DRK-12 Research and Products

Tool | What kinds of questions should guide investigations of matter? The Questions to Investigate task is intended to elicit preservice teachers’ content knowledge for teaching (CKT) related to asking questions to frame investigations of changes in matter.…
Publication | In the article, the authors locate how mathematics instruction may actively respond to the influence of the discipline of mathematics and exemplify how obligations to other stakeholders may participate in the practical rationality of mathematics…
Publication | Designed to be integrated with any curriculum, each grade level includes 18-20 one-hour lessons to be conducted throughout the school year. Each LEAP lesson lasts about an hour is designed to fit within a typical daily math instructional period…
Publication | This study examines how three cognitive instructional principles including worked examples, representations, and deep questions are used in eight experienced elementary teachers’ early algebra lessons in the U.S.
Product for Educators | 22 Common Core State Standards-aligned middle school lessons for teaching STEM with robotics.
Presentation | Amy Brodesky, Jessica Hunt, Karen Mutch-Jones and Judy Storeygard shared key components, successes, and challenges of asset-based PD in mathematics. The webinar focused on the pressing question: What are ways to support…
Publication | Drawing upon a social practice theory analytical lens with a focus on power and using critical participatory ethnography methods, this study investigated the ways middle school students restructured power hierarchies as they worked to complete…
Product for Educators | eRebuild is a math learning game for students in grades 6th-8th. The game focuses on teaching the concepts of geometery and ratios and proportions through gameplay.
Publication | The origin of the Universe is something that people have pondered for thousands of years. As evidence has mounted, the Big Bang theory has become the consensus scientific model. Much of this same evidence refutes opposing theories such as the…
Product for Educators | The Plate Tectonics module "What will Earth look like in 500 million years?" helps students build a systems view of plate tectonics through focused case studies and interactions with the Seismic Explorer (A data…
Publication | The purpose of this study was to develop and validate a self‐assessment using critical components of successful inclusive STEM high schools for school personnel and educational researchers who wish to better understand their STEM programs and…
Tool | How can we align activities with instructional goals to support student understanding of matter and materials? The Building a Tower Task is intended to elicit preservice teachers’ CKT about descriptions and appropriate uses of materials based on their…
Presentation | This study explores how teachers across the United States answer and reason on “teacher assessment tasks” designed to elicit content knowledge for teaching (CKT) about matter and its interactions. It leverages a think aloud approach, where…
Product for Educators | 10 NGSS-Plus-5E middle school lessons for teaching STEM with robotics.
Presentation | In this webinar, presenters Joseph DiNapoli, Eileen Murray, Doug O'Roark, and John Russell, shared the evolution of an analytic method that aims to reveal how secondary mathematics teachers build knowledge while…
Tool | Find general guidelines and information on preparing and justifying your proposal budget.
Product for Educators | EcoXPT is an immersive simulation in which students use inquiry to learn how ecosystems work.
| The purpose of this study is to characterize teachers’ orientations toward using student mathematical thinking as a resource during whole-class instruction.
Publication | High-quality science education is essential for students to become scientifically literate. Model-Evidence Link (MEL) diagrams and build-a-MEL (baMEL) diagrams are instructional scaffolds that create an opportunity for students to build…
Product for Educators | Students will use the Hurricane Explorer model to explain and predict how the path and strength of a hurricane can change, investigate real-world case studies on the risk and impact of hurricanes, and explore the effect of rising…
Publication | The authors studied how the distal policy mechanisms of curricular aims and objectives articulated in official curriculum documents influenced classroom instruction, and the factors that were associated with the enactment of those curricular…
Tool | What investigations can help students best understand conservation of matter? The Investigating Matter tasks are intended to elicit preservice teachers’ CKT related to the conservation of matter.
Presentation | This study explores how 79 elementary pre-service teachers evaluate the importance and pertinence of assessment tasks, designed to elicit information about content knowledge for teaching (CKT) about matter—a foundational topic for physical…
Publication | Using findings from a 4‐year research and development effort, we propose an updated model of sheltered instruction for science classrooms that leverages the opportunities provided by the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) to better support…
Tool | A collection shares resources to help researchers, parents, and teachers navigate changes to education and education research brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic.