DRK-12 Research and Products
Publication | Ed+gineering, an NSF-funded program, adapted hands-on robotics instruction for online delivery in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This qualitative multiple case study shares the experiences of participating education students in spring 2021…
Publication | Implemented was a 45-minute per day Primary Science IDEAS intervention in grades 1–2 integrating reading and writing within science instruction in a multi-year study conducted in 8 experimental and 9 control schools. Results found a significant…
Publication | Posterior Predictive Model Checking (PPMC) is frequently used for model fit evaluation in Bayesian Confirmatory Factor Analysis (BCFA). In standard PPMC procedures, model misfit is quantified by comparing the location of an ML-based point…
Publication | This position paper advocates supporting CS teacher professional learning by supplementing existing curriculum-specific teacher PD with standards-aligned PD that focuses on teachers' conceptual understanding of CS standards and ability to adapt…
Publication | In this paper we use an existing history learning game with an active audience as a research platform for exploring how humor and "snarkiness" in the dialog script affect students' progression and attitudes about the game.
Publication | Teachers experience challenges in effectively using formative assessment practices in their classrooms. In the US, only 28% of elementary teachers report using formative assessment. This study highlights the need to design resources to meet…
Publication | In this article, we—a team of science teachers and a university researcher—present the processes of adapting existing curricular resources to promote equitable learning experiences for diverse learners. Using a middle school ecology unit as an…
Publication | Narrative as a game design feature constantly yields mixed results for learning in the literature. The purpose of this exploratory mixed-methods case study was to examine design heuristics and implications governing the role of narratives in a…
Publication | This study explores undergraduate engineering and education students’ perspectives on their interdisciplinary teams throughout the rapid transition to online learning and instruction from a face-to-face to a virtual format.
Publication | This study investigated novice mathematics teachers participating in an online teacher education course focused on covariational reasoning and understanding the behavior of functions. The analysis centered on documenting the emergence of…
Publication | This article describes resources that are freely available to help teachers navigate the peer review and publication processes and guide their students through the successful completion of submission and publication of their research papers.…
Presentation | K- 12 Computer Science (CS) education is developing rapidly but still lacks a comprehensive measure for CS teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). We respond to this need by describing the design of a CS-PCK instrument for ‘Algorithms…
Publication | This article offers spatial reasoning math activities for school and home learning.
Publication | Educational games are an increasingly popular teaching tool in modern classrooms. However, the development of complementary tools for teachers facilitating classroom gameplay is lacking. We present the results of a participatory design process…
Publication | Do your students ever share ideas that are only peripherally related to the discussion you are having? We discuss ways to minimize and deal with such contributions.
Publication | These narratives explore what it might entail to begin school–university partnerships towards the goal of transformative social changes through the voices of two women scholars of color. Using two school–university partnerships as focal cases,…
Publication | This article addresses the nature of student-generated representations that support students’ early algebraic reasoning in the realm of generalized arithmetic.
Publication | This article describes a free online plate tectonics curriculum module (PT module), which offers a unique approach with two innovative tools that allow students to make connections between real-world data and plate tectonics models.
Publication | Despite the importance of developing elementary science teachers' content knowledge for teaching (CKT), there are limited assessments that have been designed to measure the full breadth of their CKT at scale. Our overall research project…
Engagement and Science Achievement in the Context of Integrated STEM Education: A Longitudinal Study
Publication | A growing number of studies have shown the benefits of K-12 integrated science and engineering education. With this study, we add to the literature by documenting the relationship between STEM learning and engagement, and the demographic…
Publication | To address the lack of a classroom observation protocol aligned with integrated STEM, the author team developed one to measure the degree of integrated STEM instruction implemented in K-12 science and engineering classrooms. This study…
Publication | This study investigated how newcomer emergent bilinguals made meaning in two 9th-grade biology classrooms. Methods relevant to naturalistic inquiry were used to collect and analyze data. Findings indicate that newcomers bridged aspects of…
Publication | We use an online Content Knowledge for Teaching (CKT) assessment that measures PSTs’ CKT in one science area: matter and its interactions. In this study, we analyzed process data from administering the online CKT matter assessment to 822 PSTs…
Publication | Facilitating discussions is a key approach that science teachers use to engage students in scientific argumentation. However, learning how to facilitate argumentation-focused discussions is an ambitious teaching practice that can be difficult to…
Publication | This article reports on the first three years of a teacher-led professional development program on the Navajo Nation. We draw on both quantitative and qualitative data from our end-of-year surveys to highlight some of the early lessons we have…