of scientific data via the Internet to scientists and educators; there is tremendous potential for this data to transform teaching and learning by engaging students in authentic scientific work. However, modifying expert-data interfaces for use by students and supporting students as they engage in scientific inquiry with data are significant challenges. There is an urgent need for model programs such as Ocean Tracks that instantiate the best knowledge of experienced educators and education researchers, practicing scientists, and technology experts. Ocean Tracks harnesses the promise of emerging CI to engage high school students in the use of data visualization tools to study the movement patterns and habitat usage of marine animals (e.g., sharks, tunas, turtles, seals, and seabirds) in relation to oceanographic variables (e.g., sea surface temperature, chlorophyll, and current speed and direction). The knowledge gained from Ocean Tracks will have broad impact by serving as a model for designing and implementing projects in which students, teachers, and scientists collaborate to conduct scientific research, even in classrooms that are far from the ocean and scientists' laboratories.

Learning Mathematics of the City in The City is an exploratory project that is developing teaching modules that engage high school students in learning mathematics and using the mathematics they learn. Using geo-spatial technologies, students explore their city with the purpose of collecting data they bring back to the formal classroom and use as part of their mathematics lessons. This place-based orientation is helping students connect their everyday and school mathematical thinking.

Researchers are investigating the impact of place-based learning on students' attitudes, beliefs, and self-concepts about mathematics in urban schools. Specifically, researchers want to understand how place-based learning helps students apply mathematics to address questions about their local environment. Researchers are also learning about the opportunities for teaching mathematics using carefully planned lessons enhanced by geo-spatial technologies. Data are being collected through student interviews, classroom observations, student questionnaires, and student work.

As the authors explain, "The use of familiar or engaging contexts is widely accepted as productive in the teaching and learning of mathematics." By working in urban neighborhoods with large populations of low-income families, this exploratory project is illustrating what can be done to engage students in mathematics and mathematical thinking. The products from the project include student materials, software adaptations, lesson plans, and findings from their research. These products enable further experimentation with place-based mathematics learning and lead the way for connecting mathematical activities in school and outside of school.

The desire to better empower high-ability STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) students has contributed in the last two decades to a jump in the creation of selective STEM specialty high schools. These schools devote all of their attention to a student body comprised only of the most talented students, ones who are most likely to be able to learn the most demanding STEM content, reach their STEM learning potential, and pursue postsecondary STEM study and careers. However, there are mixed views on the role that selective STEM specialty schools play in achieving their mission. While commenting on what is known regarding education in the STEM disciplines, a recent National Research Council report entitled "Successful K-12 STEM Education" notes that "there are no systematic data that show whether the highly capable students who attend those schools would have been just as likely to pursue a STEM major or related career or make significant contributions to technology or science if they had attended another type of school." To address the research gap, this impact study addresses the question: Does gaining admission to a selective STEM specialty school improve students' academic success on the SAT, SAT II (Math Level 2), and Advanced Placement exams (Calculus AB, Chemistry, and Physics B)? Other portions of the investigation follow additional student outcomes, including: participation and success in STEM competitions; STEM publications; National Merit scholarships; intentions for postsecondary STEM education and STEM careers; and initial postsecondary STEM education.

This study is based on the most rigorous possible design for the focal topic: a true experimental investigation of outcomes for students from many selective STEM specialty schools. The study is being accomplished through random assignment of equivalent treatment and control groups, and based on enough students to yield statistical power that can produce the most clear causal result possible. Researchers are recruiting all qualified students who apply for admission to 20 selective STEM specialty schools among the approximately 100 such schools currently in the United States. For the class entering in fall 2013, study schools are revising their routine selection process to one of assigning students for acceptance (treatment condition) or not (control condition) through random assignment of qualified applicants. Researchers, then, are following treatment students via their STEM schools and also intensively tracking all control students wherever they continue their secondary education. The study also investigates relative cost-effectiveness for educating high-achieving students in selective STEM schools versus educating them at other schools.

Since there is an acute and growing U.S. shortage of STEM professionals and technicians, it is imperative for the nation's education system to ensure that talented STEM students are reaching their maximum potential and pursuing postsecondary STEM degree programs and careers. As one strategy increasingly being used to address this need is to educate talented STEM students in selective STEM specialty schools, this study is informing considerations of the cost/benefit of directing resources to support such schools.

City College of New York (CUNY) is conducting a 3-year exploratory project to develop and test curricular resources built around handheld mobile technology to study how these materials foster urban middle school student interest and engagement with local biodiversity and the patterns of evolution. The project aims to develop curricular resources for middle school students around Leafsnap, an iPhone tree identification app, through a co-design process; to pilot test curricular resources in the classrooms of three New York middle school teachers; to develop and revise assessment tools to measure student outcomes; and to field-test curricular resources in the classrooms of ten New York middle school teachers and analyze results to determine how the Leafsnap curriculum affects urban middle school student learning of biodiversity and the patterns of evolution. The results will be used to modify and disseminate curriculum online with the Leafsnap app.

During the project's first year, the curricular resources will be used in two East Harlem middle schools. In the second year, the resources will be used in the classrooms of ten New York City (NYC) public middle school teachers. In the third year, these resources will be integrated into a life science for middle school teachers course as part of CUNY's graduate program in secondary science education, a program specifically designed to prepare teacher candidates for careers in NYC public middle schools. Also, in the project's third year, the curricular resources will be disseminated through the Leafsnap website to a wider online audience.

The project advances understanding of underrepresented urban middle school student learning of local biodiversity in a historical evolutionary context by addressing the three major dimensions of the new Framework for K-12 Science Learning: core science content, the practice of science, and concepts that crosscut all scientific disciplines. Pre- and post-treatment clinical interviews with students will be conducted to provide qualitative insights into how use of the Leafsnap curriculum impacts students' understanding and motivation for identifying and organizing tree diversity.

The RISE project is creating curriculum resources for dual language learners (DLLs) in science, technology and engineering (STE). Participants include teachers in pre-K programs in the Boston area selected to target Hispanic and Chinese students and their families. University partners include Tufts, Rutgers, Miami, and Northern Iowa, who will work with ABCD Head Start. An innovative feature is the incorporation of family funds of knowledge as a basis for the curriculum development. There are two research questions. 1. What are the most productive procedures for appropriate application of the full integrated RISE curriculum in Head Start classrooms serving DLL children? 2. What is the impact of the fully integrated RISE curriculum versus the comparison condition on teacher attitudes, classroom instruction, and quality, home-school relationships, and DLL children's STE knowledge and approaches to learning? In years 1 and two, 5 teachers are being supported, with 10 teachers in year 3. Participating parents are 40, 105, and 180 for years 1, 2 and 3. Professional development and mentoring is being provided for the teachers, and parent-teacher discussion groups are facilitating communication.

The research data is based on extensive classroom observations as well as interviews and surveys. For question 2, the project plans a quasi-experimental study of 10 RISE and 8 randomly selected comparison classrooms sampling 10 students in each classroom. Data will be analyzed with ANCOVA. The curriculum will be based on the Massachusetts framework, one of only a few states with pre-K standards. The evaluation will monitor both the progress of the research and development and the dissemination to the target audiences.

The curriculum materials are to be posted on the Tufts University website and a commercial publisher is being sought. Units are to be 6-12 weeks in duration, with a typical classroom engaging approximately four units. With the growing population of DLL students and the recognition that early childhood education in STE makes significant contributions to children's education, this project has the potential for national impacts.