Science and Mathematics Education Commons^™

Research Participants Discuss Stem Conference Participation And Impacton Thinking And Practice, Colleen Beyer, Thomas Koballa, Delena Bell Gatch, Leslie S. Jones, Sharmistha Basu-Dutt, Farooq Khan

Interdisciplinary STEM Teaching & Learning Conference (2012-2019) (Archived)

Last spring, Georgia Southern University hosted its first Scholarship of STEM Teaching and Learning conference. Conference participants were asked to respond to a survey and a subset of participants was selected for an in-depth study. In this session, an overview of the research project will be presented and current research participants will discuss the impact of conference participation on their thinking and practice.

Research Experience Via Active Collaboration With High Schools (Reach), Sharmistha Basu- Dutt, Megumi Fujita, Victoria Geisler, Douglas Stuart

Interdisciplinary STEM Teaching & Learning Conference (2012-2019) (Archived)

“RESEARCH EXPERIENCE via ACTIVE COLLABORATION with HIGH-SCHOOLS (REACH)” is an outreach program targeted to help high school students develop competitive science fair projects by actively engaging them in a Problem Based Learning (PBL) research experience that uses Peer Led Team Learning (PLTL) and Process Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning (POGIL) to learn, discuss, and apply concepts in a real-world context.

Trig-Star, James M. Anderson

Interdisciplinary STEM Teaching & Learning Conference (2012-2019) (Archived)

A TRIG-STAR is a mathematics student who has demonstrated in competition that he or she is the most skilled among classmates in the practical application of trigonometry. The competition for the honor is a timed exercise which is the solving of a trigonometry problem that incorporates the use of right triangle formulas, circle formulas, the law of sines, and the law of cosines. The contest helps to promote careers in surveying and mapping to students at the High Schools across the country. The award is sponsored by the National Society of Professional Surveyors and cosponsored locally. State winners also have …

Increasing The Number Of Undergraduates Who Succeed In Stem At Uga, Nancy Vandergift, Chuck Kutal

Interdisciplinary STEM Teaching & Learning Conference (2012-2019) (Archived)

The University of Georgia has implemented several strategies focused on improving instruction and student achievement in STEM courses and assisting in the preparation and professional development of K-12 science and math teachers. Specific activities include a mini-grants program, learning communities, pre-service teacher recruitment, expanding Project FOCUS, and increasing faculty effort to improve instruction and student learning in the STEM disciplines.

Stem And Branches: Update On The Columbus State University Stem-Ii Initiative, Cindy Ticknor, Tim Howard, Kimberly Shaw

Interdisciplinary STEM Teaching & Learning Conference (2012-2019) (Archived)

Two USG STEM Initiative awards to Columbus State University have spawned the growth of several STEM and STEM education programs and nearly $2.6 million in grants. We provide an update on STEM-II Initiative projects including a peer leader program for core math and science courses, a faculty mini-grants program to promote scholarship on teaching and learning and awareness of best practices models, and a service learning course. The infrastructure that emerged through the first STEM Initiative and continued to develop with the STEM-II Initiative paved the way for a $1.4 million UTeach replication grant and a $1.2 million Robert Noyce …

I2StemE - What, Who, Where?, Kania Greer, Bob Mayes

Interdisciplinary STEM Teaching & Learning Conference (2012-2019) (Archived)

I²STEM^e is a new Institute on the campus of GSU whose focus is to increase opportunities for K-20 students, teachers, and businesses to partner together to improve STEM Education in Georgia around the tenets of place-based learning, problem based learning and teaching for understanding.

Integrating Manipulatives To Improve Fraction Concepts, Rachel Dunn

Interdisciplinary STEM Teaching & Learning Conference (2012-2019) (Archived)

Many students are overwhelmed by mathematics because the language is too difficult, the teaching strategies are insufficient or they have lost motivation. With a recent emphasis on meeting the Common Core expectations, using manipulatives to eliminate misconceptions in the mathematical classroom has become even more prevalent. I explored the misconceptions that many students struggle with and provided possible methods of eliminating them at all levels for learning. During this investigation, I studied the effect of manipulatives on students’ understanding of fraction concepts and the students’ conceptions of the unit of reference when working with fraction word problems. I learned that …

Teacher Professional Development: Using Local Resources To Engage Teachers And Students In Learning, Missy M. Bennett, Heather Scott

Interdisciplinary STEM Teaching & Learning Conference (2012-2019) (Archived)

Do your students or teachers suffer from “nature deficit disorder”? Engage and interest students and teachers in the study of ecology and other content through the use of place-based resources to teach national and state standards. This presentation shares preliminary data and engaging strategies from professional development activities which engage secondary teachers in the investigation of local natural resources and encourage the development of ecology lessons and activities using local resources.

Building, Refining & Defining Stem Learning Outcomes: K-16 Implications, Richard A. Duschl

Interdisciplinary STEM Teaching & Learning Conference (2012-2019) (Archived)

The July 2012 release of the National Research Council Framework for K-12 Science Education: Practices, Crosscutting Concepts and Core Ideas heralds ‘a new vision of science in education.’ The Framework sets out a comprehensive agenda for the reform of science and engineering education coordinated around 3 Dimensions: Science & Engineering Practices, Crosscutting Concepts, and Core Ideas. While the Framework’s central mission is to impact K-12 education through implementation of the Next Generation Science Standards, there are important but less understood implications for higher education, informal science education and publics’ understandings of science communication efforts. In this talk, I will provide …

Session E-1: Hiding In Plain Sight, Micah Fogel

Professional Learning Day

Were the plays of William Shakespeare really written by Francis Bacon, who left a coded signature in plain sight? Can spies send messages without using codes and without getting caught? Steganography is the art of hiding messages in plain sight but in a way so that only those in on the secret can find them. We'll learn a few tricks about how to hide messages in pieces of text or sound and image files on a computer.

Introducing Computer Science In An Integrated Science Course, Barry Lawson, Doug Szajda, Lewis Barnett Iii

Department of Math & Statistics Faculty Publications

This paper describes our implementation and experience of incorporating computer science concepts into a team-taught, first-year interdisciplinary course for prospective science majors at the University of Richmond. The course integrates essential concepts from each of five STEM disciplines: biology, chemistry, computer science, mathematics, and physics. Including computer science in this course faces three primary challenges: few of the students have any CS background; the time devoted to CS instruction is reduced compared to a traditional introductory CS course; and the spirit of the course requires the CS material to be highly integrated with the other disciplines. Here we discuss our …

Implementing Process-Oriented, Guided-Inquiry Learning For The First Time: Adaptations And Short-Term Impacts On Students’ Attitude And Performance, Anthony Chase, Deblina Pakhira, Marilyne Stains

Department of Chemistry: Faculty Publications

Innovative, research-based instructional practices are critical to transforming the conventional undergraduate instructional landscape into a student-centered learning environment. Research on dissemination of innovation indicates that instructors often adapt rather than adopt these practices. These adaptations can lead to the loss of critical elements of the practice, which may affect its effectiveness. Process-oriented, guided-inquiry learning (POGIL) is a research-based instructional practice that has been widely disseminated for the past two decades. However, few studies have investigated practitioners’ adaptations of POGIL and the impact of these adaptations on expected outcomes measured during recommended implementations of POGIL. In this study, we explore the …

Teachers’ Perceptions On The Changes In The Curriculum And Exit Examinations For Biology And Human Biology, Mirko Krüger, Mihye Won, David F. Treagust

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

In the age of educational accountability, national and state-wide measures are assumed to secure and improve the educational quality. However, educators often wonder how much a new accountability measure may improve the actual teaching and learning practices when the agents of change (teachers) are not active participants of such educational reform. Nevertheless, in Australia, the National Curriculum is rolling in for the first time for K-10 school education in 2012-13. In Western Australia, the new Western Australian Certificate of Education (WACE) system with new compulsory exit examination requirements has been implemented recently for Years 11-12. In this study, using the …

Supporting Pre-Service Primary Teachers To Improve Their Mathematics Content Knowledge, Brenda Hamlett

eCULTURE

"When someone is told that their performance is not up to a required standard, there can be a tendency to react negatively and to lose confidence. Some deal with this by ignoring or withdrawing from the stressful situation while others face the issue and work to improve. The delivery of the first year unit Becoming Multiliterate as part of the BEd (Primary) and BEd (Early Childhood Studies) courses at Edith Cowan University entailed students completing diagnostic tasks in mathematics, writing and science at the start of the semester to identify their weaknesses. Students were then provided with targeted support to …

Ists, February 2013, Iowa Academy Of Science

ISTS Newsletter

In this issue:

--Messages

--News

--Opportunities

Hexapod Herald - Vol. 25, No. 1, February 2013

Hexapod Herald and Other Entomology Department Newsletters

Content: Welcome - Congratulations - Faculty News - Grants - Publications - Meeting an Off-Campus Student - Student News - Travel - This 'n that - Lawrence Bruner Entomology Club - Blasts from the past - Calendar of Events

Pre-Service Mathematic Teachers’ Knowledge Of Students About The Algebraic Concepts, Dilek Tanisli, Nilüfer Yavuzsoy Kose

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

This study aims at evaluating pre-service primary school mathematics teachers’ ability to discuss and question thinking processes of students about the concepts of variable, equality and equation, analyzing their ability to predict student difficulties and misconceptions, and in this respect presenting their subject matter knowledge and possible misconceptions on the related topic. The study was conducted with 130 the pre-service teachers in their fourth year studying elementary school mathematics teaching. The data were collected through a questionnaire that consists of open-ended questions and clinical interviews. The data obtained were analyzed qualitatively. The study found that in general the pre-service teachers …

At The Gate Of Discovery, Jan Nordgreen

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

This is the story of how a mathematical problem was discovered. Although it was never solved, it gave great joy to the discoverer.

Developing A Healthy Scepticism About Technology In Mathematics Teaching, Peter J. Rowlett

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

A reflective account is presented of experiences which took place alongside a research project and caused a change in approach to be more sceptical about implementation of learning technology. A critical evaluation is given of a previous e-assessment research project, undertaken from a position of naive enthusiasm for learning technology. Experiences of teaching classes and designing assessment tasks lead to doubts regarding the extent to which the previous project encouraged deep learning and contributed to graduate skills development. Investigations of the benefits of another technology – in-class response systems – lead to revelations about learning technology: its enthusiastic introduction in …

Incorporating Pólya’S Problem Solving Method In Remedial Math, Shenglan Yuan

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

György Pólya’s problem solving method has influenced generations of mathematicians and non-mathematicians alike. Though almost all math teachers have come across Pólya’s problem solving method, his ideas are not regularly implemented in the classroom. Few studies have examined the effectiveness of his approach in teaching remedial math. In this article we revisit this once well-known teaching method and show how it can be used in basic skills math classes to ease student fears of math, and potentially change their common misconceptions of the subject.

Teaching The Complex Numbers: What History And Philosophy Of Mathematics Suggest, Emily R. Grosholz

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

The narrative about the nineteenth century favored by many philosophers of mathematics strongly influenced by either logic or algebra, is that geometric intuition led real and complex analysis astray until Cauchy and Kronecker in one sense and Dedekind in another guided mathematicians out of the labyrinth through the arithmetization of analysis. Yet the use of geometry in most cases in nineteenth century mathematics was not misleading and was often key to important developments. Thus the geometrization of complex numbers was essential to their acceptance and to the development of complex analysis; geometry provided the canonical examples that led to the …

Changing The Order Of Mathematics Test Items: Helping Or Hindering Student Performance?, Kristin T. Kennedy, Allison G. Butler

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

This paper recounts an experiment by a mathematics professor who primarily teaches mathematics majors. The main question explored is whether the ordering of the questions makes a difference as to how students perform in a test. More specifically we focus here on the following research questions:\ (1) Does arranging a math test with easy-to-hard items versus hard-to-easy items impact student performance? and (2) If so, does item order impact male and female mathematics majors and non-majors in unique ways? We examine data collected over multiple semesters with several different classes. We find that for most of the mathematics students who …

The Lesson Of Grace In Teaching, Francis Su

All HMC Faculty Publications and Research

I want to talk about the biggest life lesson that I have learned, and that I continue to learn over and over again. It is deep and profound. It has changed the way I relate with people. It has reshaped my academic life. And it continually renovates the way I approach my students.

Patterns In Nature Forming Patterns In Minds : An Evaluation Of An Introductory Physics Unit, Christopher Ryan Sheaffer

Dissertations and Theses

Educators are increasingly focused on the process over the content. In science especially, teachers want students to understand the nature of science and investigation. The emergence of scientific inquiry and engineering design teaching methods have led to the development of new teaching and evaluation methods that concentrate on steps in a process rather than facts in a topic. Research supports the notion that an explicit focus on the scientific process can lead to student science knowledge gains. In response to new research and standards many teachers have been developing teaching methods that seem to work well in their classrooms, but …

Parts Of The Whole: When Variation Is The Goal, Dorothy Wallace

Numeracy

The goals of higher education are a population of extreme variability in expertise, a diffusion of specialized knowledge across disciplinary boundaries, and production of strong K-12 teachers. Promoting these three goals has implications at all granularities, from the pedagogy of an individual college professor to the incentives and policies that shape systemic change.

Quantitative Reasoning Learning Progressions For Environmental Science: Developing A Framework, Robert L. Mayes, Franziska Peterson, Rachel Bonilla

Numeracy

Quantitative reasoning is a complex concept with many definitions and a diverse account in the literature. The purpose of this article is to establish a working definition of quantitative reasoning within the context of science, construct a quantitative reasoning framework, and summarize research on key components in that framework. Context underlies all quantitative reasoning; for this review, environmental science serves as the context.In the framework, we identify four components of quantitative reasoning: the quantification act, quantitative literacy, quantitative interpretation of a model, and quantitative modeling. Within each of these components, the framework provides elements that comprise the four components. The …

Personal Financial Behavior: The Influence Of Quantitative Literacy And Material Values, Pete Nye, Cinnamon Hillyard

Numeracy

Some consumers finance discretionary spending at extremely high interest rates. Many carry substantial balances on their credit cards at effective annual rates as high as 36 percent, and some pay annual rates on “pay day” loans as high as 400 percent. High interest debt can rapidly cascade into an overwhelming financial burden, threatening the consumer’s credit and long-term financial health.

This survey study investigates how quantitative literacy may promote forward-looking financial decisions, decisions that recognize the long-term consequences of current choices and may favor the future over the present. In addition, we examine the consumer’s confidence in their quantitative skills. …

Quantitative Reasoning Learning Progressions For Environmental Science: Developing A Framework, Robert L. Mayes, Franziska Peterson, Rachel Bonilla

Teaching & Learning: Faculty Publications

Quantitative reasoning is a complex concept with many definitions and a diverse account in the literature. The purpose of this article is to establish a working definition of quantitative reasoning within the context of science, construct a quantitative reasoning framework, and summarize research on key components in that framework. Context underlies all quantitative reasoning; for this review, environmental science serves as the context.In the framework, we identify four components of quantitative reasoning: the quantification act, quantitative literacy, quantitative interpretation of a model, and quantitative modeling. Within each of these components, the framework provides elements that comprise the four components. The …

Fostering Student Sense Making In Elementary Science Learning Environments: Elementary Teachers’ Use Of Science Curriculum Materials To Promote Explanation Construction, Laura Zangori, Cory Forbes, Mandy Biggers

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

While research has shown that elementary (K-5) students are capable of engaging in the scientific practice of explanation construction, commonly-used elementary science curriculum materials may not always afford them opportunities to do so. As a result, elementary teachers must often adapt their science curriculum materials to better support students’ explanation construction and foster student sense making. However, little research has been conducted to explore if and, if so, how and why, elementary teachers modify science curriculum materials to engage students in explanation construction. We use an embedded mixed methods research design to explore elementary teachers’ (n = 45) curricular adaptations …

Content Learning And Identity Construction (Clic): A Framework To Strengthen African American Students’ Mathematics And Science Learning In Urban Elementary Schools, Maria Varelas, Danny B. Martin, Justine M. Kane

Teacher Education Faculty Publications

We present a theoretical framework that views learning as a process involving content learning (CL) and identity construction (IC). We view identities as lenses through which people make sense of, and position themselves, through stories and actions, and as lenses for understanding how they are positioned by others. As people become more (or less) central members of a disciplinary community (e.g., a science or mathematics classroom) and engage (or not) in various cultural practices, changes in identity and knowledge accompany changes in position and status. Identity construction (IC) and content learning (CL) share an important characteristic: they both involve meaning …