Science and Mathematics Education Commons^™

Real Data Is Messy... And Manageable, Beverly Wood, Carl Clark

Publications

Using real data in an introductory statistics course is a delicate balance between reality and manageability. The internet is awash with data that is useful for students to answer questions of interest to them but it is not always formatted as neatly as textbook data. The ASA's recently endorsed GAISE College Report 2016 points to the plausibility of considering multivariable thinking even if only at a rudimentary level. With both messy and multivariable data in mind, we present some activities/projects and sources for data to give introductory students the opportunity to engage with real data.

Elementary Science Teachers’ Integration Of Engineering Design Into Science Instruction: Results From A Randomised Controlled Trial, Jennifer L. Maeng, Brooke A. Whitworth, Amanda L. Gonczi, Shannon L. Navy, Lindsay B. Wheeler

Publications

This randomised controlled trial used a mixed-methods approach to investigate the frequency and how elementary teachers integrated engineering design (ED) principles into their science instruction following professional development (PD). The ED components of the PD were aligned with Cunningham and Carlsen’s [(2014). Teaching engineering practices. Journal of Science Teacher Education, 25, 197–210] guidelines for ED PD and promoted inclusion of ED within science teaching. The treatment group included 219 teachers from 83 schools. Participants in the control group included 145 teachers from 60 schools in a mid-Atlantic state. Data sources, including lesson overviews and videotaped classroom observations, were …

Investigating The Role Of A District Science Coordinator, Brooke A. Whitworth, Jennifer L. Maeng, Lindsay B. Wheeler, Jennifer L. Chiu

Publications

This study explored the professional responsibilities of district science coordinators, their professional development (PD) experiences, the relationship between their role, responsibilities, district context, and background, and barriers encountered in their work. A national sample (n = 122) of self‐identified science coordinators completed a Science Coordinator Role Survey. Participants’ responses were analyzed using descriptive and correlational statistics. Following analysis of survey data, 16 participants (13.1%) were purposefully selected for semi‐structured follow‐up interviews. Results indicated the majority of respondents identified themselves as Caucasian, female, and had served in their position for less than 10 years. The typical science coordinator held a …

Using Journals To Assess Non-Stem Student Learning In Stem Courses: A Case Study In Cybersecurity Education, Gary Kessler, Glenn S. Dardick, Douglas L. Holton

Publications

Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University offers a minor course of study in cybersecurity as an option in our undergraduate Homeland Security program. Since the students are, by and large, social scientists, the focus of the program is to build hyper-awareness of how cybersecurity integrates within their professional aspirations rather than to provide cybersecurity career-level proficiency. Assessing student learning of the technical aspects cannot be performed using traditional tests, as they would not properly measure what the students are learning in a practical sense. Instead, we employ journals and self-reflection to ask the students to express and demonstrate their learning. Although somewhat harder …

Portable Water Purification System, Marc Compere, Yan Tang, Shavin Pinto, Yung Wong

Publications

An ultra-portable water purification system (1). The system (1) can include a pump (22) for pumping water under pressure through the water purification system (1). The system (1) can also include a battery (14) for supplying power to operate the pump (22), a power source (10) for providing power to the battery (14) and the pump (22), and a charge controller (18), electrically connected to the power source (10), battery (14), and pump (22), for regulating power received from the power source (10) and limiting the power provided to the battery (14) to power the pump (22). The water purification …

Characterizing Teaching Assistants’ Knowledge And Beliefs Following Professional Development Activities Within An Inquiry-Based General Chemistry Context, Lindsay B. Wheeler, Jennifer L. Maeng, Brooke A. Whitworth

Publications

The purpose of this investigation was to explore changes in undergraduate and graduate teaching assistants’ (TAs’) content knowledge and beliefs about teaching within the context of an inquiry-based laboratory course. TAs received professional development (PD), which was informed by the TA training literature base and was designed for TAs implementing a guided inquiry approach to general chemistry laboratory instruction. TAs engaged in ∼20 h of presemester PD and ∼30 h of weekly follow-up PD during the semester. The study utilized a multiple-methods approach within a social constructivist framework to assess changes in the TAs. Participants included eight graduate TAs and …

Situating Computer Simulation Professional Development: Does It Promote Inquiry-Based Simulation Use?, Amanda L. Gonczi, Jennifer L. Maeng, Randy L. Bell, Brooke A. Whitworth

Publications

This mixed-methods study sought to identify professional development implementation variables that may influence participant (a) adoption of simulations, and (b) use for inquiry-based science instruction. Two groups (Cohort 1, N = 52; Cohort 2, N = 104) received different professional development. Cohort 1 was focused on Web site use mechanics. Cohort 2 was situated in nature and provided three additional elements: (a) modeling simulation use within inquiry-based instruction; (b) collaboration; and (c) provision of content-relevant lesson planning time. There was no difference in the extent of simulation use between cohorts, χ2(1) = 0.878, p = .349, φ = −0.075. Results …

Gaiseing Into The New Guidelines, Robert Carver, Megan Mocko, Jeffrey Witmer, Beverly Wood

Publications

The first GAISE College Report came out in 2005. Over the past ten years our discipline has changed in many ways, including but not limited to what type of data is easily available, the technology that we use, as well as how we teach students. In this presentation we will briefly start with how the new GAISE 2016 guidelines and goals have changed, including the two new emphases of statistical thinking: giving students experience with multivariable thinking and with the investigative process. So how do you start to implement these new ideas? In this presentation, we will demonstrate an activity …

Multivariate Thinking In An Intro Stats Course – Is It Possible?, Beverly Wood

Publications

Many of our students have an intuitive sense that there is more to the story than univariate or bivariate data can tell us. We can acknowledge and encourage that habit of digging deeper by demonstrating some ways to look at additional variables. Simpson’s paradox and side-by-side scatter plots are ways to provide a glimpse of more complex analysis that are accessible to students in an introductory course with or without strong quantitative skills.

Persistent Teaching Practices After Geospatial Technology Professional Development, Lori A. Rubino-Hare, Brooke A. Whitworth, Nena E. Bloom, Jennifer M. Claesgens, Kristi M. Fredrickson, James C. Sample

Publications

This case study described teachers with varying technology skills who were implementing the use of geospatial technology (GST) within project-based instruction (PBI) at varying grade levels and contexts 1 to 2 years following professional development. The sample consisted of 10 fifth- to ninth-grade teachers. Data sources included artifacts, observations, interviews, and a GST performance assessment and were analyzed using a constant comparative approach. Teachers’ teaching actions, beliefs, context, and technology skills were categorized. Results indicated that all of the teachers had high beliefs, but their context and level of technology skills strongly influenced their teaching actions. Two types of teachers …

Stem Learning In Your Own Backyard, Brooke A. Whitworth, Stephanie Beyea, Melora Purell

Publications

No abstract provided.

Persistent Teaching Practices After Geospatial Technology Professional Development, Lori A. Rubino-Hare, Brooke A. Whitworth, Nena E. Bloom, Jennifer M. Claesgens, Kristi M. Fredrickson, James C. Sample

Publications

This case study described teachers with varying technology skills who were implementing the use of geospatial technology (GST) within project-based instruction (PBI) at varying grade levels and contexts 1 to 2 years following professional development. The sample consisted of 10 fifth- to ninth-grade teachers. Data sources included artifacts, observations, interviews, and a GST performance assessment and were analyzed using a constant comparative approach. Teachers’ teaching actions, beliefs, context, and technology skills were categorized. Results indicated that all of the teachers had high beliefs, but their context and level of technology skills strongly influenced their teaching actions. Two types of teachers …

The Epa P3 Program: An Opportunity For Growing Student Entrepreneurs, Marc Compere, Yan Tang, Yung Wong

Publications

In this paper we will share our experiences of fostering entrepreneurial spirit through projects funded by EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) P3 (People, Prosperity, and the Planet) Program which hosts the P3 collegiate competition for designing solutions for a sustainable future. Since 2012, we have integrated the P3 competition with the capstone design course of Clean Energy Systems track in mechanical engineering as an effective educational vehicle for introducing the concept of sustainable design. Since the competition focuses on designs which have values of real world application, it is also a great opportunity to create entrepreneurial spirit. We have successfully turned …

Formation And Assessment Of A Tool To Evaluate Stem Literacy In Service-Learning Projects, Barbara Hayford, Sally Blomstrom, Lori A. Mumpower

Publications

The purpose of the authors’ research was to create a tool to evaluate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) literacy in service-learning projects. The researchers posited that components of service-learning, which in this case included the deliverable and reflections, are examples of fundamental STEM literacy and thus can be assessed for STEM learning outcomes. The authors review the literature on service-learning and on STEM literacy. Combining components of literacy-based learning objectives and service-learning objectives with the revised Bloom’s taxonomy in a taxonomy table, they created a general STEM literacy evaluation tool. They then applied the tool to a service-learning project …

The Viability Of Portraiture For Science Education Research: Learning From Portraits Of Two Scientific Classrooms, Cassie F. Quigley, Amy Trauth-Nare, Nicole Beeman-Cadwallader

Publications

The purpose of this paper is to describe the relevance of a qualitative methodology called portraiture for science education. Portraiture is a method of inquiry that blends art and science by combining the empirical aspects of inquiry with the beauty and aesthetic properties. This method encompasses all aspects of a research study, including protocol, data collection and analysis, and presentation of findings. To examine the viability of portraiture as methodology for science education researchers, we provided two portraits of science teachers and their classrooms to illustrate how context played a significant role in teachers’ experiences and how it influenced their …

Ethics Is Not Rocket Science: How To Have Ethical Discussions In Your Science Class, Kelly C. Smith

Publications

The Rutland Institute for Ethics at Clemson University seeks to encourage discussion on campus, in businesses, and in the community about how ethical decision-making can be the basis of both personal and professional success. In the last 15 years, our fellows have, among other things, served as Co-PI’s on a wide range of grants, produced Responsible Conduct of Research training for science and engineering graduate students and faculty, managed the ethics curriculum at a medical school, and produced video lectures on ethical thinking for undergraduate Biology majors. The crown jewel of our efforts to-date is our Ethics Across the Curriculum …

Engineering Design Challenge, Lindsay B. Wheeler, Brooke A. Whitworth, Amanda L. Gonczi

Publications

No abstract provided.

Implementing The Common Core’S Promise Of Bringing Statistical Curricula Into Line With Recommendations Of Nctm, Maa, & Gaise, Beverly Wood, Carl Clark

Publications

We plan to make a case for the necessity of GAISE-aligned college courses in order to prepare future teachers to teach in Common Core K-12 classrooms. Beginning with an overview of the parallel evolutions of Cobb/MAA suggestions - GAISE recommendations for teaching and NCTM process standards - Common Core mathematical practices, we will emphasize that we should be modeling what researchers continually conclude are best practices for teaching/learning across the K-16 continuum. We will provide some examples to illustrate classroom tasks that satisfy both GAISE and Common Core and hope to generate some discussion of other activities already used by …

Kinesthetic Investigations In The Physics Classroom, Brooke A. Whitworth, Jennifer L. Chiu, Randy L. Bell

Publications

Inquiry can be defined practically as “an active learning process in which students answer research questions through data analysis.”2 This simple definition of inquiry is based on the National Science Educational Standards and is easy for teachers to understand. The National Research Council (NRC) identifies the scientific practices that support inquiry and that students should be engaged in, including: question generation, experimental design, data analysis, creating explanations, argumentation, and communicating results.3 The investigations created encourage inquiry and require students to develop their scientific practices skills.

Experimental Platforms For Behavioral Experiments On Social-Ecological Systems, Marco Janssen, Allen Lee, Timothy M. Waring

Publications

Recently, there has been an increased interest in using behavioral experiments to study hypotheses on the governance of social-ecological systems. A diversity of software tools are used to implement such experiments. We evaluated various publicly available platforms that could be used in research and education on the governance of social-ecological systems. The aims of the various platforms are distinct, and this is noticeable in the differences in their user-friendliness and their adaptability to novel research questions. The more easily accessible platforms are useful for prototyping experiments and for educational purposes to illustrate theoretical concepts. To advance novel research aims, more …

Pre-Service Teachers’ Use Of Visualizations In The Science Classroom: A Case Study, Brooke A. Whitworth, Jennifer L. Chiu

Publications

Scientific visualizations of phenomena can enhance the way learners understand scientific concepts (Honey & Hilton, 2011). Scientific concepts can be abstract and difficult for students to understand and visualizations can help make these abstract concepts more concrete for students. For example, chemistry students often struggle with understanding how atoms bond since they cannot directly see atoms. Using a visualization to show students how the electrons are shared or transferred can help students understand these abstract concepts. In addition, many visualizations are freely available online and can be a key element to maintain quality science instruction with limited resources.

Physics Portfolios: A Picture Of Student Understanding, Brooke A. Whitworth, Randy L. Bell

Publications

Traditionally, teachers assess students' physics understanding through lab activities, responses to open-ended word problems, and tests. But there's another way to measure student understanding, one in which students apply their learning to the world around them. This article shows how to implement student portfolios, which allow students to set goals they can monitor throughout the year and actively participate in assessment. When students build portfolios, they can evaluate and reflect on their own work, promoting engagement with the course and content (Danielson and Abrutyn 1997), and teachers can better assess students' goal movement and see growth in students' conceptual understanding. …

Gaise In Discipline-Specific Courses, Beverly Wood

Publications

While acknowledging the diverse setting, audience, and purpose of introductory courses, existing research assumes that courses offered by different disciplines share the same goals and teaching practices. The purpose of this study is to examine the objectives for student outcomes and pedagogical delivery of introductory statistics courses designed for students in a specific major, providing explicit evidence for this assumption.

The American Statistical Association’s Guidelines for Assessment and Instruction in Statistics Education (GAISE) are meant to apply to all introductory courses. The College Report’s Goals for Students and Recommendations for Teaching are used as a framework for a qualitative study …

Obstacles To Developing Digital Literacy On The Internet In Middle School Science Instruction, Jamie Colwell, Sarah Hunt-Barron, David Reinking

Publications

Obstacles, and instructional responses to them, that emerged in two middle school science classes during a formative experiment investigating Internet Reciprocal Teaching (IRT), an instructional intervention aimed at increasing digital literacy on the Internet, are reported in this manuscript. Analysis of qualitative data revealed that IRT enabled students to explain and demonstrate appropriate strategies for locating and evaluating information on the Internet when they were asked to do so. However, students did not use these strategies or they quickly abandoned them when working independently or in small groups during inquiry projects. Data revealed three obstacles that inhibited efforts to promote …

Teacher's Toolkit: Differentiating Inquiry, Brooke A. Whitworth, Jennifer L. Maeng, Randy L. Bell

Publications

Differentiated instruction and teaching science as inquiry are two pedagogical approaches frequently discussed among science teachers. Teachers know these approaches are important but often have difficulty translating them into their classroom science instruction. This article describes how to differentiate a density investigation for variations in student readiness by varying the level of inquiry using an approach that is easily translated to experiments in any science content area.

Models Of Interdisciplinary Research And Service Learning At Hope College, Aaron A. Best, Matthew Dejongh, Amanda J. Barton, Jeff R. Brown, Christopher C. Barney

Publications

"Children love to explore the world around them. In doing so they are not aware of disciplinary boundaries or even of disciplines. They move freely from watching ants (biology) to building structures (engineering) to counting rocks (mathematics and geology) to seeing what things dissolve in water (chemistry). Only as they go to school do they learn that humans divide up the way we learn about the universe and start to think within disciplinary boundaries. In doing so, those children, who are now us, lose the ability to think broadly and use the insights of various ways of thinking to solve …