Education Commons^™

Student Perceptions Of Their Undergraduate Science Laboratories, Eva N. Nyutu

Dissertations

The science laboratory learning environment has been a distinctive area in science education since the 19th century. The science laboratory environment has been examined extensively at the high school level using the Science Laboratory Environment Inventory (SLEI). There are, however, very few studies about the science laboratory environment done at the college level. An instrument that may be helpful for college instructors is one that assesses the degree to which students perceive the laboratory as intended by their science instructors. An examination of the literature indicated that there are no validated and reliable instruments for measuring student perceptions of what …

Work At The Boundary: A Research-Practice Partnership To Integrate Computer Science Into Middle School Science, Amelia R. Callahan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Maine Center for Research in STEM Education (RiSE Center) is currently developing a partnership between university education researchers, computer science faculty, and middle school science teachers throughout the state. The goal of this partnership is to develop a set of lessons that integrate computer science concepts and practices into existing science curricular materials. This STEM+C partnership brings together individuals who have a wide range of experience and comfort with computer science and teaching middle school. This study focuses on the partnership’s early stages through its initial summer collaborations. We designed and administered interviews prior to the module design process …

Epistemic Aspects Of Engineering For K-12 Education, Ezgi Yesilyurt

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The recent science education standards placed a special emphasis on engineering design to build a foundation of students’ learning in engineering and enhance their scientific understanding by using engineering as a real-world context. However, the standards documents put a strong focus on engineering design without providing a comprehensive outlook on the features of the engineering discipline. Such an approach could deprive students of the chance to develop disciplinary knowledge and understand the connections between engineering, science, technology, and society. In this respect, the aim of this study was to illuminate the epistemic aspects of engineering for K-12 science and engineering …

Exploring The Influence Of Peer-Assisted Learning Strategies (Pals) In Increasing Reading Comprehension Of Grade-Level Biology Text And Biology Self-Efficacy In Students With Learning Disabilities: A Formative Experiment, K. Lea Priestley

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The present study used a formative design experiment framework which does not answer a research question but addresses a pedagogical goal. The goal of this study was to determine the influence of Peer-Assisted Learning Strategies (PALS) on the reading comprehension of grade-level biology text and biology self-efficacy with students diagnosed with learning disabilities. As a result of this intervention, it was expected that students would better understand biology text and feel better about themselves as a biology student.

Students were separated into pairs, or dyads, with each pair having a stronger reader and a weaker reader. These dyads participated in …

Social Justice Mathematical Modeling For Teacher Preparation, Patrick L. Seegmiller

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Today's math teachers face significant social and political challenges for which they receive little preparation. Mathematics content courses can potentially provide additional preparation in this regard by providing future teachers with experiences to mathematically explore social justice issues. This provides them with opportunities to increase their awareness and sensitivity to social justice issues, develop greater empathy for their future students, and serve as examples for high quality instruction that they can emulate in their future careers. This dissertation recounts the development and revision of three social justice mathematical modeling projects, and shares evidence from student work samples of the ways …

Toward Developing A Valid And Reliable Assessment Of Learners’ Nature Of Engineering Views, Erdogan Kaya

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Nature of Engineering (NOE) refers to the epistemological beliefs pertaining to engineering (Antink-Meyer & Brown, 2019; Deniz et al., 2019; Hartman & Bell, 2018; Kaya et al., 2017; Pleasants & Olson, 2019). Given that a person’s engineering values and beliefs can affect how that individual perceives not only certain tasks, but also his/her ability to accomplish them, it is important to support pre-college teachers and students in improving their NOE understanding. This continues to be one of the main goals of pre-college Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) education, and has become particularly relevant since the release of the Next …

The International Conference On Creative Mathematical Sciences Communication: Online Event (Cmsc'20) And Cmsc'21, Frances Rosamond

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

You are warmly invited to register now for the 5th International Conference on Creative Mathematical Sciences Communication (CMSC’21) which will be held at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland, 2–6 July, 2021.

The International Conference on Creative Mathematical Sciences Communication (CMSC) is a unique gathering of computer scientists and mathematicians, teachers, musicians, dancers, dramatists, game designers, educators and communicators of all sorts.

Due to the pandemic, the in-person event scheduled for 2020 has been post- poned and a short CMSC Online Event was organized as a “teaser” or trailer in order to feel the spirit of the full 5th CMSC …

The Human Face Of Mathematics: Reuben Hersh (1927-2020) In Memoriam, Elena Anne Corie Marchisotto

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

Reuben Hersh (1927-2020) celebrated mathematics as a human endeavor, historically evolved and intelligible only in a social context. It is therefore appropriate to remember him in the Journal of Humanistic Mathematics. There have been many tributes to Reuben, which commemorate his life and impressive mathematical and philosophical achievements. This memoriam to Reuben instead focuses on showing how his humanistic philosophy was so indicative of the person he was.

Creative Assignments In Upper Level Undergraduate Courses Inspired By Mentoring Undergraduate Research Projects, Malgorzata A. Marciniak

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

This article describes methods and approaches for incorporating creative projects in undergraduate mathematics courses for students of engineering and computer science in an urban community college. The topics and the grading rubrics of the projects go way beyond standard homework questions and contain elements of finding own project, incorporating historical background, inventing own questions and exercises, or demonstrating experiments to illustrate some aspects of the project. After analyzing challenges and outcomes of these projects, I identified several skills which help students be successful, including the skills of creativity. These skills are writing, oral presentation, math skills, and collaboration skills. I …

What Would The Nautilus Say? Unleashing Creativity In Mathematics!, Megan E. Selbach-Allen, Cathy A. Williams, Jo Boaler

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

While the nautilus shell is often represented in popular culture as an example of a golden spiral, according to many mathematicians it is not. In this paper we examine multiple arguments for and against considering the nautilus as a “golden” spiral and offer a semi-structured task that is accessible to middle school students and beyond to begin their own investigation. Our hope is that asking, what would the nautilus say, can serve as a starting point for children and adults alike to push against the walls we so often draw around mathematical questions and begin to see where their creativity …

A Study Of Problem Posing As A Means To Help Mathematics Teachers Foster Creativity, Deborah Moore-Russo, Amanda A. Simmons, Michael J.D. Tulino

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

Research suggests that mathematical creativity often results from extended periods of mathematical activity and reflection based on the use of deep and flexible content knowledge [14, 15]. This implies that instruction can influence creativity. However, for teaching to foster creativity in mathematics, there should be purposefully designed instructional tasks. It is doubtful that routine, mechanical exercises would foster creativity. Moreover, mathematical creativity may neither be explicitly promoted, nor fully appreciated, by students when a learning space involves only problem solving, even if the problems are challenging and engaging. For students to get an authentic sense of mathematics and to develop …

Learning To Transform, Transforming To Learn: Children’S Creative Thinking With Fractions, Higinio Dominguez, Sandra Crespo, Tamara Del Valle, Melissa Adams, Megan Coupe, Gustavo Gonzalez, Yordhan Ormazabal

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

In this paper we contribute an alternative conceptualization of creativity by highlighting movement as creating spatial and temporal dimensions that are important to make sense of creativity in children mathematical thinking. Using data from an international collaboration between two teaching-research teams from the United States and Chile, we trace how children mobilized their social bodies, materials, tools, images, metaphors, languages, and improvisations in order to make sense of the concept of fractions. Based on these findings we offer a number of discussion points that highlight the importance of creating these kinds of learning spaces, the role of tasks in promoting …

Recognizing Mathematics Students As Creative: Mathematical Creativity As Community-Based And Possibility-Expanding, Meghan Riling

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

Although much creativity research has suggested that creativity is influenced by cultural and social factors, these have been minimally explored in the context of mathematics and mathematics learning. This problematically limits who is seen as mathematically creative and who can enter the discipline of mathematics. This paper proposes a framework of creativity that is based in what it means to know or do mathematics and accepts that creativity is something that can be nurtured in all students. Prominent mathematical epistemologies held since the beginning of the twentieth century in the Western mathematics tradition have different implications for promoting creativity in …

Developing Arduino Coding Curriculum, Tyler Brown, Riley Bucheitte, Timothy Kidd

Summer Undergraduate Research Program (SURP) Symposium

No abstract provided.

Maximizing Participation In An Online Mathematics Course, Lauren Falck, Douglas Shaw

Summer Undergraduate Research Program (SURP) Symposium

No abstract provided.

Summer Camp Flight: 7.31.20, Illinois Mathematics And Science Academy, Center For Teaching And Learning

IMSA STEM Snack Boxes

No abstract provided.

Mathematical Discourse: Impacts On Seventh Grade Student Learning And Feelings About Mathematics, Courtney Weston

Dissertations, Theses, and Projects

The original purpose of this study was to investigate the impacts mathematical discourse has on instruction and students’ feelings about mathematics. The research would have focused on the impacts mathematical discourse has on 40 students in a 7th grade math classroom. Students would have been provided with tasks that foster and encourage discourse during instruction. Student surveys, work samples, and a Discourse Rubric would have been used to determine the impacts mathematical discourse has on instruction and students’ feelings about mathematics. Plans for this study changed due to the Coronavirus pandemic. Due to COVID-19, the research was shifted to an …

Who Is Welcome Here? A Culturally Responsive Content Analysis Of Makerspace Websites, Hannah Kye

Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research (J-PEER)

Makerspaces and maker education are widely seen as means to democratize science and engineering education. A small but growing body of scholarly work warns against this assumption and calls for an explicit focus on equity in makerspaces both online and in person. With an understanding of learning as a social and cultural process, this paper proposes that disrupting the cycle of racial and cultural inequity in science education requires makerspace educators and staff to ground their work in multicultural theories and practices. In particular, culturally responsive pedagogy (CRP) provides guidance for infusing science and engineering with equity approaches in order …

Lectures On Mathematical Computing With Python, Jay Gopalakrishnan

PDXOpen: Open Educational Resources

This open resource is a collection of class activities for use in undergraduate courses aimed at teaching mathematical computing, and computational thinking in general, using the python programming language. It was developed for a second-year course (MTH 271) revamped for a new undergraduate program in data science at Portland State University. The activities are designed to guide students' use of python modules effectively for scientific computation, data analysis, and visualization.

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Short- And Long-Term Impacts Of A Deliberative Pedagogy In Introductory Biology And Chemistry Courses, Liz Rain-Griffith

Dissertations and Theses

There have been multiple national calls for curricular reform in college-level science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), including a need to instill democratic skills in students. Democratic skill building can be embedded in STEM classrooms through intentional "deliberative pedagogies" which include skills in: communication, collaboration, and application. We developed and implemented a deliberative pedagogy, Deliberative Democracy (DD), across introductory majors and non-majors biology courses and a majors chemistry course. In two separate studies, I took a longitudinal, qualitative research approach to understand introductory biology and chemistry students' experiences and perceptions of DD. For the first study, I tracked a cohort …

Guided Reinvention As A Context For Investigating Students' Thinking About Mathematical Language And For Supporting Students In Gaining Fluency, Kristen Vroom

Dissertations and Theses

Fluency with mathematical language is important for students' engagement in many disciplinary practices such as defining, conjecturing, and proving; yet, there is growing evidence that mathematical language is challenging for undergraduate students. This dissertation study draws on two design experiments with pairs of students who were supported to encode their mathematical meanings with more formal language. I aimed to investigate the teaching and learning of mathematical language, and particularly the language in statements with multiple quantifiers, by engaging students in this type of activity. In the first paper, I investigated the complex ways in which the students in my study …

Exploring User Interface Improvements For Software Developers Who Are Blind, Guarionex J. Salivia, Flint D. Million, Megan E. Bening

Journal of Science Education for Students with Disabilities

Software developers who are blind and interact with the computer non-visually face unique challenges with information retrieval. We explore the use of speech and Braille combined with software to provide an improved interface to aid with challenges associated with information retrieval. We motivate our design on common tasks performed by students in a software development course using a Microprocessor without Interlocked Pipeline Stages (MIPS) architecture simulation tool. We test our interface via a single-subject longitudinal study, and we measure and show improvement in both the user’s performance and the user experience.

Tactviz: A Vmd Plugin For Tactile Visualization Of Protein Structures, Olivia R. Shaw, Jodi A. Hadden-Perilla

Journal of Science Education for Students with Disabilities

Scientific disciplines spanning biology, biochemistry, and biophysics involve the study of proteins and their functions. Visualization of protein structures represents a barrier to education and research in these disciplines for students who are blind or visually impaired. Here, we present a software plugin for readily producing variable-height tactile graphics of proteins using the free biomolecular visualization software Visual Molecular Dynamics (VMD) and protein structure data that is publicly available through the Protein Data Bank. Our method also supports interactive tactile visualization of proteins with VMD on electronic refreshable tactile display devices. Employing our method in an academic laboratory has enabled …

Astrodance: Engaging Deaf And Hard-Of-Hearing Students In Astrophysics Via Multimedia Performances, Jason Nordhaus, Manuela Campanelli, Joe Bochner, Thomas Warfield, Hans-Peter Bischof, Jake Noel-Storr

Journal of Science Education for Students with Disabilities

The dynamics of gravitating astrophysical systems such as black holes and neutron stars are fascinatingly complex, offer some of nature's most spectacular phenomena, and capture the public's imagination in ways that few subjects can. Here, we describe AstroDance, a multi-media project to engage deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) students in astronomy and gravitational physics. AstroDance incorporates multiple means of representation of scientific concepts and was performed primarily for secondary and post-secondary audiences at ~20 venues in the northeastern US prior to the historic first detection of gravitational waves. As part of the AstroDance project, we surveyed ~1000 audience members roughly split …

Visualization Without Vision – How Blind And Visually Impaired Students And Researchers Engage With Molecular Structures, Croix J. Laconsay, Henry B. Wedler, Dean J. Tantillo

Journal of Science Education for Students with Disabilities

This article examines the tools and techniques currently available that enable blind and visually impaired (BVI) individuals to visualize three-dimensional objects used in learning chemistry concepts. How BVI individuals engage with and visualize molecular structure is discussed and recent tactile (or haptic) and auditory methods for visualization of various chemistry concepts are summarized. Remaining challenges for chemistry education researchers are described with the aim of highlighting the potential value of educational research in further enabling BVI students to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields.

Supplemental Online Learning Tools (Solts) To Support Deaf And Hard Of Hearing Students In Introductory Statistics Courses, Jacqueline Mcclive, Keith Mousley, Carol E. Marchetti, David Simkins, Gary Blatto-Vallee, Jane Jackson, Sue Foster

Journal of Science Education for Students with Disabilities

Research in most Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) disciplines uses statistical methods. Thus as students develop into research scientists, introductory statistics serves as a gateway course. If students struggle to incorporate statistics into their knowledge base, they may be effectively kept from careers that rely on statistics. DHH students learn differently and thus may lag behind their hearing counterparts in mainstream classrooms. In part, a gap in language knowledge can impede the understanding of statistics topics. What is a variable? What does it mean to have a distribution? With sign language interpreters and other support services, many mainstream instructors …

Summer Camp Engineering: 7.24.20, Illinois Mathematics And Science Academy, Center For Teaching And Learning

IMSA STEM Snack Boxes

No abstract provided.

Toward A Framework For The Natures Of Proportional Reasoning In Introductory Physics, Andrew Boudreaux, Stephen E. Kanim, Alexis Olsho, Suzanne W. Brahmia, Charlotte Zimmerman, Trevor I. Smith

Physics & Astronomy

We present a set of modes of reasoning about ratio and proportion as a means of operationalizing expert practice in physics. These modes, or natures of proportional reasoning, stem from consideration of how physicists reason in context and are informed by prior work in physics and mathematics education. We frame the natures as the core of an emerging framework for proportional reasoning in introductory physics, that will categorize the uses of proportional reasoning in introductory physics contexts, and provide guidance for the development of reliable assessments. We share results from preliminary assessment items indicating that university physics students have difficulty …

Pisa 2018: Financial Literacy In Australia, Sue Thomson, Lisa De Bortoli, Catherine Underwood, Marina Schmid

OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) Australia

The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2018 is the seventh cycle of PISA since it was first conducted in 2000 and measures students’ skills in the core areas of reading literacy, mathematical literacy and scientific literacy. Since PISA 2012, financial literacy has been included as an additional optional assessment that accompanies the core assessments. In Australia, the financial literacy assessment is funded by the Australian Securities and Investment Commission. This report presents the results for the third assessment of financial literacy and focuses on the measurement of financial literacy for Australia as a whole and for different demographic groups, …

Variability In The Effectiveness Of Psychological Interventions Based On Machine Learning In Stem Education, Mohammad Hasan, Bilal Khan

School of Computing: Faculty Publications

This manuscript presents a framework to investigate the variability in the effectiveness of psychological interventions supported by Machine Learning (ML) based early-warning systems (EWS) in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education. It emphasizes the importance of investigating the resulting variability and suggests that effective EWS cannot be designed without a deeper understanding of the variability. The framework uses an ML-based model to predict students’ academic performance early in the semester for a Sophomore-level Computer Science course at a public university in the United States. The students were given psychological interventions by sending their end-of-term performance forecast thrice during the semester. …