Current Projects

Collaborative Research: Teaching for the Anthropocene: Teacher Learning and Practice for Critical Systems Thinking

Principal investigators: PI: Shakhnoza Kayumova, Co-PIs: Walter Stroup, Fikile Nxumalo (University of Toronto)

Funding: National Science Foundation

Abstract: Socio-environmental issues are both a key to secondary student interest in science and also a difficult terrain for teachers to navigate. Problems like climate change have not only scientific but also social, political and ethical aspects. In order to prepare students for fully understanding such issues, attention needs to be given to how teachers can be supported and learn for effective instruction. This four-year project enacts and researches a teacher professional development program, ?Teaching for the Anthropocene,? with middle and high school science teachers across three settings (the San Francisco Bay Area, Southern Massachusetts, and London, UK). It brings a concept of "critical systems thinking," which is a blend of two ideas. One of them is systems thinking, which requires students to understand not only scientific mechanisms of cause and effect, but also how systems of these come together to explain natural phenomena. The other is critical thinking, which casts light upon ways that different perspectives students bring to classrooms can support learning. This blend orients the project well to benefit society for several reasons. First, systems thinking is an important goal generally according to recent research in science education. Second, the project couches systems thinking in ecology and environmental science, which are areas of social relevance and therefore attention in student lives. Third, the project takes a broad perspective about how these learning goals should be taught so that all students? perspectives can be taken into account during instruction, including those historically underrepresented in STEM. The project investigates how critical systems thinking may enhance teachers? understanding of socioenvironmental issues and support them to integrate those understandings into their curriculum and teaching. The project also identifies potential challenges educators may face as well as what local conditions and program supports help them practically apply critical systems thinking in their classrooms. This study serves directly approximately 4000 students and contributes to broader understandings of effective STEM education that can prepare a range of diverse learners to take on the challenges of current complex socioenvironmental issues.

Collaborative Research: STEMcyclists: Black and Brown Youth Transforming STEM via Bikes

Principal investigators: Noemi Waight - PI (SUNY University of Buffalo), Shakhnoza Kayumova (UMass Dartmouth), Ryan Rish (SUNY University of Buffalo), Greses Perez (Tufts College Trustees), Sarah Robert (SUNY University of Buffalo)

Funding: National Science Foundation

Abstract: The bike is an engineering system centered on a transparent technology that promotes freedom of movement and thus has the potential to democratize mobility and access.

As an accessible technology it allows for tinkering, redesigning, repairing, customizing, re- mixing, repurposing, building, and re-building. This project uses bikes and biking to introduce

STEM content and experiences to traditionally underrepresented youth (grades 9-10) by having them participate in place-based informal learning activities. The researchers along with community organizations work together to plan and facilitate a summer institute and cohort sessions during the academic year. The youth will engage in STEM learning in their community by creating and contributing knowledge that informs their own learning in topics like science, engineering, and biomechanics. The goal of this project is to use bikes and biking learning experiences to advance STEM, human-centered engineering, and science frameworks through the assets of an urban, community-based youth organization. The project will impact 96 students in grades 9 and 10 in an urban setting. Data will be collected before, during, and after summer and fall/spring sessions over the course of three years. The main data sources will be observations of, and videorecording of all sessions; semi-structured interviews with youth, peer mentors, instructors, team members and community partners; and, youth produced project artifacts, and planning and design, modules, and institute artifacts. This asset-based approach will be accomplished through four overlapping foci: (a) applying the STEM processes (engineering design principles and scientific practices) of rebuilding bikes; (b) understanding the biomechanics of bikes and biking; (c) using the bike as a medium to experience and uncover STEM phenomena in the community; to (d) transform youth STEM identities. This project will get youth interested and engaged in STEM by having their understandings represented based on how they engage with and apply engineering principles to rebuild bikes, the actual bike rebuild, youth discussions as well as interactions with peers and instructors/facilitators.

Connecting Undergraduates to Biodversity Instruction through Citizen Science (CUBICS)

Principal investigators: Stephen Witzig, Kathryn Kavanagh & Robert Gegear

Funding: National Science Foundation

Abstract: The CUBICS project intends to create a community of 40 college faculty and “future faculty” (graduate students and postdocs) in the SouthCoast region of Massachusetts who will use biodiversity- and climate-focused citizen science projects in their undergraduate courses. Research has shown that science faculty, while content experts in their discipline, often lack pedagogical training for connecting their scientific expertise to engage students in science. This is a problem because we consistently see students leaving STEM majors. We believe that active engagement in real scientific efforts through citizen science projects will increase undergraduate retention in science through college and into their future careers. We aim to intentionally create a community of faculty among diverse institutions, help them develop their citizen science project ideas, monitor how they execute their projects, assess the impacts on their students, and develop guidelines for expanding this idea to other regions and other scientific subject areas. The means to accomplish this goal will be a series of workshops (Summer Institutes) where faculty will gather to learn about the science, the opportunities for active involvement in citizen science, and to develop their particular projects for their courses. Each college will have a lead member who will recruit other faculty members, forming a network within and across the institutions. The community project partner includes an environmental center who will contribute expertise in environmental education as well as locations suitable for field projects. They will also contribute to and maintain their own citizen science projects. The CUBICS projects will focus on biodiversity and climate change. As such, we also aim to improve content understanding of critical environmental issues within the faculty and subsequently to the generations of students who will have the experience of contributing to real scientific efforts. The projects developed in the program will benefit local efforts to quantify change in the biodiversity and environmental parameters through the coming decades of rapid environmental change, with the goal of adding substantively to scientific efforts.

Computational Thinking Counts in Elementary Grades: Powerful STEM Teaching and Learning for the 21st Century

Principal investigators: Chandra Orrill (Rethink Learning Inc.), Shakhnoza Kayumova (UMass Dartmouth), Ramprasad Balasubramanium (UMass Dartmouth)

Funding: National Science Foundation - STEM+C Program

Abstract: This 4-year STEM+C grant aims to develop a professional development model for bringing computational thinking into the formal mathematics and science curriculum for grades 3-5 in one district. To achieve this goal, we will implement a three-year professional learning model that includes summer workshops and ongoing support throughout the year. In the summers, participating teachers will learn about design thinking, project-based learning, and computational thinking in addition to being introduced to new technologies. During the year, in- class implementation support will be offered and monthly video club sessions will be conducted to sensitize teachers to noticing in their classrooms. Throughout the process, teachers will co- design and implement projects-based lessons and design-thinking projects that they have designed to integrate computational thinking into math and science. The research will focus on the professional learning model in which teachers will be creating project-based units that incorporate computational thinking into math and science. We have chosen to partner with schools in one urban district to engage in design-based implementation research in which we work closely with a group of teachers to examine and refine our model of professional learning. Given the research at the elementary level, and studies in language, culture and linguistics, we argue that it is important to engage children in computational thinking and disciplinary content and practices early in their academics through project-based and design-thinking projects and activities. Until now, most computational thinking projects have been limited to informal learning environments because of constraints teachers face. By working with teachers as co-developers, we raise the relevance and “fit” of the units for the schools. The outcomes of this research effort will include: teacher-developed project-based or design thinking lessons; a longitudinal study of teacher professional development for promoting computational thinking in the STEM disciplines in elementary grades; a refined and scalable model for professional development; and a set of video teaching cases that provide teachers with models of implementation of such units in their own classrooms that highlight ways to recognize a wide variety of student thinking strategies, particularly when student thinking is not verbal. We will also develop an annual conference at which teachers from the district can learn from each other and can share their own experiences.

CAREER: Analyzing the Nexus between Advantaged Social Positioning and Science Identity Development among English Language Learners

Principal investigator: Shakhnoza Kayumova

Funding Agency: National Science Foundation - CAREER

Abstract: Over 5.4 million of the U.S. public school students are identified as English language learners (ELLs), with 4.4 million being Spanish-speaking. Despite the increasing culturally and linguistically diverse population of students and growing demands for STEM jobs, research has noted mounting disparities in English language learners’ science achievement and their substantial underrepresentation in the STEM workforce. Addressing the growing disparities between English language learners and their counterparts in STEM fields remains a national priority. This CAREER project examines the empirical nexus between ELL students’ language identity and science identity development. The project addresses the pressing need for empirical studies that combine theoretical perspectives from second language education, linguistics, and science education to understand science identity development among English language learners. Based on social positioning theory, the research argues that English language learners’ disadvantaged positioning in their educational experiences (due to their limited language proficiencies) undermines their developing educational identities.