This CAREER project addresses the professional development of middle and secondary mathematics teachers by investigating teachers' statistical reasoning and targeting characteristics of professional development that support teachers' development of increasingly sophisticated ways to reason about variation. Statistical variation plays a critical role throughout statistical investigation.

The project integrates educational and research activities in its design and implementation of a professional development program and research on the professional development. The research addresses three interrelated questions: In a professional development program that encourages reasoning about variation from multiple perspectives and that encourages dilemma, critical reflection, and rational discourse:

1. How do middle and secondary mathematics teachers reason about variation from design, data-centric, and modeling perspectives?

2. In what ways do dilemma, critical reflection, and rational discourse affect teachers' reasoning about variation?

3. How do teachers differently engage with and benefit from dilemma, critical reflection, and rational discourse?

The project relies on multiple data sources and strategically chosen combinations of qualitative and quantitative methods to answer the three research questions. Data sources from two cohorts of teachers include statistics assessments, interviews, video-recordings of program activities, reflective journals, and classroom observations.

The project will examine how teachers reason about variation subsequent to focused instruction and contribute knowledge to in-service middle and secondary mathematics teacher education by targeting characteristics of professional development that might support teachers' reasoning about variation in increasingly sophisticated ways. The project will produce a coherent collection of shareable instructional materials for use in introductory statistics education and teacher education in statistics.

This collaborative proof-of-concept study involves The University of California at Santa Cruz, The University of Texas at Austin, and the Los Alamos National Laboratory. The PIs will test the efficacy of using agent-based simulation and visualization models to identify the factors that predict mathematics achievement for students from the 8th grade to the 12th grade and beyond. The team are using a data set that includes 14 years of data on student grade reports, coursework, demographics, teacher variables such as years of service, professional development courses take, years of service, and other artifacts. The investigators hypothesize that agent-based modeling can be used to improve mathematics education. The research questions is What are the predictors of success in mathematics of public school 8th grade students and beyond as measured by a) mathematics performance (test scores) broken down by different mathematical skills? b) enrollment in algebra class (8th grade and high school)? and c) algebra and mathematics grades in 8th grade and high school? This exploratory study will analyze data using three tasks. The first task involves data assessment. The first task will involve discovering distributional information in general. They will explore visual and analytical processes of different variables so that different synthetic data can be simulated. The second task involves collaborating with a statistical science team to incorporate distributional information so that multivariate samples can be generated to form synthetic populations to use to build the agent-based model. The third task involves using the actual data from two large school districts to understand and quantify variability in the data. Education systems do not have a valid way to measure progressions of mathematics education to evaluate outcomes associated with mathematics learning outcomes. This project will provide a baseline understanding of student's progression in mathematics achievement that is critical in helping educators and policy makers set goals and standards for mathematics education within the United States.

This collaborative proof-of-concept study involves The University of California at Santa Cruz, The University of Texas at Austin, and the Los Alamos National Laboratory. The PIs will test the efficacy of using agent-based simulation and visualization models to identify the factors that predict mathematics achievement for students from the 8th grade to the 12th grade and beyond. The team are using a data set that includes 14 years of data on student grade reports, coursework, demographics, teacher variables such as years of service, professional development courses take, years of service, and other artifacts. The investigators hypothesize that agent-based modeling can be used to improve mathematics education. The research questions is What are the predictors of success in mathematics of public school 8th grade students and beyond as measured by a) mathematics performance (test scores) broken down by different mathematical skills? b) enrollment in algebra class (8th grade and high school)? and c) algebra and mathematics grades in 8th grade and high school? This exploratory study will analyze data using three tasks. The first task involves data assessment. The first task will involve discovering distributional information in general. They will explore visual and analytical processes of different variables so that different synthetic data can be simulated. The second task involves collaborating with a statistical science team to incorporate distributional information so that multivariate samples can be generated to form synthetic populations to use to build the agent-based model. The third task involves using the actual data from two large school districts to understand and quantify variability in the data.

Education systems do not have a valid way to measure progressions of mathematics education to evaluate outcomes associated with mathematics learning outcomes. This project will provide a baseline understanding of student's progression in mathematics achievement that is critical in helping educators and policy makers set goals and standards for mathematics education within the United States.

This exploratory project is to enhance the ability of teachers to provide high quality STEM education for all students by developing research-based materials that enable teachers to facilitate students' progress toward statistical understanding. The exploratory project has two phases. The first phase will focus on modeling student learning of difficult statistical concepts by constructing and developing a set of student learning progressions. Informed by the first phase, the second phase will focus on developing, implementing, supporting, and pilot testing instructional materials for teachers aimed at increasing knowledge and effective practice of statistical concepts. Formative and summative assessments will be used to evaluate (a) the materials, (b) the participant activities and experiences with the materials, and (c) the implementation process.

Both Common Core State Standards for Mathematics and National Council of Teachers of Mathematics standards clearly recommend the emphasis of statistics education in K-12 schools. In recent years, researchers have started to explore issues related to statistics education in Grades K-8, but little work has been done at the high school level. This exploratory project addresses a critical need in mathematics education and fills an important gap in teacher education related to high school statistics.

TERC, in collaboration with the Boston Arts Academy is developing an innovative studio learning environment for students in grades 7-9. This pilot project focuses on object-centered inquiry about water and water-related problems of local and global significance. The project promotes student learning through multi-faceted studies involving hydrology, history, health, digital media, web-based artifact generation, real world data collection, interactions with scientists and artists, and community exhibitions of student work. The primary goal of the Educating the Imagination project is to develop a more effective model for engaging and improving the science learning and achievement of underrepresented urban students.

Studio learning intentionally integrates experimentation with practices of analysis, interpretation, critique of work and conceptual development. During a four week summer studio program, students, guided by teachers and scientists, will produce research-based projects about water and create plans to exhibit their work in the Boston area during the school year. Students will be assessed along multiple dimensions ranging from the depth of their understanding of water science ideas, their ability to make claims and arguments, their use of multiple tools and modes of representation, and the quality of their presentations. Over a two year period researchers will collect data on the studio design model and student learning to determine which aspects of the studio are effective in engaging students in object-oriented inquiry related to important water science ideas and problems.

Educating the Imagination will provide valuable insights about the studio design model and its application to promote science learning. In addition, this project directly addresses the problem of inequality in opportunities to learn and participate in science by developing and testing an innovative, non-traditional learning model with underrepresented urban students. The results of this project could significantly change how we think about and structure STEM learning environments in urban settings.

This exploratory research and development project engages high-school students as student-tutors who create screen-capture videos that demonstrate step-by-step solutions to mathematical problems and explicate the use of interactive applets. The project has three development goals (a model for creating the media, a model for collaboration with teachers, and enhancements to a Lesson Study model) and three research goals (to test conjectures about student change, to analyze reconfigured roles for teachers and students, and to advance a theory of personalized learning communities.) The project tests whether the mathematical and communication skills of student-tutors improve in the process of making the video materials. It also tests whether teachers and the student users of the videos benefit from them. Further, the project will examine whether the process of creating and disseminating the videos is replicable and scalable.

The project uses design research methods as well as both formative and summative evaluations to achieve the research and development goals. The investigators pose a series of thoughtful research questions and plan to use a variety of research methods to collect and analyze data to answer them.

The project is potentially transformative. The advances in technology present opportunities and challenges for improving student learning. Built on strong theoretical and empirical foundations and prior work, the project takes full advantages of the opportunities of tutoring using 21st-century technologies - marrying screen-capture video with a model of student-delivered tutoring. The project will contribute to an understanding of how teachers and student-tutors change and exercise creativity through participating in digital media production. The findings of the project will have broader impact in at least three dimensions: (1) The videos created by students will be helpful for other students' learning; (2) The research on engaging students in creating videos can not only help us understand the effective use of technology, but also help us understand the mechanism for developing students' generative thinking and creativity; and (3) This project can provide insights about how to integrate 21st-Century technology into regular classrooms.

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.

Teaching Evolution through Human Examples (TEtHE), a three-year exploratory research and development project, is assessing how the use of resource activities and teaching strategies focused on human evolution will affect the understanding, teaching and learning of evolution by high school AP biology teachers and students. The guiding questions of the proposed project are 1) In what ways does using examples of human evolution to teach basic evolutionary concepts affect understanding of evolution among high school students? 2) In what ways do teaching strategies that focus on positive dialogue about human evolution help teachers overcome cultural challenges to teaching evolution concepts? 3) In what ways does using examples of human evolution to teach basic evolutionary concepts in conjunction with teaching strategies that focus on positive dialogue about human evolution affect understanding of evolution among high school students? TEtHE project will contribute to the field of evolution education, which is lacking on whether using teaching materials with a human emphasis along with strategies that increase teacher comfort and confidence in teaching evolution lead to greater understanding of evolution.

Project evaluation will focus on refining teaching materials and strategies and testing their efficacy in pilot studies in cooperation with the College Board and its professional development programs for the newly restructured AP course in biology. Studies include: independent assessment of teacher satisfaction with the resource activities as well as confidence and ease in use of the materials, independent review of the materials by the Advisory boards, and survey of all participating teachers to identify ways the materials were used. When addressing each question, the team will investigate validity, feasibility, usefulness, appropriateness, and student results. Methods for collection include: observation, open-response surveys, open-ended interviews, content assessments, and attitudinal surveys. The primary investigator is the Smithsonian Institute; the National Academies Teacher Advisory Board, the Understanding Evolution Teacher Advisor Board, and AP biology teachers from Washington DC serve as co-developers. The project has an external evaluator as well as an advisory board.

The TEtHE project will develop resource activities and teaching strategies with and for high school biology teachers. Professional development will also provide teachers with guidance on how to incorporate the activities and strategies into the classroom. The TEtHE project, over the course of three years, will involve over 100 AP biology teachers which will translate to reaching over 2000 AP biology students. The resources will be widely disseminated online at the end of the project, at national conferences, in national publications, and long range plans include incorporation into the national AP biology curriculum. This project could serve as a model for expanding effective methods for teaching evolution to Biology 1 classes, and contribute to an understanding of how to approach the teaching of scientific topics that intersect religious, ethical, and other areas of societal concern.