Projects

Transdisciplinary science integrates knowledge across STEM disciplines to research complex challenges such as climate science, genetic engineering, or ecology. In this project, teachers and students will design smart greenhouses by connecting electronic sensors that can detect light or other environmental data to microcontrollers that can activate devices that water plants and regulate other environmental factors such as temperature or light. This activity brings together engineering, computer science, and horticulture. Working across urban and rural contexts, the project will engage teachers in professional development as they adopt and adapt instructional materials to support their students in learning across disciplines as they build smart greenhouses.

An exit ticket is a recommended and widely used way to end a lesson. The most common purpose of exit tickets is to provide formative feedback to teachers about whether students have met the objectives of a given lesson. However, the psychology of learning literature suggests that there is an untapped potential for exit tickets to also benefit students’ learning directly. This project explores two potential enhancements to exit tickets, with the goal of improving high-school students’ mathematics knowledge and ability to regulate their own learning processes.

Mathematical Opportunities in Student Thinking (MOSTs) are high-leverage instances of student mathematical thinking that emerge in whole-class discussions. The challenge for teachers is to build on these opportunities to help the whole class understand the mathematics underlying these student contributions. To help teachers learn how to build on MOSTs, there is a need for professional development resources and tools that facilitators can use. There is also a need for research about how teachers use what they learn in professional development in their teaching. This project is developing a teacher learning sequence that will support teachers in learning to productively use student thinking that surfaces in-the-moment during their instruction—that is, in learning to build on MOSTs.

Progress in science is motivated and directed by uncertainties. Yet even though uncertainty is a crucial fulcrum for scientific thought, school students are taught science within an overarching assumption that scientific knowledge is certain. This project explores the intellectual leverage of enabling middle school students to experience how scientific work grapples with uncertainty. The overall goal of this project is to understand how teachers can create equitable learning environments for culturally and linguistically diverse learners using Student Uncertainty for Productive Struggle as a pedagogical model in middle school science classrooms.

Science education research shows that incorporating attention-grabbing concepts and experiences—phenomena—in science classes has the power to engage and inspire young learners. However, many elementary teachers, including those in small rural schools, may not have access to or the support to enact high-quality phenomenon-centered curriculum materials and resources in their science teaching practice. This project aims to address this problem of practice by designing, implementing, and investigating a professional learning approach that supports rural elementary teachers and administrators in incorporating local phenomena-driven science learning experiences in their classrooms.

Science education research shows that incorporating attention-grabbing concepts and experiences—phenomena—in science classes has the power to engage and inspire young learners. However, many elementary teachers, including those in small rural schools, may not have access to or the support to enact high-quality phenomenon-centered curriculum materials and resources in their science teaching practice. This project aims to address this problem of practice by designing, implementing, and investigating a professional learning approach that supports rural elementary teachers and administrators in incorporating local phenomena-driven science learning experiences in their classrooms.

Science education research shows that incorporating attention-grabbing concepts and experiences—phenomena—in science classes has the power to engage and inspire young learners. However, many elementary teachers, including those in small rural schools, may not have access to or the support to enact high-quality phenomenon-centered curriculum materials and resources in their science teaching practice. This project aims to address this problem of practice by designing, implementing, and investigating a professional learning approach that supports rural elementary teachers and administrators in incorporating local phenomena-driven science learning experiences in their classrooms.

To successfully understand and address complex and important questions in the field of environmental science, many kinds of communities’ knowledge about their local environment need to be engaged. This one-year partnership development project involves a collaboration to design an approach that would yield opportunities for K-12 students to learn about environmental science in ways that honor both traditional STEM knowledge and Native ways of knowing among the Pomo community in California.

STEM learning is a function of both student level and classroom level characteristics. Though research efforts often focus on the impacts of classrooms level features, much of the variation in student outcomes is at the student level. Hence it is critical to consider individual students and how their developmental systems (e.g., emotion, cognition, relational, attention, language) interact to influence learning in classroom settings. This is particularly important in developing effective models for personalized learning. To date, efforts to individualize curricula, differentiate instruction, or leverage formative assessment lack an evidence base to support innovation and impact. Tools are needed to describe individual-level learning processes and contexts that support them. The proposed network will incubate and pilot a laboratory classroom to produce real-time metrics on behavioral, neurological, physiological, cognitive, and physical data at individual student and teacher levels, reflecting the diverse dynamics of classroom experiences that co-regulate learning for all students.

Socio-environmental issues are both a key to secondary student interest in science and a difficult terrain for teachers to navigate. Problems like climate change have not only scientific but also social, political, and ethical aspects. In order to prepare students for fully understanding such issues, attention needs to be given to how teachers can be supported and learn for effective instruction. This four-year project enacts and researches a teacher professional development program, “Teaching for the Anthropocene,” with middle and high school science teachers that brings a concept of "critical systems thinking." The project investigates how critical systems thinking may enhance teachers’ understanding of socio-environmental issues and support them to integrate those understandings into their curriculum and teaching. The project also identifies potential challenges educators may face as well as what local conditions and program supports help them practically apply critical systems thinking in their classrooms.

Socio-environmental issues are both a key to secondary student interest in science and a difficult terrain for teachers to navigate. Problems like climate change have not only scientific but also social, political, and ethical aspects. In order to prepare students for fully understanding such issues, attention needs to be given to how teachers can be supported and learn for effective instruction. This four-year project enacts and researches a teacher professional development program, “Teaching for the Anthropocene,” with middle and high school science teachers that brings a concept of "critical systems thinking." The project investigates how critical systems thinking may enhance teachers’ understanding of socio-environmental issues and support them to integrate those understandings into their curriculum and teaching. The project also identifies potential challenges educators may face as well as what local conditions and program supports help them practically apply critical systems thinking in their classrooms.