DRK-12 Research and Products
Publication | This study aimed to examine an assumption regarding whether generative artificial intelligence (GAI) tools can overcome the cognitive intensity that humans suffer when solving problems. We examine the performance of ChatGPT and GPT-4 on NAEP…
Publication | Teacher-facilitated whole-class conversations can help elementary students apply the full power of the NGSS science and engineering practices to an engineering design process. In this article we describe and provide examples for five kinds of…
Publication | Open innovation challenge to mitigate global warming.
Publication | Science teacher leaders have been identified as an important lever for the implementation of science education reform. However, science reform implementation is locally controlled and not uniform across districts; therefore, the work of STLs…
Publication | This article pilots ChatGPT in tackling the most challenging part of science learning and found it successful in automation of assessment development, grading, learning guidance, and recommendation of learning materials.
Publication | In rural, geographically dispersed school districts, access to high-quality face-to-face professional development (PD) is challenging. Our study developed and compared the effectiveness of an online PD for middle-school science teachers working…
Presentation | This brief research report describes the refinement and testing of an observational rubric designed to identify and assess elements of classroom mathematics instruction that research has found to support multilingual student learning.
Publication | Adopting a pretest–posttest experimental design with repeated measures, this study examined the effects of three types of game-based learning supports in the form of modeling on knowledge development that contributed to successful math problem…
Publication | In various formats, students at the secondary and postsecondary levels participate in multiweek authentic science research projects. There have been many papers explaining the operations of such programs, but few have provided explicit…
Publication | Explaining phenomena associated with a system involves describing a system’s structure and articulating the process through which the system’s structure changes over time. This paper defines geo-sequential reasoning in the context of plate…
Publication | Nancy Butler Songer, Associate Provost of STEM Education at the University of Utah, discusses the importance of supporting and including young people as part of environmental decision-making teams and key problem-solvers of our futures.
Publication | Knowing how science teachers develop their professional knowledge has been a challenge. One potential way to determine the professional knowledge of teachers is through videos. In the study described here, the authors recruited 60 elementary and…
Scaling STEM-ID—Research Strategies to Inform Initial Scaling of Middle School Engineering Curricula
Presentation | This work-in-progress paper discusses a three-year middle school Engineering and Technology course sequence that integrates foundational mathematics and science in an engineering context through challenges that introduce students to advanced…
Publication | To best support students in developing competence, assessments that allow students to use knowledge to solve challenging problems and make sense of phenomena are needed. These assessments need to be designed and tested to validly locate students…
Publication | Digital game-based math learning environments (math DGBLE) are promising platforms that provide students with opportunities to master conceptual understanding and cultivate mathematical thinking, on which the contemporary mathematics education…
Publication | This descriptive case study examines the process of productively navigating socio-emotional risks and interpersonal tensions encountered by a veteran and pre-service physics teacher during one episode of discussing physics content.
Publication | The Socioscientific Issues Teaching and Learning (SSI-TL) framework is a guide for developing an instructional approach to learning experiences focused on socioscientific issues (SSI). Despite the potential benefits of SSI learning, teachers…
Publication | Artificial Intelligence (AI) is prevalent in nearly every aspect of our lives. However, recent studies have found a significant amount of confusion and misunderstanding surrounding AI. To develop effective educational programs in the field of AI…
Publication | The authors designed a science and engineering curricular program that includes design features that promote student interest and motivation and examined teachers' and students' views on meaningfulness, motivation and interest.
Publication | This study concerns the cognitive process of mathematical problem posing, conceptualized in three stages: understanding the task, constructing the problem, and expressing the problem. We used the eye tracker and think-aloud methods to deeply…
Publication | This chapter describes our middle school energy literacy project to develop, implement, and test curriculum materials for a unit titled Energy and Your Environment (EYE). EYE fosters place-based education by using the school building to enhance…
Publication | Providing high-quality professional development for teachers with diverse backgrounds and classroom experience is a challenging task. In this work, we investigate the Illinois Physics and Secondary Schools (IPaSS) partnership program, which…
Publication | It is essential for items in assessments of mathematics’ teacher knowledge to evoke the desired response processes – to be interpreted and responded to by teachers as intended by item developers. In this study, we sought to unpack evidence that…
Publication | Questions regarding the construction of mathematical authority have implications for learning, specifically for students’ views of themselves as mathematics learners and doers with valuable contributions. We consider the ideas proposed by eight…
Publication | Nancy Butler Songer, from the University of Utah, makes a call for collective action to create a new curriculum focused on the design of solutions.