Effective: 2014-2019

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Robb W Lindgren

Institution: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

The project will research how student body movements support their reasoning and understanding about scientific concepts that involve hidden structures or unobservable mechanisms. Student and scientist descriptions and explanations often involve embodied expressions, such as body movements used to represent or symbolically manipulate components of scientific systems (e.g., turning the hands to an object's rotation, tilting the upper torso to demonstrate some type of imbalance, etc.). Exploring...

Effective: 2014-2019

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: George E DeBoer

Institution: American Association for the Advancement of Science

This project, conducted by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), seeks to improve assessment of science understanding in K-12 students. The project will cover a wide range of 16 topics within science education. When a student takes a science test, performance will depend on cognitive factors, what the student knows, and linguistic factors, related to language. This project aims to distinguish cognitive and linguistic factors, with a focus on English language learners....

Effective: 2014-2019

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Senay Purzer, Charles Xie

Institutions: Purdue University, Concord Consortium

PARTICIPATING INSTITUTIONS: Concord Consortium (Lead)Purdue UniversityCORE AREA(s): STEM Learning/STEM Learning EnvironmentsPROJECT DESCRIPTION Practicing science is one of the most important goals of K-12 engineering education, which is now part of the Next Generation Science Standards. Although previous research suggests that engineering design is an effective pedagogical approach to promoting science learning, there are concerns about the "design-science gap" that fails science learning in...

Effective: 2014-2019

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Ms. Jessica Young

Institution: Education Development Center

This project testing a theoretical model of child development that examines the relation of a preschool teacher intervention to children's mathematics learning. Specifically, the project investigates a two-step causal model that examines one aspect of children's school readiness skills "mastery motivation" as a mediating variable of teacher practice to children's mathematics learning. Mastery motivation is a child's independent persistence to accomplish moderately challenging tasks, which has...

Effective: 2014-2019

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Kevin J Crowley, Rena Dorph

Institutions: University of Pittsburgh, University of California-Berkeley

This project, conducted by the University of Pittsburgh and the University of California, Berkeley, seeks to discover what makes middle school students engaged in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). The researchers have developed a concept known as science learning activation, including dispositions, practices, and knowledge leading to successful STEM learning and engagement. The project is intended to develop and validate a method of measuring science learning...

Effective: 2014-2018

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Ellen Schiller

Institution: SRI International

Students with learning disabilities and those with autism spectrum disorder represent the largest and fastest growing groups of students with disabilities in U.S. public schools. These students are underperforming in STEM achievement as compared to their non-disabled peers, and these students are underprepared for college entry and success. This capacity building project will contribute to foundational knowledge about what is already known, and what needs to be studied, about K-12 online STEM...

Effective: 2014-2018

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Heather Hill

Institution: Harvard University

This project develops and field-tests a mathematics-specific coaching protocol centered on the Mathematical Quality of Instruction (MQI) instrument, a Common Core-aligned observational tool. The coaching model will consist of three elements: a summer training workshop, personalized web-based coaching, and access to a library of resources to support coaching and instructional change. The project team works with 3rd through 8th grade mathematics teachers to implement and evaluate the coaching...

Effective: 2014-2018

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Brett D DePaola

Institution: Kansas State University

The Research on the Use of Visual Cueing and Feedback to Facilitate Problem Solving project uses a rigorous experimental design to expand understanding of the role of visual cues and correctness feedback on undergraduate problem solving, specifically mathematics and physics, as well as the interaction between cues and feedback. The project combines theoretical perspectives on problem solving (representational change theory) with theoretical perspectives on multimedia learning (cognitive theory...

Effective: 2014-2018

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Roger Azevedo

Institution: North Carolina State University

The investigators will research how characteristics of intelligent virtual humans (IVHs) support the ability of students to reflect on and, therefore, improve their learning in undergraduate biology. To date, research has shown mixed effectiveness when human avatars are used in learning technologies. To remedy that, the researchers will first study how expert human tutors use verbal and facial cues in reacting to students' cognitive, affective, metacognitive, and motivational (CAMM) processes....

Effective: 2014-2017

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Merle Froschl

Institution: Family Health International

The Educational Equity Center at Family Health International 360, IMPAQ International, and the New York Academy of Sciences will partner to implement a three-year education research capacity-building project to support the groundwork necessary to advance research on middle school girls' math identity. The focus will be on girls in grades 4-8, critical years when they face transitions from elementary school to middle school and from middle school to high school. This effort will ultimately lay...

Effective: 2014-2017

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Cynthia M D'Angelo

Institution: SRI International

The Education Core Research (ECR) program funds foundational research in STEM learning, STEM learning environments, workforce development, and broadening participation in STEM. One of the pressing current challenges in schools as curriculum focuses increasingly on inquiry, application, and synthesis (rather than factual recall) is how to efficiently manage, support, and assess collaboration in the classroom. While teaching with collaborative learning may be more productive, it also creates...

Effective: 2014-2016

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Michael N Solem

Institution: Association of American Geographers

This project is designed to build capacity for conducting research on learning progressions in geography. Learning progressions offer a means for educators to determine how students learn geographic facts, concepts, and skills, and whether they are on track toward attainment of a particular curriculum standard or set of standards. The available research base in geography education is primarily focused on students' understanding (or learning) of individual ideas or skills, but not on the...

Effective: 2014-2016

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Daniel Denecke

Institution: Council of Graduate Schools

The Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) is undertaking an exploratory capacity building project to plan a multi-year Best Practice research effort focused on institutional models and strategies for integrating STEM workforce development and graduate education. The project will provide a better understanding of what skills deficiencies employers identify in STEM graduate students, what structures are or are not in place to meet those needs, what learning environments are effective, and how...

Effective: 2013-2020

Funding Type: CAREER

Principal Investigator: Alicia C Alonzo

Institution: Michigan State University

CAREER: Redesigning a Learning Progression to Build upon Students? Intuitive Ideas about Motion and Support Teachers? Formative Assessment PracticesLearning progressions??descriptions of the successively more sophisticated ways of thinking about a topic that can follow one another as children learn? (National Research Council, 2007, p. 219)?have the potential to influence a wide range of educational policies and practice. However, learning progressions based upon research on students?...

Effective: 2013-2019

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Megan E Bang, Beth Warren

Institutions: University of Washington, TERC Inc

AbstractExpansive Meanings and Makings in ArtScience will design and develop an innovative model of ArtScience learning for middle and high school age youth from communities underrepresented in STEM fields. ArtScience is an emerging movement emphasizing commonalities in thinking practices used by artists and scientists as they explore complex 21st century problems. Youth will engage in ArtScience inquiries in two scientific domains of significance to them and their communities: climate change...

Effective: 2013-2019

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Mary Kay Stein

Institution: University of Pittsburgh

Investigators are designing a state-wide, empirically based indicator system that aligns with Tennessee's (TN) vision of instructional improvement and is built from data gathered through in-depth study of teaching and learning in a sample of 4th through 8th grade mathematics classrooms. Investigators begin with a set of constructs and measures that are known to predict student learning on high-level mathematics assessments (high-cognitive-demand instruction) and that are associated with...

Effective: 2013-2019

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Chandra L Muller, John R Warren

Institutions: University of Texas at Austin, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities

This collaborative study is investigating how the STEM skills and training that individuals from underrepresented groups acquired during high school and postsecondary education have contributed to their STEM workforce success and the types of occupations they now enjoy in midlife. It is uses the High School & Beyond (HS&B) database, a nationally representative study of high school sophomores from 1980. HS&B contains a large sample of African Americans and Latinos, women, and people...

Effective: 2013-2018

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Sian Beilock

Institution: University of Chicago

The goal of this EHR Core Research project, focused on the area of STEM learning, is to use cognitive science theories of embodied cognition to enhance student learning in physics. A central hypothesis being investigated is that providing students with direct experience with physics quantities (e.g., feeling the mass distribution in an extended object through balancing techniques designed to locate an object's center of gravity (COG)), as opposed to reading about the concepts in a textbook or...

Effective: 2013-2017

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigators: Lance C Perez, Hannah Sevian

Institutions: University of Nebraska-Lincoln, University of Massachusetts Boston

PARTICIPATING INSTITUTIONS: University of Massachusetts Boston (Lead)University of Nebraska-LincolnCORE AREA(s):STEM Learning/STEM Learning Environments - Undergraduate EducationPROJECT DESCRIPTION The project is studying the abstraction capacity in problem solving among undergraduate students in two STEM disciplines. The three-year project involves faculty and students in electrical engineering at University of Nebraska-Lincoln and in chemistry at University of Massachusetts Boston. The study...

Effective: 2013-2017

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Reed Stevens

Institution: Northwestern University

The FUSE Studios project designs a series of learning challenges for youth, derived from principles of game design, to: (1) develop and refine a design-based and iterative research and development cycle that will develop new challenges and new sequences, and revise current challenges; 2) conduct original, multi-faceted research on these new informal learning environments and the learning experiences of participants. The project responds to the failure of formal STEM education practices to...

Effective: 2013-2017

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Jon D Miller

Institution: Regents of the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

This project is initiating a new cohort of 7th grade students and extending the Longitudinal Study of American Youth (LSAY) to a new generation. In 1987, the LSAY began with national cohorts of 7th and 10th grade students selected from a stratified probability sample of public schools in the U.S. The LSAY has provided a valuable longitudinal record of the development of student attitudes and experiences into young adult life plans, careers, and new families. The original LSAY cohorts have...

Effective: 2013-2016

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: Daniel J Heck

Institution: Horizon Research Inc

The project conducts an exploration of elements of geometric mathematics tasks that promote students' record keeping (RK) strategies that facilitate student cognition during problem solving and aid in communication about how solutions were obtained. The project addresses three questions: (1) What features of mathematics task presentation promote record keeping that aid middle grades students cognition and communication? (2) What principles can be derived and applied for designing tasks to...

Effective: 2013-2015

Funding Type: ECR:Core

Principal Investigator: William G Buttlar

Institution: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

EHR Core ResearchWorkforce DevelopmentThe University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is conducting a workforce development capacity building project that is designed to advance the strategic integration of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) into graduate and professional STEM programs in 21st century research universities by setting the stage for robust research studies. The PI proposes to conduct a workshop to explore pedagogical issues such as the effectiveness of flipped classrooms merged...