Elizabeth Vanderputten

This project is developing, designing, and testing materials for professional development leaders (e.g., teacher educators, district mathematics specialists, secondary mathematic department chairs) to use in their work with secondary mathematics teachers. The aim is to help those teachers analyze the discourse patterns of their own classrooms and improve their skills in creating discourse patterns that emphasize high-level mathematical explanation, justification, and argumentation.

This project addresses the need for a curricular resource package to support a high school biology course fully aligned to the core ideas, crosscutting concepts, and scientific practices of College and Career Readiness standards. The project will develop a suite of resources including educative curricular materials, pedagogical tools, intensive teacher professional development, and video documentation of exemplary implementation and investigate the impact of the instructional resource on teacher and student learning.

This project is developing, iteratively refining and evaluating a science curriculum for Pre-K classrooms with units on Plant Growth, How Things Move, and What Makes Shadows by integrating traditional classroom resources (large and small group activities, hands-on activities, read-alouds) with digital media (touch screen tablets, photos and short videos, and games/simulations).

This project will address the question: In what ways can research on learning inform the design of interfaces and technology tools to be used by students accessing large scientific data bases? Oceans of Data will (1) conduct a systematic survey of the widely-dispersed research literature and (2) develop and disseminate a knowledge status report, a resource offering guidance for making these large scientific data bases accessible to and usable by high school science classes.

This project will address the question: In what ways can research on learning inform the design of interfaces and technology tools to be used by students accessing large scientific data bases? Oceans of Data will (1) conduct a systematic survey of the widely-dispersed research literature and (2) develop and disseminate a knowledge status report, a resource offering guidance for making these large scientific data bases accessible to and usable by high school science classes.

The RISE project is creating curriculum resources for dual language learners (DLLs) in science, technology and engineering (STE). Participants include teachers in pre-K programs in the Boston area selected to target Hispanic and Chinese students and their families. The curriculum will be based on the Massachusetts framework, one of only a few states with pre-K standards. The evaluation will monitor both the progress of the research and development and the dissemination to the target audiences.

The goal of this project is to develop and pilot test a limited number of free computer-based instructional activities that improve student graph comprehension, aimed especially at science students in grades 7 and 8. Because of growing interest in use of online resources for teaching and learning, this work is potentially transformative for a wide range of audiences, including teachers, students, researchers, and the developers and publishers of instructional materials across vSTEM areas and grades.

This workshop convenes leading practitioners and scholars of innovation to collectively consider how education in the US might be reconfigured to both support and teach innovation as a core curriculum mission, with a focus on STEM education. Workshop participants identify and articulate strategies for creating and sustaining learning environments that promise the development of innovative thinking skills, behaviors and dispositions and that reward students, faculty and administrator for practicing and tuning these skills.

This project is studying three models of professional development (PD) to test the efficacy of a practicum for grade 3-5 in-service teachers organized in three cohorts of 25. There will be 75 teachers and their students directly impacted by the project. Additional impacts of the project are research results and professional development materials, including a PD implementation guide and instructional videos.

This project is studying three models of professional development (PD) to test the efficacy of a practicum for grade 3-5 in-service teachers organized in three cohorts of 25. There will be 75 teachers and their students directly impacted by the project. Additional impacts of the project are research results and professional development materials, including a PD implementation guide and instructional videos.

This project creates professional development materials that support secondary mathematics teachers in improving teaching and learning through lesson study. Project resources support school districts in launching a lesson study program with a strong mathematical focus, an emphasis on teacher learning within the lesson study model and support for building the local lesson study leadership needed to implement and expand a lesson study program.

The project will use a quasi-experimental design to explore students' knowledge of core algebraic concepts in middle grades (grade 6), one year after their completion of 3-year, grades 3-5 early algebra intervention. The research questions are: (1) how well students who received a specific intervention retain their understanding of algebraic concepts in future years; and (2) whether and how the intervening year of regular classroom instruction in grade 6 influences the algebra understanding of both intervention and comparison students.

The SAVE Science project is creating an innovative system using immersive virtual environments for evaluating learning in science, consistent with research- and policy-based recommendations for science learning focused around the big ideas of science content and inquiry for middle school years. Motivation for this comes not only from best practices as outlined in the National Science Education Standards and AAAS' Project 2061, but also from the declining interest and confidence of today's student in science.

This project will study whether elementary mathematics specialists who participated in an intensive educational program supported by DRK-12 have continued providing leadership when they returned to teaching full-time. In what ways are specialist-teachers continuing to use their leadership expertise in their school, district, and state? How do district administrators, building administrators, and teachers shape specialist-teachers' opportunities for leadership? What other factors shape these opportunities? What is the impact of specialist-teachers on their schools' leadership culture?

This is a full research and development project addressing challenge question: How can promising innovations be successfully implemented, sustained, and scaled in schools and districts? The promising innovation is the Science Teachers Learning from Lesson Analysis (STeLLA) professional development (PD) program, which supports 4th- and 5th-grade teachers in teaching concepts in biology (food webs), physical science (phase changes), and earth science (earth’s changing surface, weather).

This project investigates the potential of online role-playing games for scientific literacy through the iterative design and research of Saving Lake Wingra, an online role-playing game around a controversial development project in an urban area. Saving Lake Wingra positions players as ecologists, department of natural resources officials, or journalists investigating a rash of health problems at a local lake, and then creating and debating solutions.

This project is researching and developing a new version of the Scratch programming language to be called ScratchJr, designed specifically for early childhood education (K-2). This work will provide research-based evidence regarding young children's abilities to use an object-oriented programming language and to study the impact this has on the children's learning of scientific concepts and procedures.

This project is researching and developing a new version of the Scratch programming language to be called ScratchJr, designed specifically for early childhood education (K-2). This work will provide research-based evidence regarding young children's abilities to use an object-oriented programming language and to study the impact this has on the children's learning of scientific concepts and procedures. 

The goal of the grant is to establish a culture of inquiry with all partners in order to develop interdiciplinary, authentic STEM learning environments. Design-based research provides iterative cycles of implementation to explore and refine the approach as a transformative model for STEM programs. The model supports a sustainable approach by building the capacity of schools to focus on design issues related to content, pedagogy, and leadership.

This study explores the ways middle school mathematics teachers implement standards-based curriculum materials in urban schools. It takes the view that instructional materials are cultural tools and examines how teachers use these tools to plan and implement the curriculum in their classrooms. The study is using a mixed methods approach that combines surveys of teachers in 30 schools in the Newark Public Schools district and closer observations of teachers in selected case schools.