This project, under the Tufts University Center for Engineering Education and Outreach (CEEO) designs, constructs, and field-tests a web-based, online collaborative environment for supporting the teaching and learning of inquiry-based high school physics. Based on prior NSF-funded work on RoboBooks, an interactive digital workbook environment, the team is customizing the platform to include scaffolds and other supports for learning physics, fostering interaction and collaboration within the classroom, and facilitating a design-based approach to scientific experiments. The InterLACE team hypothesizes that technology seamlessly integrating physics content and process skills within a classroom learning activity will provide a wide variety of student benefits, ranging from improved learning outcomes and increased content knowledge to gains in attitudinal and social displays as well.

The hypothesis for this work is based on research that indicates teachers believe proper implementation of design-based, inquiry projects are time consuming and can be difficult to manage and facilitate in classrooms without great scaffolding or other supports. Using design-based research with a small number of teachers and students, the PIs iteratively develop the system and supporting materials and generate a web-based implementation that supports students through the various stages of design inquiry. A quasi-experimental trial in the final years of the project is used to determine the usability of the technology and efficacy of the system in enhancing teaching and learning. Through the tools and activities developed, the researchers anticipate showing increases in effective inquiry learning and enhanced accessibility to meet the needs of diverse learners and teachers, leading to changes in classroom practice.

Through this project the PIs (1) gain insights that will enable them to refine the InterLACE platform so it can be implemented and brought to scale in the near terms as a support for design-based inquiry science projects, and (2) advance theory, design and practice to support the design of technology-based learning environments, and (3) understand how connecting students? hypotheses, ideas, and data impacts their learning of physics content and scientific inquiry skills.

This project will build and validate learning trajectories (LTs) in mathematics for fraction, ratio, and for decimal and percent to represent learning by grades 3-7 students. A system will be developed to automate data collection for field testing assessment items to determine students' attainment of proficiency levels. Three LTs will be produced and validated along with over 125 assessment items for each of these three trajectories. These assessment items will be useful for diagnosing student learning. Technologies such as mobile phones, tablets, and computers will be used to deliver, analyze, and report diagnostic data on students. The learning trajectories will be available both electronically and in print. The levels of proficiencies will be provided with the outcome spaces, the exemplary items, the student work, and videos of student responses. Publications will provide data on analysis of the diagnostic items and assessments. The project will be done by researchers at the North Carolina State University in collaboration with RoleModel Software Inc.,and the University of Maryland.

The learning trajectories will be developed through literature reviews, whole class teaching experiments, clinical interviews, and large-scale assessments. Students in grade 3 will be observed and interviewed while engaging in work on fractions, ratios, decimal, and precents. Some of these students will be observed longitudinally over the two years. Other students from grades 4 through 8 will be interviewed. For each of the three trajectories, about 150 assessment items will be developed and field tested with a large group.

Three learning trajectories will be developed and made available electronically with supporting materials. The learning trajectories will be done in coordination with the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in mathematics. Because the learning trajectories and materials will be informative to teachers who will be implementing the CCSS, the work has the potential to appeal to and reach a very large audience. Publications will provide data on analysis of the diagnostic items and assessments. The researchers will seek ways for a greater audience to have access to the software for accessing and retrieving items.

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.

Research in biology has become increasingly mathematical, but high school courses in biology use little mathematics. To address this concern, this project will develop three replacement units for biology and refine them through classroom testing. The units will be models of STEM integration by using the important concepts of proportional reasoning and algebraic thinking and engineering re-design to address big ideas in science while also promoting the learning of 21st century skills. The materials build on existing work on the use of model eliciting activities and focus science and technology instruction on high-stakes weaknesses in mathematics and science. They address the scaling issue as part of the core design work by developing small units of curriculum that can be applied by early adopters in each context. The materials will undergo many rounds of testing and revision in the early design process with at least ten teachers each time. The materials will be educative for teachers, and the teacher materials and professional development methods will work at scale and distance.

Learning of science content will be measured through the use of existing instruments in wide use. Existing scales of task values, achievement goals and interest are used to measure student motivation. The work performed is guided by a content team; a scaling materials team; a scaling research team; the PI team of a cognitive scientist, a robotics educator, and a mathematics educator specializing in educational reform at scale; and the summative evaluation team lead by an external evaluator.

There is great interest in understanding whether integrated STEM education can interest more students in STEM disciplines. The focus on mathematics integrated with engineering in the context of a science topic is interesting and novel and could contribute to our understanding of integrating mathematics, engineering and science. The development team includes a cognitive scientist, a mathematics educator, teachers and scientists. The issues and challenges of interdisciplinary instruction will be investigated.

This research and development project leverages curricular module development to design, develop, and test new cyberlearning modules that integrate multiple (circulation, respiration, and digestion) systems of the human body. The project aims to deepen science content knowledge, science inquiry skills, and model-based reasoning skills for high school biology students. The project will use simulations showing how individual systems function, how they work together, and how the integration of all three creates a dynamic and reactive biological system. It is expected that the presentation of this dynamic system will result in a deeper understanding of the materials and enhanced performance on student achievement measures. The goals of the project are to: 1. Develop an integrated simulation of the human digestive, circulatory and respiratory systems that allows students to develop productive inquiry strategies. 2. Embed the simulation in online instructional modules that provide immediate, individualized coaching as students are challenged with a series of investigative tasks. 3. Provide reports of students' performances during the activities to students and teachers. 4. Develop follow-up online collaborative investigations that provide differentiated instruction to strengthen students' understanding and support transfer and opportunities to engage in scientific discourse. 5. Develop one benchmark assessment that measures outcomes across all three body systems and reports to students and teachers. 6. Develop and deploy professional development to support teachers as they use these materials. 7. Provide evidence of the technical quality, feasibility, and usability of the new materials. 8. Study the influence of these materials on complex science and inquiry learning of the integration of the three human body systems modeled. A small scale randomized, controlled trial will be performed at the end of the project. The project is grounded in model-based learning, cognitive learning research, and an evidence-centered design. Universal Design for Learning is factored into all simulation designs. Questions asked during the evaluation include: Is the project progressing as planned? Are the modules useable? Are the users satisfied? Are the modules used as intended in a typical high school setting? Does this improve teaching and learning of key content? The primary investigator is WestEd; the American Association for the Advancement of Science is a partner and three teachers from nearby schools serve as co-developers. The project has an external evaluator as well as a strong advisory board. The project will create multi-leveled instructional cyber-modules. These modules will contain embedded assessments that provide students and teachers immediate and individualized coaching. Professional development will also provide teachers tools and guidance to increase their learning of human body systems. Dissemination strategies include featuring the modules on WestEd's award-winning website as well as submission of academic papers to journals and national conferences targeted at science educators and education researchers. Because these modules supplement classroom curricula and use online technology, they could potentially be used to teach millions of high school biology students.

Developers and researchers at Rutgers University, Boston University, Colorado State University, and the Consortium for Mathematics and Its Applications (COMAP) are continuing research and development work on high school instructional materials that integrate biology, computing, and mathematics. The project goal is to develop and test a one-semester high school course. The course consists of some modules developed under a previous NSF grant as well as some new material.

COMAP leads the effort to develop the instructional materials and the process involves mathematicians, biologists, computer scientists, teachers, and writers. The materials are pilot- and field-tested in a number of schools and revised after each test. Subject matter experts review the materials for accuracy and teachers and education professionals review them for their usability. Researchers at Colorado State University collect and analyze data on student learning and interest at all stages of the pilot- and field-testing.

The intended deliverables include up to five new instructional modules and a coherent one-semester course suitable for the increasing state requirements for a fourth year of mathematics. The course is supported by a book in print and electronic format and includes teacher training support tools and activities to prepare teachers to present interdisciplinary bio-mathematics material.

In this DRK12 project, the PhET Interactive Simulations group at the University of Colorado and the AAALab at Stanford University are working together to produce and study learning from interactive simulations designed for middle school science classrooms. We are developing a suite of 35 high-quality, interactive simulations covering physical science topics. These simulations include innovative technologies that provide teachers with real-time, formative feedback on how their students are using the simulations.  The research investigates how various characteristics of the simulation design influence student engagement and learning, and how this response varies across grade-level and diverse populations. The research also includes an investigation of different ways of using simulations in class, and how these approaches affect student preparation for future learning when they are no longer using a given simulation.

      The original PhET simulations were designed for college use, but overtime, they have migrated to lower grades.  The current suite of free research-based, interactive PhET science simulations are used over 10 million times per year.  To optimize their utility for middle school science, we are conducting interviews with diverse 4-8^th graders using 25 existing PhET simulations to help identify successful design alternatives where needed, and to formulate generalized design guidelines. In parallel, pull-out and classroom-based studies are investigating a variety of lesson plans to identify the most promising approach. These studies include controlled comparisons that collect both qualitative and quantitative data.

      On the basis of our emerging design principles, we are developing 10 new simulations in consultation with teachers, who are helping to identify high need areas for simulations. These new simulations also include a back-end data collection capability that can collect, aggregate, and display student patterns of simulation use for teachers and researchers. The design of the data collection and presentation formats depends on an iterative process done in collaboration with teachers to identify the most useful information and display formats. A final evaluation compares student learning with and without this back-end formative assessment technology.   

This project is working to transform the way science is taught and learned in Grades 4-8 so that it is more effective at promoting scientific thinking and content learning, while also being engaging to diverse populations. The project is expected to impact many, many thousands of teachers and students through its production of a suite of 35 free, interactive science simulations optimized for Grades 4-8 along with “activity templates”, guidance, and real time feedback to teachers to support pedagogically effective integration into classrooms. Finally, the intellectual merit of the project is its significant contributions to understanding when, how, and why interactive simulations can be effective learning and research tools.

The Value of Computational Thinking (VCT) project combines the talents and resources of STEM professionals at the Rutgers University DIMACS Center, the Consortium for Mathematics and Its Applications (COMAP), Colorado State University, Hobart and William Smith College, the Computer Science Teachers Association, and five partner school districts to develop and test a set of 12 curriculum modules designed to engage high school students and their teachers in the process of applying computational concepts and methods to problem solving in a variety of scientific contexts. The project perspective is that computational thinking can be usefully thought of as a specialized form of mathematical modeling. The product of computational thinking in a particular domain is a model of a situation, a structuring and representation of the situation, that enables computations to be performed to answer questions, solve problems, control processes, predict consequences, or enhance understanding.

Since computational thinking is a relatively new construct in STEM and STEM education, there are few available curriculum materials to support instruction intended to develop the understanding, habits of mind, and specific techniques that are involved. The fundamental goal of the VCT project is to answer an engineering research question: "What kinds of instructional materials and learning experiences will develop effective computational thinking skills and attitudes?" The VCT project is applying a design research process involving iterative phases of development, pilot testing, and revision to produce prototype instructional materials that will be useful as stand-alone curriculum modules or when collected into different packages to support full high school courses. Project field test evaluation will provide preliminary evidence about the efficacy of the materials in developing desired student learning.

Proponents of computational thinking in STEM and STEM education have argued that it offers a powerful general approach to problem solving in discipline-specific and inter-disciplinary settings. They also argue that, when properly taught, it can provide an effective introduction and attraction to careers in computer science and other computing-intensive fields. Thus the VCT project has a long-term goal of broadening participation in computer science and related technology fields. Materials are being designed with special features to enhance their effectiveness in reaching this objective.

Although students may engage in scientific inquiry in their classrooms, it is also essential for them to practice scientific inquiry in real-world settings outside the classroom context to build enduring skills and deep, meaningful understanding of core science content ideas. The goal of the Zydeco project is to explore how new mobile and web-based technologies can support content-rich nomadic inquiry; that is, science inquiry that takes place on-the-go, across integrated K-12 formal and informal settings. Students will begin the inquiry process in the classroom using curricular activities and the Zydeco web software developed in the project to help define goals and questions and to design data collection strategies and categories for use on a field trip to an informal setting. With a mobile device and the Zydeco mobile software populated with the students' preparatory work, students will continue their inquiry in the museum, collecting relevant data and information in an organized, scaffolded manner, in the form of tagged, captioned, and voice-annotated photographs, video, and text. The Zydeco system will store the students' collected data on a web server, which students can access upon their return to the classroom. Thus students can access, sort, and analyze their collected data, using curricular and web-based scaffolds to help evaluate and explain their findings to complete the inquiry process.

The project will involve middle school teachers and students from the Ypsilanti and Detroit Public Schools; educators, researchers, and scientists at the University of Michigan Exhibit Museum of Natural History and the Detroit Science Center; and researchers from the University of Michigan School of Education and Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. The science content will be tailored to both the museum partners' foci and the teachers' curricula: biology, earth science, and physical science.

The Zydeco project explores three major research questions:

(1) How can mobile and web technologies coordinate with school curricula to scaffold nomadic inquiry and enhance student learning?

(2) How can scaffolded mobile technologies support teachers and students to connect classroom and museum experiences more closely in order to enhance science inquiry and content learning?

(3) What impacts do scaffolded nomadic inquiry experiences have on classroom-based science inquiry and science learning?

The collaborative team will use an iterative, learner-centered approach to develop the Zydeco web and mobile systems and the associated student activities. For each iteration, the researchers will videotape and audio-tape students' discussions and activities, and collect artifacts and logs of student work as they engage with the curriculum the web and mobile systems in the classroom and museum. This data will be analyzed using rubrics designed to gauge the quality and variety of students' inquiry, the scientific content of their discussions and work, and their engagement throughout the process. In addition, pre-and post-program assessment tasks will be used to gauge the program's short-term and long-term impacts on targeted inquiry skills and content understanding. Student and teacher interviews will be administered to gather feedback about the program content and usability. Technology evaluation rubrics will be used to evaluate the different scaffolding features in the Zydeco mobile and web systems to gauge how well those systems help students overcome the complexities of scientific inquiry in multiple settings.

The products of this research will include a web-based software application that will support pre-visit and post-visit inquiry activities and applications for the mobile device to support student inquiry on their visit to an informal learning environment. The project will produce documentation to enable teachers and museum educators to use the developed nomadic inquiry system. Research papers about scaffolding nomadic inquiry, developing adaptable technologies to help teachers connect classroom curricula and field trip experiences, curriculum design for learning across formal and informal settings, and developing technologies to enhance learning and inquiry in informal settings will be written.