DRK-12 Research and Products

Publication | The authors designed a science and engineering curricular program that includes design features that promote student interest and motivation and examined teachers' and students' views on meaningfulness, motivation and interest.
Publication | The Socioscientific Issues Teaching and Learning (SSI-TL) framework is a guide for developing an instructional approach to learning experiences focused on socioscientific issues (SSI). Despite the potential benefits of SSI learning, teachers…
Publication | Nancy Butler Songer, from the University of Utah, makes a call for collective action to create a new curriculum focused on the design of solutions.
Publication | Artificial Intelligence (AI) is prevalent in nearly every aspect of our lives. However, recent studies have found a significant amount of confusion and misunderstanding surrounding AI. To develop effective educational programs in the field of AI…
Publication | We examined secondary (6-12) mathematics teachers’ participation in a professional development (PD) model where they collectively investigated video cases of students engaging with ambitious instructional materials. We leveraged frame analysis,…
Publication | This study concerns the cognitive process of mathematical problem posing, conceptualized in three stages: understanding the task, constructing the problem, and expressing the problem. We used the eye tracker and think-aloud methods to deeply…
Tool | This list includes STEM education-related conferences that may be of interest to DRK-12 grantees.
Publication | Providing high-quality professional development for teachers with diverse backgrounds and classroom experience is a challenging task. In this work, we investigate the Illinois Physics and Secondary Schools (IPaSS) partnership program, which…
Publication | Digital game-based math learning environments (math DGBLE) are promising platforms that provide students with opportunities to master conceptual understanding and cultivate mathematical thinking, on which the contemporary mathematics education…
Publication | It is essential for items in assessments of mathematics’ teacher knowledge to evoke the desired response processes – to be interpreted and responded to by teachers as intended by item developers. In this study, we sought to unpack evidence that…
Publication | Engineering design systematically identifies needs, wants, and problems and then devises solutions to address them. A central component of our work is guiding students in the engineered design of solutions to local environmental problems.…
Publication | Questions regarding the construction of mathematical authority have implications for learning, specifically for students’ views of themselves as mathematics learners and doers with valuable contributions. We consider the ideas proposed by eight…
Publication | Despite years of research and practice inspired by chemistry education research, a recent report shows that US secondary instruction is not aligned with current national reform-based efforts. One means to mitigate this discrepancy is focusing on…
Publication | Professional development providers often struggle with how some teachers take up and internalise new instructional practices while others have difficulty implementing new ideas and strategies. Teacher personal characteristics account for only…
Publication | The Delphi method has been adapted to inform item refinements in educational and psychological assessment development. An explanatory sequential mixed methods design using Delphi is a common approach to gain experts' insight into why items might…
Publication | A School Science and Mathematics Journal editorial.
Publication | Research on geometric transformations suggests that early learners possess intuitive understandings grounded in motion metaphors, transitioning to mappings. The processes through which students transition between these two conceptions are not…
Publication | Limited research has explored elementary preservice teachers' responsiveness while navigating an argumentation-focused discussion, particularly in an online simulated teaching experience. The purpose of this study was to examine preservice…
Publication | This report takes stock of what we currently know as well as what we need to know to make classroom assessment maximally beneficial for the teaching and learning of STEM subject matter in K–12 classrooms.
Publication | Specific to the topic of oxidation–reduction (redox), teachers are obligated by the discipline to prioritise symbolic traditions such as writing equations, documenting oxidation states, and describing changes (e.g., what undergoes oxidation/…
Presentation | We consider how intentionally planned and facilitated whole-class conversations can “make space” for students’ sense-making about engineering problems and solutions and position them with epistemic authority to contribute to collective thinking…
Publication | Women and many people of color continue to be minoritized in STEM and notably in physics. We conducted two studies demonstrating that exposure to counternarratives about who does physics and why one does physics significantly increases high…
Publication | In many schools across the world, students experience mathematical concepts as ideas empty of wisdom and possibility. In this paper the authors analyze a philosophical conversation in which fifth-grade students were caught up in the animacy of…
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…
Product for Educators | A 10-week, energy literacy curriculum unit for 6th grade students. Students will study energy use and transfer in their own school buildings. They will explore how Earth systems supply renewable and nonrenewable energy, and how these…