Middle School

We present a framework for using scenario-based assessments (SBAs) to measure middle school students' ability to formulate written arguments around socio-scientific issues. We present data showing both the current strengths and limitations of these SBAs. We also present data which shows that, through the process of writing over a 2-week time span, the students showed significant improvements in their ability to make a claim, locate evidence, use reasoning, and use scientific vocabulary in their arguments.

A three year, mixed-methods, critical participatory action research project to develop a culturally sustaining self-report measure of Black and Latina/o student math engagement, called the Adapted Measure of Math Engagement (AM-ME).

"Reaching Across the Hallway: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Supporting Computer Science in Rural Schools" is in its first project year. Our goal is to design and develop a train-the-trainer professional development model that supports 5th-8th grade teachers in integrating culturally relevant computer science into their rural, social studies classrooms.

This poster describes the work of the Validation of the Equity and Access Rubrics for Mathematics Instruction (VEAR-MI) project, which aims to address the growing need to develop empirically grounded ways of assessing the extent to which the practices that are being outlined in research literature actually serve to support students who are currently underserved and underrepresented in mathematics.

Co-PI(s): Annie Garrison Wilhelm, Southern Methodist University; Temple Walkowiak, North Carolina State University

This collaborative project uses co-design as a strategy to develop a professional learning approach to help middle school teachers support students' motivation and engagement in the context of NGSS instruction. The project brings together motivation experts, science education researchers, and middle school science teachers. The poster outlines the project goals, introduces five motivation design principles, and describes four tools that were co-developed to support teachers' professional learning and practice for supporting student motivation.

This collaborative project uses co-design as a strategy to develop a professional learning approach to help middle school teachers support students' motivation and engagement in the context of NGSS instruction. The project brings together motivation experts, science education researchers, and middle school science teachers. The poster outlines the project goals, introduces five motivation design principles, and describes four tools that were co-developed to support teachers' professional learning and practice for supporting student motivation.

This collaborative project uses co-design as a strategy to develop a professional learning approach to help middle school teachers support students' motivation and engagement in the context of NGSS instruction. The project brings together motivation experts, science education researchers, and middle school science teachers. The poster outlines the project goals, introduces five motivation design principles, and describes four tools that were co-developed to support teachers' professional learning and practice for supporting student motivation.

With the increasing use of online interactive environments for science and engineering education in grades K-12, there is a growing need for detailed automatic analysis of student explanations to provide targeted and individualized guidance. In this work we describe a process of human annotation of student ideas based on deconstructed holistic scoring rubrics for knowledge integration in science learning and develop new NLP methods for identifying diverse expressions of student ideas and reasoning.