DRK-12 Research and Products

Publication | Diagnostic classification models (DCMs) are psychometric models for evaluating a student’s mastery of the essential skills in a content domain based upon their responses to a set of test items. Currently, diagnostic model and/or Q-matrix…
Publication | In this chapter, we argue that the learning sciences and science education have coevolved, a co-evolution that began with the emergence of the learning sciences in the 1990s and that continues today.
Publication | In this article we describe an Informal Science Institution (ISI)-based professional learning program for science teacher leaders (STLs) developed within the context of a research-practice partnership (RPP).
Publication | The ability for an educational game designer to understand their audience's play styles and resulting experience is an essential tool for improving their game's design. In this paper we present a simple, reusable process using best practices for…
Publication | Women and ethnic minoritized individuals are underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) domains in postsecondary education and in the workforce. The aim of the current study was to examine whether adolescents'…
Publication | Why do some mathematics lessons captivate high school students and others not? This study explores this question by comparing how the content unfolds in the lessons that students rated highest with respect to their aesthetic affordances (e.g.,…
Publication | The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) have been imperative for informing many facets of the chemistry education research field, one of which includes the professional development (PD) of high school teachers. While many researchers and…
Publication | Efforts to promote reform-based instruction have overlooked the import of affect in teacher learning. Drawing on prior work, I argue that teachers’ affective experiences in the discipline are integral to their learning how to teach the…
Publication | The global pandemic and climate change have led to unprecedented environmental, social, and economic challenges with interdisciplinary STEM foundations. Even as STEM learning has never been more important, very few pre-college programs prepare…
Publication | Designing high school chemistry assessments is a complex and difficult task. Although prior studies about assessment have offered teachers guidelines and standards as support to generate quality assessment items, little is known about how…
Publication | In this study, we explored second and fifth graders’ noticing of negative signs and incorporation of them into their strategies when solving integer addition problems. For both grade levels, the order of the numerals, the location of the…
Publication | This chapter offers lessons learned by teacher educators who guided preservice teachers in the modification of hands-on engineering lessons for virtual implementation during the spring 2020 semester as part of an NSF-funded project.
| Activating Math Talk is a resource for promoting high-quality math discourse in grades K-5. The content of the chapters and discussion questions within are meant to spark conversations among teachers, teacher leaders, administrators, and education faculty…
Publication | The purpose of this study was to adapt and validate an instrument for assessing immersive 360 video use in an undergraduate preservice teacher university training program.
Publication | Examining a lesson in a high school biology unit that utilized noisy sensor data, we sought to understand the ways students engaged in active reasoning about the data and the factors that influenced this process. Video analysis centers on one…
Publication | This study seeks to better understand what teachers notice when interpreting assessment results and how the design of the assessment may influence teachers’ patterns of noticing. The study described herein investigates high school chemistry…
Product for Educators | Energy3D is a simulation-based engineering tool for designing green buildings and power stations that harness renewable energy to achieve sustainable development. Users can quickly sketch up a realistic-looking structure or import one…
Publication | 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…
Publication | The Responsive Math Teaching project has been developing and refining a model for the development of mathematics instructional leadership in a network of 13 urban under-resourced elementary schools. This report summarizes the core elements of…
Publication | COVID-19 has thrust educators into a period of uncertainty, complicating conventional ways of teaching and learning. We suspect that the pandemic has magnified the challenges that some high school teachers already experience, particularly when…
Publication | The University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) Development Team is working with the Northwest Arctic Borough School District to develop STEM lessons utilizing Iñupiaq knowledge systems and university research for middle school-age students in three…
Presentation | The author describes an innovative approach to assessment that aims to blend the productive characteristics of both summative and formative assessment. The resulting assessment system is accountable to students and teachers by providing…
Publication | In this paper, the relationship between high school chemistry teachers’ self-generated “best practices” for developing formative assessments and the assessments they implement in their courses are examined.
Presentation | Slides from a pre-conference workshop at the 2021 National Association for Research in Science Teaching Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL.
Tool | The Responsive Math Teaching (RMT) Instructional Model breaks high-quality math teaching down into seven core components: plan, launch, facilitate productive struggle, make student thinking visible, connect to the mathematics, build and expand, and…