Projects

This project will develop and study three week-long middle school lab units designed to teach spatial abilities using a blend of physical and virtual (computer-based) models. "ThinkSpace" labs will help students explore 3-dimensional astronomical phenomena in ways that will support both understanding of these topics and a more general spatial ability. Students will learn both through direct work with the lab unit interface and through succeeding discussions with their peers.

This project will use cycles of design-based research to build new knowledge about how to facilitate teachers' interpretation and use of digital game-based formative assessment data. The research will also inform the revision and expansion of Playfully, an existing, online data-reporting dashboard that can be used with multiple digital games.

This project investigates how real time formative feedback can be automatically composed from the results of computational analysis of student design artifacts and processes with the envisioned SmartCAD software. The project conducts design-based research on SmartCAD, which supports secondary science and engineering with three embedded computational engines capable of simulating the mechanical, thermal, and solar performance of the built environment.

This project will convene stakeholders in STEM and early childhood education to discuss better integration of STEM in the early grades. PIs will begin with a phase of background research to surface critical issues in teaching and learning in early childhood education and STEM.  A number of reports will be produced including commissioned papers, vision papers, and a forum synthesis report.

This project investigates how real time formative feedback can be automatically composed from the results of computational analysis of student design artifacts and processes with the envisioned SmartCAD software. The project conducts design-based research on SmartCAD, which supports secondary science and engineering with three embedded computational engines capable of simulating the mechanical, thermal, and solar performance of the built environment.

This project investigates how real time formative feedback can be automatically composed from the results of computational analysis of student design artifacts and processes with the envisioned SmartCAD software. The project conducts design-based research on SmartCAD, which supports secondary science and engineering with three embedded computational engines capable of simulating the mechanical, thermal, and solar performance of the built environment.

This is an exploratory project that will research and develop resources and a model for professional learning needed to meet the demand of implementing the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). The Exploratorium Teacher Institute will engage middle school science teachers in a one-year professional learning program to study how familiar routines and classroom tools, specifically hands-on science activities, can serve as starting points for teacher learning.

This project directly addresses middle school teachers' understanding, practice, and teaching of modern scientific practice. Using the Project GUTS program and professional development model as a foundation, this project will design and develop a set of Resources, Models, and Tools (RMTs) that collectively form the basis for a comprehensive professional development (PD) program, then study teachers' experiences with the RMTs and assess how well the RMTs prepared teachers to implement the curriculum.

This project will develop and study two sets of instructional materials for K-2 teacher professional development in mathematics and science that are aligned with the CCSS and NGSS. Teachers will be able to review the materials online, watch video of exemplary teaching practice, and then upload their own examples and students' work to be critiqued by other teachers enrolled in professional learning communities as well as expert coaches.

This project will develop resources for teachers and administrators that will provide instructional guidance for teaching about the Ebola virus and other epidemics of infectious diseases that may arise. The resources developed will include guidelines for administrators and teachers, as well as policy briefs related to teaching and learning about Ebola.

This project will develop and disseminate an online educational resource called Understanding Ebola Virus Disease (UEVD). The objective is to provide users with an interactive learning experience that helps them acquire a basic understanding of factors that influence infection, transmission, and management of Ebola virus disease. 

This project will develop a Web-based set of instructional materials and resources that will use the recent Ebola outbreak as the overarching narrative for educating middle and high school students about the disease, its causative agent, how it is spread, and approaches for responding to it and controlling the epidemic.

This project utilizes existing citizen science programs as springboards for professional development for teachers during an intensive summer workshop. The project curriculum helps teachers use student participation in citizen science to engage them in the full complement of science practices; from asking questions, to conducting independent research, to sharing findings.

This project seeks to find ways to make the measurement sciences more useful to the production of intellective competence in diverse students of the STEM disciplines. A Study Group on Diversity, Equity and Excellence in Achievement and Assessment in STEM Education will be established to address a set of issues posed as critical to the future of assessment for education and will undertake a series of activities culminating in the production of a report.

This synthesis project will inform educators and policymakers about the cumulative evidence that exists on the impacts of a variety of contextual factors on a multitude of STEM outcomes (e.g., math and science achievement, self-efficacy, future goals). This project will provide new evidence regarding the significance of youth contexts on STEM outcomes that will assist policy makers and educators in evaluating productive educational environments.

This project will address widespread misunderstandings related to evolution by developing and testing a new high school curriculum unit and assessment measures focusing on biological evolution.  The new curriculum will integrate the three dimensions of the Next Generation Science Standards, the Common Core Mathematics standards on reasoning abstractly and quantitatively, and an English Language Arts standard for writing arguments focused on discipline-specific content. 

Schools and teachers face unprecedented challenges in meeting the ambitious goals of integrating core interdisciplinary science ideas with science and engineering practices as described in new standards. This project developed a middle school ecology unit and related teacher professional development to help high-need and urban middle school students, including English Language Learners, understand these ideas and related practices.

This Engineering Teacher Pedagogy project implements and assesses the promise of an extended professional development model coupled with curriculum enactment to develop teacher pedagogical skills for integrating engineering design into high school biology and technology education classrooms. 

The Graphing Research on Inquiry with Data in Science (GRIDS) project will investigate strategies to improve middle school students' science learning by focusing on student ability to interpret and use graphs. GRIDS will undertake a comprehensive program to address the need for improved graph comprehension. The project will create, study, and disseminate technology-based assessments, technologies that aid graph interpretation, instructional designs, professional development, and learning materials.

This project responds to the need for technology-enhanced assessments that promote the critical practice of scientific argumentation--making and explaining a claim from evidence about a scientific question and critically evaluating sources of uncertainty in the claim. It will investigate how to enhance this practice through automated scoring and immediate feedback in the context of two high school curriculum units--climate change and fresh-water availability--in schools with diverse student populations. 

The investigators propose to characterize the multitude of approaches currently employed in the professional development of K-12 teachers of science, and to measure the effectiveness of such approaches in increasing teacher knowledge in the sciences. The project will result in a website, conference presentations, and scholarly and professional publications.

Science in the Learning Gardens (SciLG) designs and implements curriculum aligned with Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and uses school gardens as learning contexts in grade 6 (2014-2015), grade 7 (2015-2016) and grade 8 (2016-2017) in two low-income urban schools. The project investigates the extent to which SciLG activities predict students’ STEM identity, motivation, learning, and grades in science using a theoretical model of motivational development.

The goal of this project is to help middle school students, particularly in rural and underserved areas, develop deep scientific knowledge and knowledge of the practices and routines of science. Research teams will develop an innovative learning environment called Bio-Sphere, which will foster learning of complex science issues through hands-on design and engineering.

This project will provide curricular and pedagogical support by developing and evaluating teacher-ready curricular Digital Internship Modules for Engineering (DIMEs). DIMES will be designed to support middle school science teachers in providing students with experiences that require students to use engineering design practices and science understanding to solve a real-world problem, thereby promoting a robust understanding of science and engineering, and motivating students to increased interest in science and engineering.

The Internship-inator is an authorware system for developing and testing virtual internships in multiple STEM disciplines. In a virtual internship, students are presented with a complex, real-world STEM problem for which there is no optimal solution. Students work in project teams to read and analyze research reports, design and perform experiments using virtual tools, respond to the requirements of stakeholders and clients, write reports and present and justify their proposed solutions.