STEM & Computer Science Disciplines

The crosscutting themes in the NGSS call for forms of thinking that often are contrary to everyday forms of thinking and are not familiar to most students, especially students from underrepresented populations. Within each theme, there are supporting skills and understandings that students must have in order to understand the broader theme. For example, to reason well about cause and effect, students need to know when to attempt to isolate and control for variables and when to look for interactions, multiple contributing causes, and indirect causes.

Students have traditionally faced difficulties in creating their own computational models due to steep learning curves associated with programming, difficulties in formulating mathematical equations, and lack of student-centered tools to facilitate the use of data from real-world phenomena to inform model design. Addressing these issues will make it possible to broaden participation by engaging students in computational thinking and modeling at younger ages, and by providing a pathway for students who struggle with mathematical formulas and data/graph literacy to participate.

While there is broad consensus about the synergistic relations between STEM domains and CT concepts and practices, there remains much to be done in developing CT-supported STEM curricula and in providing K–12 teachers and practitioners with the tools and resources to implement such curricula. In this 90-minute topical session, leaders from four DRK–12 STEM+C projects that are developing technology-based solutions address challenges in developing appropriate curricula, resources, and assessments for elementary, middle, and high school STEM courses.

What does preK–12 education need to look like in order to prepare our future workforce and citizenry? Trends and forecasts lead us to understand that the future of work will be vastly different from what we know today, particularly the relationship between humans and machines both in routine work environments across industry sectors, and also in designing solutions to formerly intractable problems. With more work tasks being performed by machines, the role of humans in the world of work is changing. What does this mean for teaching and learning in the 21st century?

This session, led by veteran PIs and co-PIs from Georgia Tech and Concord Consortium, provides a forum for participants to explore the pros and cons of different routes toward product sustainability. The session begins with a carousel activity in which participants respond to prompt questions about challenges and models for transitioning educational resources from research projects to sustained dissemination at scale.

This roundtable discussion begins by framing the affordances and challenges in the context of broadening the participation of Latinx middle school students in STEM+C using an equity lens (Gutiérrez, 2012). Four axes are included as part of this framework: access, achievement (in our case, understandings), identity, and power. Participants are asked to share their understandings of the issues in relation to this equity lens and share stories of opportunities and challenges, as well as ideas of how to address those challenges.

This roundtable session begins with the presentation of a model of language-rich STEM inquiry for broadening participation of English learners (ELs) in formal and informal spaces. This model, developed through the work of this DRK–12 project, brings together EL students, their families, and their STEM teachers in both formal and informal STEM learning spaces. The goal of the model is to support teachers in better utilizing their EL students’ conceptual and linguistic assets to support STEM learning goals with the larger aim of broadening participation in STEM to include more ELs.

This session contributes to a methodological strand involving experienced researchers on learning trajectories and/or learning progressions (LTs/LPs). All these researchers have empirically demonstrated the potential of LT/LP work to broaden participation by leveraging student ideas and offering engaging task designs. Presenters share new LT research on computational thinking. This topical session asks participants to respond to critical questions on the topics of validity and change followed by audience questions and comments.

For decades, the STEM education community has been moving toward modes of collaborative inquiry and social constructivism within rich and deep contexts for investigation. This includes situated learning models (e.g., cognitive apprenticeship) and student-centered learning in project-based learning environments. A primary focus in recent science education reform efforts encourages students and teachers to engage in more open inquiry and problem-solving practices that are inherent in the scientific discovery process.