"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

The Spectrum Laboratory is an online data visualization tool and associated set of investigations that supports students in learning about light, color, and the electromagnetic spectrum by working with authentic scientific spectral data. The research study investigates factors that hinder or promote students' reasoning about spectra; and to determine how the curriculum can help students to use spectra to explore interesting questions about the world while gaining fluency with a range of important science practices.

Attitudes and beliefs about math and space have been found to be predictive of STEM participation and achievement, with females generally reporting lower math and spatial self-concept and higher anxieties related to these domains (e.g., Sokolowski et al., 2019). However, little work to date has explored the acquisition of these attitudes and beliefs, particularly related to the domain of space. This is important, because comparing the acquisition of math and spatial attitudes and beliefs may shed light on potential interventions for improving STEM outcomes.

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.