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Resource | Eliciting and Refining Conceptions of STEM Education: A Series of Activities for Professional Development
Integrated STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education is becoming increasingly common in K–12 classrooms. However, various definitions of STEM education exist that make it challenging for teachers to know what to implement and how to do so in their classrooms. In this article, we describe a series of activities used in a week-long professional development workshop designed…
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Resource | Eliciting and Refining Conceptions of STEM Education: A Series of Activities for Professional Development
Integrated STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education is becoming increasingly common in K–12 classrooms. However, various definitions of STEM education exist that make it challenging for teachers to know what to implement and how to do so in their classrooms. In this article, we describe a series of activities used in a week-long professional development workshop designed…
Posted:
Resource | Eliciting and Refining Conceptions of STEM Education: A Series of Activities for Professional Development
Integrated STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education is becoming increasingly common in K–12 classrooms. However, various definitions of STEM education exist that make it challenging for teachers to know what to implement and how to do so in their classrooms. In this article, we describe a series of activities used in a week-long professional development workshop designed…
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Resource | Beyond Content: The Role of STEM Disciplines, Real-World Problems, 21st Century Skills, and STEM Careers within Science Teachers’ Conceptions of Integrated STEM Education
Understanding teachers’ conceptions surrounding integrated STEM education is vital to the successful implementation of integrated STEM curricula in K-12 classrooms. Of particular interest is understanding how teachers conceptualize the role of the STEM disciplines within their integrated STEM teaching. Further, despite knowing that content-agnostic characteristics of integrated STEM education are…
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Resource | Beyond Content: The Role of STEM Disciplines, Real-World Problems, 21st Century Skills, and STEM Careers within Science Teachers’ Conceptions of Integrated STEM Education
Understanding teachers’ conceptions surrounding integrated STEM education is vital to the successful implementation of integrated STEM curricula in K-12 classrooms. Of particular interest is understanding how teachers conceptualize the role of the STEM disciplines within their integrated STEM teaching. Further, despite knowing that content-agnostic characteristics of integrated STEM education are…
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Resource | Beyond Content: The Role of STEM Disciplines, Real-World Problems, 21st Century Skills, and STEM Careers within Science Teachers’ Conceptions of Integrated STEM Education
Understanding teachers’ conceptions surrounding integrated STEM education is vital to the successful implementation of integrated STEM curricula in K-12 classrooms. Of particular interest is understanding how teachers conceptualize the role of the STEM disciplines within their integrated STEM teaching. Further, despite knowing that content-agnostic characteristics of integrated STEM education are…
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Resource | Wildfire Module Now Freely Available
Today’s students are exposed to news about wildfires on an all-too-regular basis. An increasingly larger portion of those students live in areas where wildfire risks are high or where smoke has reduced the air quality. The GeoHazard project has designed, developed, and tested an online wildfire curriculum module for middle and high school students that addresses the factors that influence…
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Resource | Revised Hurricane Module Now Available
Climate change, and the rise of the natural hazards that climate change brings, has been at the top of news feeds every week over the past year. Extreme events such as floods, droughts, and wildfires are expected to increase in the future. What does that mean for those of us living in the path of one of these hazards? Our GeoHazard project is exploring this question with middle and high school…
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Blog | Tips for Designing and Implementing Exploratory DRK-12 Projects
Exploratory research is at the beginning of the evidence-building continuum. Mike Steele, the current DRK-12 program lead, describes Exploratory projects as research to “establish the basis and development of an intervention. They explore relationships between design features and outcomes and must have a conceptual framework or theory of action grounded in the literature. Exploratory projects…
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Resource | Empirical Recovery of Learning Progressions Through the Lens of Educators
Learning progressions represent the relationship between concepts within a domain and how students develop increasingly sophisticated thinking therein. Typical evidence sources used to validate theorized learning progressions are also used to validate the use and interpretation of assessments, such as student cognitive interviews and psychometric analyses of item responses on assessments (Alonzo…
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Resource | Shifting Plates, Shifting Minds: Plate Tectonics Models Designed for Classrooms
Understanding Earth’s tectonic plate system dynamics is complicated though it is the central paradigm to explain transformations of Earth’s surface. The landforms and geodynamic events resulting from plates interacting are too massive to observe at scales of human experience. It is difficult for students to connect plate movements to geologic features like the Andes Mountains and geodynamic…
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Resource | Everything Happens for a Reason: Developing Causal Mechanistic Reasoning of Plate Tectonics
Our planet’s surface is in constant motion. Large pieces of Earth’s crust and upper mantle, known as tectonic plates, continually move toward and away from each other at a rate of millimeters to centimeters each year. Over geologic time, their relative motions determine everything from the types of boundaries they form to the distribution of rocks and landforms on Earth’s surface and the location…
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Resource | Models for Developing Explanations of Earth's Dynamic Plate System
Pallant, A., Lord, T., Pryputniewicz, S., & McDonald, S. (2022). Models for developing explanations of earth's dynamic plate system. Science Scope, 45(4), 20-28.
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Resource | PST Learning to Facilitate Argumentation Via Simulation: Exploring the Role of Understanding and Emotion
The present study focuses on examining transitions in elementary pre-service teachers (PSTs)’ understanding of, and skills in, leading argumentation-focused discussions in mathematics during participation in a sequence of three different practice-based activities, collectively referred to as the Online Practice Suite (OPS). We will examine 14 PSTs’ responses to post-activity surveys targeting…
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Resource | Pushing the Boundaries: Exploring the Potential of an Online Practice Suite to Support Elementary ScieTeachers in Learning How to Engage Students in Argumentation
Slides from a pre-conference workshop at the 2021 National Association for Research in Science Teaching Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL. Mikeska, J. N., Lottero-Perdue, P., Park Rogers, M., Thompson, M., Cross Francis, D., & Shekell, C. (2021, April 6). Pushing the boundaries: Exploring the potential of an online practice suite to support elementary science teachers in learning how to engage…
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Resource | Using Online Simulations to Promote Elementary Preservice Teachers’ Facilitation of Argumentation-Focused Discussions in Mathematics and Science
In this study, our team developed and is studying the use of an Online Practice Suite (OPS) composed of a coordinated and scaffolded collection of three practice-based online simulations designed to support the development of preservice teachers' (PSTs’) abilities, skills, beliefs, and understanding around one ambitious teaching practice within mathematics and science: facilitating discussions…
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Resource | A Web-based Tool for Participatory Science Learning in the Context of Human Psychology Research
We describe an online citizen science platform for human brain and behavior research that uses a participatory science learning approach to engage learners in the full spectrum of scientific inquiry. Building on an open science philosophy, it features a collaborative study design environment comprising an experiment builder, a database of validated tasks and surveys, and a public-facing study…
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Resource | Students Doing Citizen Science on an Unfolding Pandemic
School-based science inquiry tends to focus on already answered questions. We describe how we used the COVID-19 pandemic in a high school citizen science unit for students to witness and engage in real-time science. High school students developed proposals to study questions about their experiences related to the pandemic. Teacher and student interviews and observations showed that this globally-…
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Resource | Students Learning About Science by Investigating an Unfolding Pandemic
We explored the COVID-19 pandemic as a context for learning about the role of science in a global health crisis. In spring 2020, at the beginning of the first pandemic-related lockdown, we worked with a high school teacher to design and implement a unit on human brain and behavior science. The unit guided her 17 students in creating studies that explored personally relevant questions about the…
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Resource | Lessons From a Co-design Team on Supporting Student Motivation in Middle School Science Classrooms
Decades of motivation research have yielded a set of Motivation Design Principles (MDPs) that can be leveraged to support the development of student motivation and engagement in the classroom. This article addresses the translation of these guiding principles to teacher professional learning and subsequently, classroom practice. Drawing from published literature, as well as the experiences of a…
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Resource | Lessons From a Co-design Team on Supporting Student Motivation in Middle School Science Classrooms
Decades of motivation research have yielded a set of Motivation Design Principles (MDPs) that can be leveraged to support the development of student motivation and engagement in the classroom. This article addresses the translation of these guiding principles to teacher professional learning and subsequently, classroom practice. Drawing from published literature, as well as the experiences of a…
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Resource | Lessons From a Co-design Team on Supporting Student Motivation in Middle School Science Classrooms
Decades of motivation research have yielded a set of Motivation Design Principles (MDPs) that can be leveraged to support the development of student motivation and engagement in the classroom. This article addresses the translation of these guiding principles to teacher professional learning and subsequently, classroom practice. Drawing from published literature, as well as the experiences of a…
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Newsletter | July 2022 Newsletter
Dear Colleagues, NSF receives many Design and Development proposals but fewer DRK-12 proposals for Exploratory projects. This month we're featuring a Spotlight on Exploratory Research, where in addition to highlighting Exploratory projects, we also feature projects funded to build on Exploratory research. Our blog shares shares tips for those considering submitting an Exploratory proposal to…
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Project Spotlight | Exploratory Research
The DRK-12 program invites proposals for six project types: (1) Exploratory, (2) Design and Development, (3) Impact, (4) Implementation and Improvement, (5) Syntheses, and (6) Conferences. Exploratory research is at the beginning of the evidence building continuum, establishing the basis and development of an intervention. This research explores relationships between an intervention’s design…
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Resource | Examining Technology-Supported Teacher Responding and Students’ Written Mathematical Explanations
This study examines technology-enhanced teacher responses and students’ written mathematical explanations to understand how to support effective teacher responding and the centering of students’ mathematical ideas. Although prior research has focused on teacher noticing and responding to students’ mathematical ideas, few studies have explored the revisions that students make to their written…
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Resource | Examining Technology-Supported Teacher Responding and Students’ Written Mathematical Explanations
This study examines technology-enhanced teacher responses and students’ written mathematical explanations to understand how to support effective teacher responding and the centering of students’ mathematical ideas. Although prior research has focused on teacher noticing and responding to students’ mathematical ideas, few studies have explored the revisions that students make to their written…
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Resource | “I Remember How to Do It”: Exploring Upper Elementary Students’ Collaborative Regulation While Pair Programming Using Epistemic Network Analysis
Background and Context Students’ self-efficacy toward computing affect their participation in related tasks and courses. Self-efficacy is likely influenced by students’ initial experiences and exposure to computer science (CS) activities. Moreover, student interest in a subject likely informs their ability to effectively regulate their learning in that domain. One way to enhance interest in CS is…
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Resource | “I Remember How to Do It”: Exploring Upper Elementary Students’ Collaborative Regulation While Pair Programming Using Epistemic Network Analysis
Background and Context Students’ self-efficacy toward computing affect their participation in related tasks and courses. Self-efficacy is likely influenced by students’ initial experiences and exposure to computer science (CS) activities. Moreover, student interest in a subject likely informs their ability to effectively regulate their learning in that domain. One way to enhance interest in CS is…
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Resource | It's Challenging but Doable: Lessons Learned from a Remote Collaborative Coding Camp for Elementary Students
The COVID-19 pandemic shifted many U.S. schools from in-person to remote instruction. While collaborative CS activities had become increasingly common in classrooms prior to the pandemic, the sudden shift to remote learning presented challenges for both teachers and students in implementing and supporting collaborative learning. Though some research on remote collaborative CS learning has been…
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Resource | It's Challenging but Doable: Lessons Learned from a Remote Collaborative Coding Camp for Elementary Students
The COVID-19 pandemic shifted many U.S. schools from in-person to remote instruction. While collaborative CS activities had become increasingly common in classrooms prior to the pandemic, the sudden shift to remote learning presented challenges for both teachers and students in implementing and supporting collaborative learning. Though some research on remote collaborative CS learning has been…
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