DRK-12 Research and Products

Publication | Mathematical modeling (MM) - a cyclical process that involves using mathematics to make-sense of and analyze relevant, real-world situations - has the potential to advance equity and challenge spaces of marginalization in the elementary…
Publication | This study examines secondary mathematics teachers’ anticipations of student responses related to a series of cognitively demanding mathematics tasks from multiple mathematical domains presented in the context of voluntary and asynchronous…
Publication | Foregrounding climate education in formal science learning environments provides students with opportunities to develop critical climate-related knowledge and skills. However, research has shown many challenges to teaching and learning about…
Publication | The authors are developing a model for rural science teacher professional development, building teacher expertise and collaboration and creating high-quality science lessons: technology-mediated lesson study (TMLS).
Publication | Making science accessible is an important and worthy goal, but for many students, science is inaccessible because what counts as science in the classroom is narrowly defined as what is known as western science, rooted in Europe in the 1600s and…
Publication | This counterstory (Delgado, 1989; Martinez, 2020) is based on field notes (Oct. 19 & Nov. 1, 2022) from our collective’s ethnographic project working with upper elementary Latiné learners and their transition to middle school mathematics…
Publication | Despite interest in how students’ implicit theories—their growth and fixed mindsets about their own learning—affect students as learners, relatively little research on mindset has looked at teachers as learners. This study explores elementary…
Publication | This study aimed to examine an assumption regarding whether generative artificial intelligence (GAI) tools can overcome the cognitive intensity that humans suffer when solving problems. We examine the performance of ChatGPT and GPT-4 on NAEP…
Publication | Teacher-facilitated whole-class conversations can help elementary students apply the full power of the NGSS science and engineering practices to an engineering design process. In this article we describe and provide examples for five kinds of…
Publication | Research on teacher educators’ professional learning has gained increasing interest within science education. Curriculum materials have been suggested as a means of supporting teacher learning for several decades but have not yet been examined…
Publication | Language is a fundamental tool for learning science. This study highlights the importance of teacher knowledge in utilising language as a tool for knowledge generation in the classrooms. This case study examines elementary teachers’ development…
Publication | We explored the semiotic choices children in grades 1–6 made that nurtured embodied, dramatizing performances in science classes at urban public schools, serving predominantly students of color in a large US city. We studied how such choices in…
Publication | Educating students about real-world, issues such as local invasive species aims to encourage wider engagement with STEM.
Publication | In this paper, we describe three challenges (conflict between multiple dimensions of science proficiency, authentic data, and grade-appropriate graphing tools) that we faced when designing for a specific Next Generation Science Standard, and the…
Tool | CADRE has compiled tips from DRK-12 awardees on building partnerships, acknowledging context and history, nurturing relationships and the work, and adapting to change.
Publication | The need for data literacy is an increasingly pressing priority in society, but most of the work in data-centred education has focused on developing skills at the middle school, secondary, and post-secondary levels, with little attention on the…
Publication | This qualitative study uses a nonlinear, iterative model of teacher learning (Interconnected Model of Professional Growth; Clarke & Hollingsworth, 2002) alongside professional noticing to help understand why elementary teachers in science PD…
Publication | Teacher-facilitated whole-class conversations can help elementary students apply the full power of the NGSS science and engineering practices to an engineering design process. In this article we describe and provide examples for five kinds of…
Publication | Reform efforts in science and mathematics education highlight students’ experiences and sensemaking repertoires as valuable resources for instruction. Yet, there is much to learn about how to cultivate teachers’ capacity for eliciting,…
Publication | In this paper, we describe Legitimation Code Theory as an analytical framework and provide an analysis of semantic patterns of an integrated STEM unit (written discourse) and a middle school teacher’s enactment of that unit (oral…
Publication | The project research team developed two active learning lessons examining the diverse profiles of individuals who earned a bachelor’s degree in physics, and issues of marginalization of women in physics. After participating in the lessons,…
Publication | This qualitative study examines how a group of undergraduate and graduate students in an upper-level ecosystem ecology course at a research university in the southeastern part of the United States engage in a task that requires constructing an…
Publication | This study investigated how preservice elementary teachers' (PSTs) noticed the discourse practices they used to position students and their scientific thinking as they engaged a group of student avatars in argumentation-based simulated…
Publication | Our conceptual framework for justice-centered STEM education engages all students in multiple STEM subjects, including data science and computer science, to explain and design solutions to pressing societal challenges and their disproportionate…
Publication | In this study, 82 middle and high school teachers engaged with the InSTEP online professional learning platform to develop their expertise in teaching data science and statistics. We investigated teachers’ engagement within the platform,…