Science

This interactive poster session brings together 12 projects using a range of interactive computer technologies to improve science and math learning. The approaches range from interactive simulations to fully-immersive, multi-player games. In addition to increasing communication and collaboration among these researchers, a key goal of this session is to discuss what drives the wide range in approaches to using interactive technologies.

Presenters will discuss the challenges and successes encountered in customizing inquiry science curricula according to the principles of universal design for learning (UDL) and in then enacting those Web-delivered curricula in secondary classrooms.

In this session, Tom Keller from the National Research Council will update participants on the process and progress of the science conceptual framework and the plan for development of next-generation science education standards. How this effort is similar to and different from the Common Core State Standards initiative in Mathematics and English Language Arts will be made clear. Timelines for each phase of this undertaking will be described, and there will be opportunity for questions and answers.

The topic of this session will be the exploration of alternative approaches to designing diagnostic assessments in STEM learning. The discussion will concentrate on the full range of methodological decisions involved in drawing on current knowledge of student thinking on key ideas and transforming it into assessment strategies based on underlying models of how knowledge develops over time.

How should science curriculum developers respond to the changing technological landscape in school and out?

This session will showcase and solicit feedback on a prototype online learning community designed to facilitate collaboration between teachers and scientists. A team of scientists and education researchers at the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute developed the learning community as part of the Investigations in Cyber-enabled Education (ICE) Program, a DR K–12 program. The unique learning community is the central component of an online course for secondary teachers.

The presenters of this session seek feedback on the design and feasibility of an interactive, Web-based  curriculum environment that aims to support responsive teaching and elementary students' science inquiry. Session participants will explore and discuss a beta version of an interactive, Web-based,  curriculum environment designed to facilitate responsive teaching and students’ science inquiry.

This session will describe recent findings from four projects, each applying the facet-based perspective in different instructional contexts: force and motion and waves (middle and high school), properties of matter and particulate nature of matter (middle school), Earth science (middle school), and chemistry (high school).

What are the opportunities and challenges that arise when trying to harness psychometric models for diagnosis in STEM education?