This exploratory project examines how teachers of second grade students scaffold the development of student conceptual models and their understanding of the nature of scientific models and modeling processes in physical science conceptual areas associated with the particulate nature of matter. Teachers receive professional development around ways in which they can facilitate productive disciplinary discussions with young children that result in students coming to understand core ideas in the Next Generation Science Standards. The project focuses on the topics of matter and sound based on the FOSS units "Solids and Liquids" and "Water," and the STC unit "Sound". It builds on an earlier project on life science for kindergarten teachers and students to expand the research communities understanding of how young children learn in science. Researchers from Purdue University are working with public schools in Lafayette that have high Hispanic populations and low SES, as well as a private school system with a more affluent population.

This project employs a mixed methodological research design that incorporates rich qualitative data collection and analysis combined with a quasi-experimental design that examines student learning across a treatment and comparison group with the same curricular materials but with differing support for teachers to engage students in disciplinary productive discussions about the science phenomena that they are studying. Research questions are designed to elicit descriptions of the differing aspects of learning that are evidenced by students together with rich descriptions of the teaching strategies that are associated with the classroom environments. Because this is an exploratory study, no causal comparisons between teacher practices and student outcomes are drawn, but the project provides the underpinnings that will support future research that would take a more rigorous approach. The project further develops the methodology of examining disciplinary rich description of student models to advance the understanding of how content and reasoning interact with young children.

Recent research in cognition has demonstrated that young children reason in a more sophisticated manner than previously understood. The Next Generation Science Standards has a strong focus on student reasoning practices, and the development of student explanations of science phenomenon requires that students have the opportunity to experience classrooms in which discussions of scientific ideas are scaffolded. Teachers need examples of how to interact with young children and of how to interpret what students say in ways that move the understanding of scientific concepts forward. This foundational research provides descriptive exemplars that can be shared in both the research literature and in practitioner publications as examples of what cognitively rich pedagogy can achieve.

This proposal leverages the re-design of the Advanced Placement (AP) curricula currently under way to study the impact of teacher professional development on student achievement in a natural experiment at scale. Researchers from the University of Massachusetts Boston, Harvard University, the University of Michigan, and the Education Development Center, Inc are conducting a quasi-experimental research study to examine the professional development experienced by AP Biology, Chemistry and Physics teachers to determines 1) the relationship between teacher and school characteristics and the professional development patterns that teachers choose; 2) the relationship between the professional development patterns that various types of teachers choose and their students' outcomes; and 3) the challenges encountered in delivering various forms of professional development at this level of scale. In addition to supporting the improvement of professional development of AP teachers by the College Board, the findings contribute to a better understanding of the relationship between professional development and student achievement more generally.

This study uses the existing context of the AP Course Audit by which all teachers of AP courses submit a syllabus, descriptions of laboratory investigations, and information regarding contact hours and the background of teachers, including the professional development programs accessed. The teachers who submit audits will be surveyed using the Stages of Concern Questionnaire together with other items to determine their perceptions of the AP Science redesign. The experiences of over 20,000 teachers are examined over the course of the study. Teachers who participate in AP professional development conducted by the College Board and the Active AP online Teacher Community (APoTC) will be surveyed about their professional development experiences. Case studies of 40 using interview, elaborated survey items, and artifacts from their teaching provide information about the quality of the teacher implementation of the AP course. Scores on the AP exams of all of the students will be linked to the teachers and the relationships among those scores and teacher professional development experiences analyzed using multi-level regression analyses.

The findings from this study have considerable importance for those individuals who provide professional development for science teachers. The results will inform the College Board and others who provide professional development directly to AP science teachers about how that support needs to change in order to more effectively support teachers. Improving the support that AP teachers receive has the potential to improve the learning experiences of the students who participate in those classes. In addition, this study will provide information about issues and challenges to providing professional development at scale to a wider audience of professional development providers. As the Next Generation Science Standards come online, this information will be useful to policy makers and practitioners.

Concerns about both economic competitiveness and educational equity emphasize the need for the United States to broaden and diversify the pipeline of students prepared and motivated to pursue STEM college majors. An emerging strategy for addressing this need is large-scale implementation of inclusive STEM high schools. In this exploratory project, investigators from SRI International and George Washington University are laying the foundation for a rigorous quasi-experiment to test the effects of attending such a school using longitudinal student records, surveys, and interviews. The project's operational definition for an inclusive STEM high school (ISHS) is a school, school within a school, or school program that accepts students primarily on the basis of interest rather than aptitude or prior achievement and gives them the mathematics and science preparation they need to succeed in a STEM college major. ISHSs enroll students from groups underrepresented in STEM professions through an application process that does not require high test scores before high school entry. In contrast to selective STEM schools that admit gifted and talented students on the basis of entrance examination scores and thus select for perceived STEM aptitude, ISHSs have the more ambitious goal of developing STEM expertise.

To establish the feasibility of a large, multi-state investigation of the effectiveness of inclusive STEM schools at scale, researchers are:

- Developing a tentative taxonomy of ISHSs and exploring implications of ISHS heterogeneity for the research design;

- Recruiting three school partners representing different ISHS approaches;

- Using state data to identify a comparison school (without a particular focus on STEM) for each ISHS school partner and recruiting comparison school partners;

- Developing School Leader and three student surveys (fall 9th-grade, spring 12th-grade, and spring post-graduation);

- Collaborating with partner schools in design of data collection procedures, recruiting materials, and incentives;

- Piloting the School Leader Survey and two student surveys (9th-grade fall survey and 12th-grade spring survey) in six partner schools;

- Identifying and recruiting a larger sample of ISHSs and matched comparison schools for Year 2 data collection;

- Administering surveys in 40 or more high schools;

- Locating spring 2012 graduates of the three ISHS partner schools and pilot testing the post-graduation student survey with these students; and

- Engaging an Advisory Board who will provide methodological expertise and advice.

Ultimately, by documenting survey response rates, student location rates, and rates for successful matching of student administrative and survey data, this feasibility work is demonstrating that it is possible to collect the kind of data that would enable a large-scale study to be launched with the necessary instruments and experience in hand. As evidenced by the recent call from the President's Council of Advisors in Science and Technology for 1,000 new STEM schools and the National Research Council's report entitled "Successful K-12 STEM Education: Identifying Effective Approaches in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics" that highlights various STEM schools, the proposed research is highly relevant to current policy initiatives and debates. Moreover, the research has the potential to promote diversity in the STEM pipeline by influencing policymakers in states and districts that have yet to implement ISHSs at scale.

This project scales and further tests the Target Inquiry (TI) professional development model. The TI model involves teachers in three core experiences: 1) a research experience for teachers, 2) materials adaptation, and 3) an action research project. The original program was implemented with high school chemistry teachers at Grand Valley State University (GVSU), and was shown to result in significant increases, with large effect sizes, in teachers' understanding of science inquiry and quality of instruction, and in science achievement of those teachers' students. The scale-up and further testing would involve adding physics, biology and geology at Grand Valley State University, and implementing the program at Miami University (MU) with chemistry teachers. Three research questions will be studied:

1) How do the three TI core experiences influence in-service high school science teachers' (i) understanding of the nature of science; (ii) attitudes and beliefs about inquiry instruction; and (iii) classroom instructional methods in the derivatives of the TI model?

2) How does teacher participation in TI affect students' process skills (scientific reasoning and metacognition) and conceptual understanding of science in the derivatives of the TI model?

3) What are the challenges and solutions related to implementing TI in science disciplines beyond chemistry and in other regions?

The research design is quasi-experimental and longitudinal, incorporating implementation with research, and using quantitative and qualitative methods blended in a design research framework. A total of 54 middle and high school science teachers are being recruited for the study. The TI group is completing the TI program (N = 27; 15 at GVSU; 12 at MU) while the comparison group (same sizes and locations) is not. The comparison group is matched according to individual characteristics and school demographics. All teachers are being studied, along with their students, for 4 years (pre-program, post-RET, post-MA, post-AR/post-program). TI teachers are taking 15 credits of graduate level science courses over three years, including summers. Courses include a graduate seminar focused on preparing for the research experience, the research experience in a faculty member's science lab during the summer, application of research to teaching, action research project development, adaptation and evaluation of inquiry-focused curricula, and interpretation and analysis of classroom data from action research. Consistent feedback from professional development, teachers, and evaluation, including the previous implementation, contributes to a design-based approach. Teacher factors being studied include nature of science, inquiry teaching knowledge and beliefs, and quality of inquiry instruction. Student factors being studied include scientific reasoning; metacognition, self-efficacy, and learning processes in science; and content knowledge and conceptual understanding. Only established quantitative and qualitative instruments are being used. Quantitative analysis includes between-group comparisons by year on post-tests, with pre-tests as covariates, and multi-level models with students nested with teachers, and teachers within sites, with the teacher level as the primary unit of change. Trends over time between the treatment and comparison groups are being examined. The evaluation is using a combination of pre/post causal comparative quantitative measures and relevant qualitative data from project leaders and participants, as well as from the comparison group, to provide formative and summative evaluation input.

Outcomes of the project include documentation and understanding of the impacts on science teachers' instruction and student outcomes of research experiences for teachers when they are supported by materials adaptation and action research, and an understanding of what it takes to scale the model to different science disciplines and a different site. The project is also producing a website of instructional materials for middle and secondary science.

This CAREER awardee at Michigan Technological University is investigating the outcomes of a teacher education model designed to foster prospective mathematics teachers' abilities to notice and capitalize on important mathematical moments in instruction. The researcher engages prospective teachers in research-like analysis of unedited teacher-perspective classroom video early in their teacher education coursework in order to help them learn to identify, assess the mathematical potential of, and respond to important student ideas and insights that arise during instruction.

The research is based on a quasi-experimental design and involves three cohorts of prospective teachers. Practicing teachers from local schools collaborate with the research team. The data collected consists of classroom video. The video is coded and analyzed using Studiocode, which allows for real-time coding and for multiple users to code and annotate video segments.

The research findings are integrated into the institution's teacher education program and are also disseminated more broadly through publication and presentations at professional meetings.

This project scales and further tests the Target Inquiry (TI) professional development model. The TI model involves teachers in three core experiences: 1) a research experience for teachers (RET), 2) materials adaptation (MA), and 3) an action research (AR) project. The original program was implemented with high school chemistry teachers at Grand Valley State University (GVSU), and was shown to result in significant increases, with large effect sizes, in teachers' understanding of science inquiry and quality of instruction, and in science achievement of those teachers' students. The scale-up and further testing would involve adding physics, biology and geology at GVSU, and implementing the program at Miami University (MU) with chemistry teachers. Three research questions will be studied:

1) How do the three TI core experiences influence in-service high school science teachers' (i) understanding of the nature of science; (ii) attitudes and beliefs about inquiry instruction; and (iii) classroom instructional methods in two new applications of the TI model?

2) How does teacher participation in TI affect students' process skills (scientific reasoning and metacognition) and conceptual understanding of science in two new applications of the TI model?

3) What are the challenges and solutions related to implementing TI in science disciplines beyond chemistry and in other regions?

The research design is quasi-experimental and longitudinal, incorporating implementation with research, and using quantitative and qualitative methods blended in a design research framework. A total of 54 middle and high school science teachers are being recruited for the study. The TI group is completing the TI program (N = 27; 15 at GVSU; 12 at MU) while the comparison group (same sizes and locations) is not. The comparison group is matched according to individual characteristics and school demographics. All teachers are being studied, along with their students, for 4 years (pre-program, post-RET, post-MA, post-AR/post-program). TI teachers are taking 15 credits of graduate level science courses over three years, including summers. Courses include a graduate seminar focused on preparing for the research experience, the research experience in a faculty member's science lab during the summer, application of research to teaching, action research project development, adaptation and evaluation of inquiry-focused curricula, and interpretation and analysis of classroom data from action research. Consistent feedback from professional development providers, other teachers, and evaluation, including comparison with the previous implementation, contributes to a design-based approach. Teacher factors being studied include beliefs about the nature of science, inquiry teaching knowledge and beliefs, and quality of inquiry instruction. Student factors being studied include scientific reasoning; metacognition, self-efficacy, and learning processes in science; and content knowledge and conceptual understanding. Only established quantitative and qualitative instruments are being used. Quantitative analysis includes between-group comparisons by year on post-tests, with pre-tests as covariates, and multi-level models with students nested within teachers, and teachers within sites, with the teacher level as the primary unit of change. Trends over time between the treatment and comparison groups are being examined. The evaluation is using a combination of pre/post causal comparative quantitative measures and relevant qualitative data from project leaders and participants, as well as from the comparison group, to provide formative and summative evaluation input.

Outcomes of the project include documentation and understanding of the impacts on science teachers' instruction and student outcomes of research experiences for teachers when they are supported by materials adaptation and action research, and an understanding of what it takes to scale the model to different science disciplines and a different site. The project is also producing a website of instructional materials for middle and secondary science.

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.

There is an increasing gap between the assumptions governing the use of cyber-enabled resources in schools and the realities of their use by students in out of school settings. The potential of information and communications technologies (ICT) as cognitive tools for engaging students in scientific inquiry and enhancing teacher learning is explored. 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, reducing the gap between formal and informal learning and improve student learning outcomes. In the first year, six teachers from school districts - two in Utah and one in New York - are educated 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 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 research methodology includes the use of the classroom observations using RTOP and Technology Use in Science Instruction (TUSI), selected interviews of teachers and students and validated assessments of student learning. Evaluation, by an external evaluator, assesses the quality of the professional development and the quality of the cyber-enabled learning resources, as well as reviews the research design and implementation. An Advisory Board will monitor the project. 

The project is to determine the professional development needed to make teachers comfortable teaching with multi-user simulations and communications 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 all selected cyber-enabled cognitive tools framed by constructivism, such as GoogleEarth and Biologica.

This is a 3.5-year efficacy study of the Developing Mathematical Ideas (DMI) elementary math teacher professional development (PD) program. DMI was developed by staff from Education Development Center (EDC), SummerMath for Teachers, and TERC, the STEM research and development institution responsible for this research. DMI is a well-known, commercially available PD program with substantial prior evidence showing its impact on elementary teachers' mathematical and pedagogical knowledge. However, no studies have yet linked DMI directly with changes in teachers' classroom practice, or with improved student outcomes in math. This study aims to remedy this gap.

The research questions for the study are:

1) Does participation in the Developing Mathematical Ideas (DMI) professional development program lead to increases in reform-oriented teaching?

2) Does participation in DMI lead to increases in students' mathematics learning and achievement, especially in their ability to explain their thinking and justify their answers?

3) What is the process by which a reform-oriented professional development program can influence teaching practice and, thus, student learning? Through what mechanisms does DMI have impact, and with what kinds of support do we see the desired changes on our outcome measures when the larger professional development context is examined?

The dependent variables for this study include a) teachers' pedagogical and mathematics knowledge for teaching; b) the nature of their classroom practice; and c) student learning/ achievement in mathematics.

The study uses experimental and quasi-experimental methods, working with about 195 elementary grades teachers and their students in Boston, Springfield, Leominster, Fitchburg, and other Massachusetts public schools. Volunteer teachers are randomly assigned either to PD with DMI in the first year of the efficacy study, or to a control group that will wait until the second year of the study to receive DMI PD. Both groups of teachers will be followed through two academic years. Analyses use OLS regression, hierarchical modeling, and structural equation modeling, as appropriate, to compare the two groups and to track changes over time. In this way, the project explores several aspects of a conceptual framework hypothesizing relationships among PD, teacher mathematical and pedagogical knowledge, classroom teaching practice, and student outcomes. There are multiple measures of each construct, including video-analysis of teacher practice, and a new video-based measure of teacher knowledge.

The study tests the impact of DMI in a range of districts (large urban, small urban, suburban) serving an ethnically and economically diverse mix of students. It provides much needed, rigorous evidence testing the efficacy of this reform-oriented professional development program. It also directly explores the commonplace theory that teachers' understanding of content and student thinking and their encouragement of rich mathematical discourse for student sense-making lead to improvement on measures of mathematics achievement. Findings from the study are disseminated to both research and practitioner communities. The project provides professional development in mathematics to about 195 teachers to improve their ability to teach important concepts. If the evidence for efficacy is positive, then even larger-scale use of this PD program is likely.

This synthesis project is a systematic review of experimental research evaluating programs and practices in elementary science. The systematic review addresses all areas of science in the elementary grades. Different versions of the synthesis are written for audiences of researchers, policy makers, principals, and teachers. The review uses an adaptation of best-evidence synthesis previously applied to elementary and secondary mathematics and reading, and includes experimental and quasi-experimental research on the outcomes of alternative approaches to elementary science. The review is a part of a series of reviews that are part of the Best Evidence Encyclopedia (BEE), an on-line resource that disseminates systematic reviews of research on achievement outcomes of programs at all subject areas and grade levels (see www.bestevidence.org), and is led by Robert Slavin of Johns Hopkins University.

The review is carried out by a US-UK partnership of science educators and experts on systematic reviews of research. An advisory group of scientists, science educators, and experts on research review oversees the design of the review, monitors review procedures, and comments on drafts. This review takes a broad approach to searching the literature in order to locate every study that meets inclusion requirements for valid research. It includes electronic searches of educational databases (JSTOR, ERIC, EBSCO, Psych INFO, Dissertation Abstracts) using different combinations of key words (for example, "elementary students" and "science achievement"), covering the years 1970-2010. Results are narrowed by subject area (for example, "educational software", "science achievement", "instructional strategies"). Web-based repositories and education publishers' websites are included. The review also discusses each study that meets the inclusion requirements for a valid research design.

A strength of this work is that it takes on the synthesis of what is known about best practice for elementary science education, relying only on studies that meet the criteria for inclusion as having credible research designs. This is a review that is sorely needed in the field of science education. The lengthy and detailed review will be available on the BEE network, along with educator-friendly summaries. The work is also vetted via publication in a top, peer-reviewed journal. The study will include a set of tables showing ratings of programs according to consistent criteria in terms of the strength of the evidence base for each, with brief descriptions of the methods and findings. This educators' summary, patterned on Consumer Reports, is intended primarily for superintendents, principals, and teachers who are making choices among programs for implementation with their children.