Equity

Re-imagining Science Education Research Toward a Language for Science Perspective

With a decade passing since the release of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), it is timely to reflect and consider the extent to which the promise of science teaching and learning that values and centers learners’ varied epistemologies for scientific sensemaking has been realized. We argue that this potential, in part, lies in the hands of our science education research community becoming aware and intentional with how we situate learners’ language-related resources and practices in our work.

Author/Presenter

María González-Howard

Sage Andersen

Karina Méndez Pérez

Samuel Lee

Lead Organization(s)
Year
2024
Short Description

With a decade passing since the release of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), it is timely to reflect and consider the extent to which the promise of science teaching and learning that values and centers learners’ varied epistemologies for scientific sensemaking has been realized. We argue that this potential, in part, lies in the hands of our science education research community becoming aware and intentional with how we situate learners’ language-related resources and practices in our work.

Construct It! What’s in a Name? Collecting, Organizing, and Representing Data

Build a classroom community by building representations and visualizations of data related to students’ names.

Thanheiser, E., Koestler, C., Sugimoto, A. T., & Felton-Koestler, M. D. (2023). Construct it! What’s in a name? Collecting, organizing, and representing data. Mathematics Teacher: Learning and Teaching PK-12, 116(10), 746-752.

Author/Presenter

Eva Thanheiser

Courtney Koestler

Amanda T. Sugimoto

Mathew D. Felton-Koestler

Year
2023
Short Description

Build a classroom community by building representations and visualizations of data related to students’ names.

Construct It! What’s in a Name? Collecting, Organizing, and Representing Data

Build a classroom community by building representations and visualizations of data related to students’ names.

Thanheiser, E., Koestler, C., Sugimoto, A. T., & Felton-Koestler, M. D. (2023). Construct it! What’s in a name? Collecting, organizing, and representing data. Mathematics Teacher: Learning and Teaching PK-12, 116(10), 746-752.

Author/Presenter

Eva Thanheiser

Courtney Koestler

Amanda T. Sugimoto

Mathew D. Felton-Koestler

Year
2023
Short Description

Build a classroom community by building representations and visualizations of data related to students’ names.

Centering Educators’ Voices in the Development of Professional Learning for Data-Rich, Place-Based Science Instruction

This self-reflective case study describes our project team’s efforts to promote equity in science professional learning (PL) by centering the voices of educators in the PL design process and within the course itself. We believe that educators’ experiences, priorities, and expertise are essential to developing professional learning that meets the needs of teachers and their students. We have a particular interest in amplifying the voices of those in historically underrepresented communities.

Author/Presenter

Nicole Wong

Rasha Elsayed

Katy Nilsen

Leticia R. Perez

Kirsten R. Daehler

Lead Organization(s)
Year
2024
Short Description

This self-reflective case study describes our project team’s efforts to promote equity in science professional learning (PL) by centering the voices of educators in the PL design process and within the course itself. In this case study, we share and critique the practices and tools that we have employed to center educator voices, rather than those of the PL designers and researchers.

Shaping Ambitious Science Teaching to Be Culturally Sustaining and Productive in a Rural Context: Toward a Justice-Centered Ambitious Science Teaching Framework

We find ourselves at a time when the need for transformation in science education is aligning with opportunity. Significant science education resources, namely the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and the Ambitious Science Teaching (AST) framework, need an intentional aim of centering social justice for minoritized communities and youth as well as practices to enact it. While NGSS and AST provide concrete guidelines to support deep learning, revisions are needed to explicitly promote social justice.

Author/Presenter

April Luehmann

Yang Zhang

Heather Boyle

Eve Tulbert

Gena Merliss

Kyle Sullivan

Lead Organization(s)
Year
2023
Short Description

Significant science education resources, namely the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and the Ambitious Science Teaching (AST) framework, need an intentional aim of centering social justice for minoritized communities and youth as well as practices to enact it. While NGSS and AST provide concrete guidelines to support deep learning, revisions are needed to explicitly promote social justice. In this study, we sought to understand how a commitment to social justice, operationalized through culturally sustaining pedagogy might shape the AST framework to promote more critical versions of teaching science for equity.

Moving Beyond Equity-as-Access: Expanding What Counts as Science in the Elementary Classroom

Making science accessible is an important and worthy goal, but for many students, science is inaccessible because what counts as science in the classroom is narrowly defined as what is known as western science, rooted in Europe in the 1600s and often privileging white, male-centric perspectives. In this article, we describe five examples of expanding what counts as science to help remove barriers to learning and to make school science more equitable and inclusive. Indigenous ways of knowing can complement western ways of thinking.

Author/Presenter

Kristin Gunckel

Elizabeth Davis

Jessica Bautista

Lead Organization(s)
Year
2024
Short Description

Making science accessible is an important and worthy goal, but for many students, science is inaccessible because what counts as science in the classroom is narrowly defined as what is known as western science, rooted in Europe in the 1600s and often privileging white, male-centric perspectives. In this article, we describe five examples of expanding what counts as science to help remove barriers to learning and to make school science more equitable and inclusive.

Design Talks: Whole-Class Conversations During Engineering Design Units

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 Design Talks. Each type of Design Talk centers on a different framing question and is facilitated by specific prompts that help students voice their ideas and make connections to others' ideas.

Author/Presenter

Kristen Wendell

Jessica Watkins

Chelsea Andrews

Natalie De Lucca

Molly Malinowski

Vera Gor

Rae Woodcock

Tyrine Pangan

Naina Sood

Lead Organization(s)
Year
2024
Short Description

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 Design Talks. Each type of Design Talk centers on a different framing question and is facilitated by specific prompts that help students voice their ideas and make connections to others' ideas.

Resisting Marginalization with Culturally Responsive Mathematical Modeling in Elementary Classrooms

Mathematical modeling (MM) - a cyclical process that involves using mathematics to make-sense of and analyze relevant, real-world situations - has the potential to advance equity and challenge spaces of marginalization in the elementary mathematics classroom. When informed by culturally responsive teaching practices, MM creates opportunities to center the knowledge and experiences that students from diverse racial, cultural, and linguistic backgrounds bring to the classroom as valuable resources to support learning and inform action.

Author/Presenter

Erin Turner

Julia Aguirre

Mary Alice Carlson

Jennifer Suh

Elizabeth Fulton

Year
2024
Short Description

Mathematical modeling (MM) - a cyclical process that involves using mathematics to make-sense of and analyze relevant, real-world situations - has the potential to advance equity and challenge spaces of marginalization in the elementary mathematics classroom. When informed by culturally responsive teaching practices, MM creates opportunities to center the knowledge and experiences that students from diverse racial, cultural, and linguistic backgrounds bring to the classroom as valuable resources to support learning and inform action. It can disrupt power and status hierarchies in the classroom that contribute to structural and ideological marginalization. This paper describes ways teachers connected their teaching of MM with key components of a culturally responsive mathematics teaching framework.

Resisting Marginalization with Culturally Responsive Mathematical Modeling in Elementary Classrooms

Mathematical modeling (MM) - a cyclical process that involves using mathematics to make-sense of and analyze relevant, real-world situations - has the potential to advance equity and challenge spaces of marginalization in the elementary mathematics classroom. When informed by culturally responsive teaching practices, MM creates opportunities to center the knowledge and experiences that students from diverse racial, cultural, and linguistic backgrounds bring to the classroom as valuable resources to support learning and inform action.

Author/Presenter

Erin Turner

Julia Aguirre

Mary Alice Carlson

Jennifer Suh

Elizabeth Fulton

Year
2024
Short Description

Mathematical modeling (MM) - a cyclical process that involves using mathematics to make-sense of and analyze relevant, real-world situations - has the potential to advance equity and challenge spaces of marginalization in the elementary mathematics classroom. When informed by culturally responsive teaching practices, MM creates opportunities to center the knowledge and experiences that students from diverse racial, cultural, and linguistic backgrounds bring to the classroom as valuable resources to support learning and inform action. It can disrupt power and status hierarchies in the classroom that contribute to structural and ideological marginalization. This paper describes ways teachers connected their teaching of MM with key components of a culturally responsive mathematics teaching framework.

Resisting Marginalization with Culturally Responsive Mathematical Modeling in Elementary Classrooms

Mathematical modeling (MM) - a cyclical process that involves using mathematics to make-sense of and analyze relevant, real-world situations - has the potential to advance equity and challenge spaces of marginalization in the elementary mathematics classroom. When informed by culturally responsive teaching practices, MM creates opportunities to center the knowledge and experiences that students from diverse racial, cultural, and linguistic backgrounds bring to the classroom as valuable resources to support learning and inform action.

Author/Presenter

Erin Turner

Julia Aguirre

Mary Alice Carlson

Jennifer Suh

Elizabeth Fulton

Year
2024
Short Description

Mathematical modeling (MM) - a cyclical process that involves using mathematics to make-sense of and analyze relevant, real-world situations - has the potential to advance equity and challenge spaces of marginalization in the elementary mathematics classroom. When informed by culturally responsive teaching practices, MM creates opportunities to center the knowledge and experiences that students from diverse racial, cultural, and linguistic backgrounds bring to the classroom as valuable resources to support learning and inform action. It can disrupt power and status hierarchies in the classroom that contribute to structural and ideological marginalization. This paper describes ways teachers connected their teaching of MM with key components of a culturally responsive mathematics teaching framework.