Science and Mathematics Education Commons^™

Engaging The General Public With High Altitude Ballooning, Kendra J. Sibbernsen

2017 Academic High Altitude Conference

The interest and excitement involved in performing a high altitude balloon (HAB) flight can be used to spark interest in science and engineering among members of the general public. High profile launches can highlight a ballooning program, recruit students, gain supporters, inspire children, and can disseminate scientific information to a broad range of citizens who might not otherwise have access. Using a recent HAB flight to commemorate the Grand Opening of the Do Space in Omaha, NE as an example, anecdotes and suggestions will be given on how to engage a large number of observers and how to effectively use …

The Southwest Minnesota Ballooning Collaboration, Paul Seifert, Ken Murphy

2017 Academic High Altitude Conference

Southwest Minnesota State University (SMSU) and Minnesota West Community and Technical College (MN West) are starting a collaboration project involving high-altitude ballooning. This partnership will bring together two different populations of students: those attending a four-year university and those at a two-year community college. The initial goals of the program are modest, involving several students from each institution to plan and conduct some simple flights with basic sensor packages as proof-of-concept. It is hoped the collaboration will strengthen ties between the two institutions and give STEM students a chance to participate in a hands-on technical project that will deepen their …

Extending Wid To Train Mechanical Engineering Gtas To Evaluate Student Writing, Nancy Barr

Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Publications

Beyond first-year composition, the typical undergraduate mechanical engineering curriculum provides few opportunities to develop writing skills without a concerted effort by faculty to incorporate writing into their courses. One underutilized path for BSME students to strengthen those skills is the required sequence of laboratory courses, where students write several lab reports, evaluated by graduate teaching assistants (GTAs), many of whom speak English as a second language. Historically, engineering GTAs have not been trained in evaluating student writing in a way that helps students improve their technical communication skills, a method known as formative assessment. Formative assessment can be a key …

The Impact Of Volunteering At A Girls Outreach Activity On Community Formation, Donna C. Llewellyn, Janet Callahan, Amy J. Moll, Catherine Rose Bates

Materials Science and Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

This paper is focused on exploring the motivation for volunteering at an engineering outreach activity. The outreach activity itself involved a two day, overnight experience for 9th and 10th grade girls that started in 2005, and which has been held annually since that time. The outreach event takes place in Boise, Idaho, and at the time of its onset was the only outreach or camp activity in the state focused on girls or young women. Across ten years, 510 total girls have participated, with approximately 85% of them coming from the immediate metropolitan area. The program was developed with a …

Teaching Science Teachers In An Online Context With A Constructivist Approach, Frederick W. Freking, Jenny D. Ingber

Occasional Paper Series

The authors discuss the development of an online STEM-based teacher education program, providing a template for the inclusion of constructivist practices, such as course activities and student teaching.

Should Students Assessed As Needing Remedial Mathematics Take College-Level Quantitative Courses Instead? A Randomized Controlled Trial, Alexandra W. Logue, Mari Watanabe, Daniel Douglas

Publications and Research

Many college students never take, or do not pass, required remedial mathematics courses theorized to increase college-level performance. Some colleges and states are therefore instituting policies allowing students to take college-level courses without first taking remedial courses. However, no experiments have compared the effectiveness of these approaches, and other data are mixed. We randomly assigned 907 students to (a) remedial elementary algebra, (b) that course with workshops, or (c) college-level statistics with workshops (corequisite remediation). Students assigned to statistics passed at a rate 16 percentage points higher than those assigned to algebra (p

Use Of A Game-Based App As A Learning Tool For Students With Mathematics Learning Disabilities To Increase Fraction Knowledge/Skill, Orhan Simsek

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The aim of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of a game-based app (Motion Math: Fraction) to help students with Mathematics Learning Disabilities (MLD) to gain fraction skills including comparison, estimation, and word problem solving in an after school program. The researcher used multiple baseline design by extending with follow-up phase to determine whether students retained the knowledge they learned while engaging with the app. Even though six students participated to the study, the researcher withdrew two of them and analyzed data came from four students. The result o the study showed that all of the students …

Should Students Assessed As Needing Remedial Mathematics Take College-Level Quantitative Courses Instead? A Randomized Controlled Trial, Alexandra W. Logue, Mari Watanabe-Rose, Daniel Douglas

Publications and Research

This data set is for Should Students Assessed as Needing Remedial Mathematics Take College-Level Quantitative Courses Instead? A Randomized Controlled Trial (Logue, Watanabe-Rose, & Douglas, 2016).

Self-Efficacy Of Students With Visual Impairments Before And After Participation In An Inquiry-Based Camp, Kathleen Farrand, Tiffany Wild, Margilee P. Hilson

Journal of Science Education for Students with Disabilities

The purpose of this pilot study was to determine students’ self-efficacy level prior to participation and after participation in an inquiry-based science camp to determine if self-efficacy levels changed as a result of participation. A validated instrument, the 30 item Morgan-Jinks Student Self-Efficacy Scale (MJSES) (Jinks & Morgan, 1996) was used to identify the constructs of self-efficacy before and after the weeklong summer camp. The results suggest that the inquiry-based science camp had a positive impact on junior participants’ academic self-efficacy and did not increase senior participants’ academic self-efficacy.

Secondary Mathematics Teachers' Learning Through Practice: The Case Of Rudy, Theodore John Rupnow

Theses and Dissertations

In this study I investigated teachers’ learning through practice. Teachers learn in teacher preparation programs and in professional development, but the most personal learning occurs in practice. Teachers spend much of their time isolated from colleagues, participating in classroom communities instead of professional communities. If teacher educators want to understand the potential for learning in the space where teachers spend much of their time it is necessary to investigate the learning that is occurring in classroom practice. To pursue this end, I explored one secondary mathematics teacher’s learning in practice. I observed and video-recorded this teacher’s classroom practice for one …

Stemming On Stem: A Stem Education Framework For Students With Disabilities, Jiwon Hwang, Jonte C. Taylor

Journal of Science Education for Students with Disabilities

There has been increased attention paid to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics also known as STEM. The focus on STEM has been both educational and occupational. Unfortunately, students with disabilities perform below their peers without disabilities in math and science. The authors discuss issues related to STEM and students with disabilities. These issues include (1) traditional views of STEM education, (2) the importance of STEM education, and (3) students with disabilities performance in STEM. The authors posit a framework for STEM education for students with disabilities and promote the incorporation of the arts to increase students’ STEM knowledge and achievement.

Making Science Accessible To Students With Significant Cognitive Disabilities, Lori Andersen, Brooke Nash

Journal of Science Education for Students with Disabilities

The publication of A Framework for K-12 Science Education (National Research Council, 2012) and the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS Lead States, 2013) have created a need for new alternate content standards and alternate assessments in science that are linked to the new general education science standards. This article describes how a consortium of four states used Evidence-Centered Design (Mislevy, Steinberg, & Almond, 2003) and Universal Design for Learning (CAST, 2012) to develop alternate science content standards and assessments. A set of 43 alternate science content standards was created and an alternate assessment at each of three grade spans. Evidence …

Infographic: Stem Workforce And Careers, Jo Earp

Teacher infographics

School educators are being encouraged to give students more information about STEM-related careers. So, what are the top occupations of STEM graduates? Find out in this Teacher infographic.

Semiotics: Notes On English To Mathematical Language Translation, Elliott Ostler

Journal of Curriculum, Teaching, Learning and Leadership in Education

The manuscript at hand is a presentation relating the processes and notation of mathematics to the processes and notation of standard written English. Semiotics is introduced as a way to describe the similarities in the processes and goals of both systems as methods of communication. The discussion of semiotics falls within three categories: 1) examining the parallel structures of written language and mathematics, 2) defining the language based nature of mathematical symbols, notation, and processes, and 3) exploring misconceptions between mathematical versus standard written vocabulary and notation.

Connecting To Nature, Community, And Self: A Conservation Corps Approach To Re-Engaging At-Risk Youth In Science Education, Sara Jo Linden

Dissertations and Theses

The social and environmental challenges of the coming decades will require that individuals possess environmental literacy: the understanding of natural systems combined with a sense of care for the earth, and the confidence and competency to act on its behalf. At the same time, disengaged youth need education environments that foster belonging and promote affective outcomes. The youth conservation corps model provides a natural context for engaging academically at-risk youth in environmental science education, while fostering connection to nature and student self-efficacy in ways that are experiential, relevant, and relationship-based. The focus of this study was a conservation corps program …

Building Up Stem: An Analysis Of Teacher-Developed Engineering Design-Based Stem Integration Curricular Materials, Siddika Selcen Guzey, Tamara J. Moore, Michael Harwell

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

Improving K–12 Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education has a priority on numerous education reforms in the United States. To that end, developing and sustaining quality programs that focus on integrated STEM education is critical for educators. Successful implementation of any STEM program is related to the curriculum materials used. Educators increasingly recognize the challenge of finding quality curriculum materials for integrated STEM education. In this study, 48 teachers participated in a year-long professional development program on STEM integration, and they designed 20 new engineering design-based STEM curriculum units. Each STEM curriculum unit includes an engineering challenge in which …

How Engineering Standards Are Interpreted And Translated For Middle School, Eugene Judson, John Ernzen, Stephen Krause, James A. Middleton, Robert J. Culbertson

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

In this exploratory study we examined the alignment of Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) middle school engineering design standards with lesson ideas from middle school teachers, science education faculty, and engineering faculty (4–6 members per group). Respondents were prompted to provide plain language interpretations of two middle school Engineering Design performance expectations and to provide examples of how the performance expectations could be applied in middle school classrooms. Participants indicated the challenges and benefits of implementing these performance expectations and indicated personal experiences that helped them to interpret the performance expectations.

Quality of lessons differed depending on the performance expectation …

How Did We Wind Up In Such An Unlikely Universe?, Michael Bass

UCF Forum

Not long ago the Public Broadcasting Service program NOVA presented an episode called “The Great Math Mystery.” It dealt with the many ways mathematical relationships and special numbers crop up when investigating the physical and natural world.

Critical Thinking Skills And Academic Maturity: Emerging Results From A Five-Year Quality Enhancement Plan (Qep) Study, Ian N. Toppin, Shadreck Chitsonga

Journal of Inquiry and Action in Education

The QEP that was implemented in this study focused on enhancing students’ critical thinking skills. A pretest/ posttest approach was used to assess students’ critical thinking progress in freshman level core English and Math courses. An intervention was performed involving intensive instruction and assignments relating to a set of reasoning strategies such as: analytical, analogical, inductive, deductive, and comparative reasoning, among others. When students performed well on assignments by applying the reasoning strategies, it was assumed that critical thinking occurred. However, pre/ posttest results in these classes were often disappointing, and seemed at times to suggest that freshmen are not …

The Effects Of Cognitive Strategies Paired With Hands-On Or Virtual Manipulatives On Math Instruction For Students With Mathematical Learning Disabilities To Learn Word Problem Solving Skills, Kimberly Plute

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of using cognitive strategies with hands-on manipulatives, and cognitive strategies with virtual manipulatives to enhance problem solving skills of students with Mathematical Learning Disabilities (MLD), as well as their satisfaction with those strategies. Five, 5th graders with MLD participated in the study to learn word problem solving skills in a math class for 80 minutes, 5 days a week for 10 weeks. A single subject research design with ABC phases was used in the study. Results showed each student gained from 3.6 to 5.2 mean points of the weekly quizzes …